Some pet owners love all kinds of pets, and some even keep domestic rats, but for most people, their home and surrounding area needs to be a wild rat-free zone. Rats can be a nuisance in more ways than one as they not only can be hard on your home, but they can also be bad for your health.
Rats can chew holes in your home, ruin electrical wires, and destroy food boxes in your kitchen while dirtying up your walls, floors, and cabinets with the oils from their fur. Plus, rats can carry fleas, mites, and disease which no one wants to have in his or her home. The good news is that there are natural remedies for rats that will help to keep them out of your home and yard.
#1 - Preventative Maintenance
One of the most natural ways to banish rats from your home and yard is by doing some preventative maintenance. Make sure any food in your home is sealed tight. This includes things like pet food or wild bird seed that may be on your porch or in your garage that you may not even consider as food in your home since it’s not for your consumption. These can attract pests like rats trying to find food. The same goes for garbage cans as all those nasty smells and rotting food can be an attractant.
Try to keep bushes and shrubs trimmed around your home to prevent them from having these as nesting points in your yard. You should also keep your firewood stacked away from your home. Go around your home and look for any access points they may be using to get inside. You may think that crack or hole is too small for a rodent the size of a rat to get through, but you may be surprised. They can use their flexible and long bodies to get through even the smallest openings when the incentives inside your home offer food, water, and shelter.
Don’t forget the sewer lines in your home as this may also be a potential source for rats coming into your home. This means that you may have a missing piece or need a screen added to keep pests from traveling into your home.
#2 - Traps
Traps are another more natural way of dealing with rats and can be a bit safer than putting poison in your home. Often, these traps just need to be baited with a little cheese or peanut butter, and the rats won’t be able to help themselves in raiding these goodies. While you may want the rats out of your home, there’s a good chance you aren’t really willing to kill them to get that way. Plus, it’s probably less gruesome to carry out a humane trap with live rats than a glue or snap trap with dead rats. Humane traps allow you to trap the rats and then relocate them further away from your home. Take them to the woodline in your area and release them back to the wild.
#3 - Essential Oils
Use the sense of smell that rats have against them in keeping them outside of your property. Essential oils are a great potential repellent for rats. Peppermint oil (buy it here)and citrus based oils are both good choices along with citronella oil (buy it here). You can put some of this oil on a cotton ball, and put these in places where you believe the rats may be coming into your home or nesting. This can help to deter these rodents from coming into your home, and when combined with the other methods on this list can be rather effective.
#4 - Predator Smells
The last natural remedy for rats that you can try to use in your home is similar to the previous item as it’s using their sense of smell against them, but in this case, you are making them wary of predators. You can put the scent of your cat litter around, or purchase predator urine to spread around your home. Coyote, snake, and foxes are all good choices for urine. More than likely, this will be rather off-putting to your nose, as well, so you may want to use this in areas like your garage or around your garden where it may also keep other pests out.
Conclusion
Dealing with pests like rats can be frustrating. You want your home to be free and clear of any pests that can be harmful to your home and achieving that end may seem difficult. The good news is that these natural remedies for rats are all things that you can try to do on your own before having to deal with calling pest control or an exterminator. Each of these offers the potential for a pest free home.
Have you used any of these natural remedies successfully? Has something else done the trick? Are you planning on trying any of these to get rid of rats in your home or garden? Let everyone know in the comments below what successes you’ve had in banishing pests from your home.