Norway Rat Control in San Antonio

The Norway rat is the brown, thick-bodied rat most people picture. It has a blunt nose, small ears and a tail shorter than its body. It's a digger, not a climber. Where a roof rat heads for your attic, a Norway rat moves in under the shed, along the edge of the slab or beneath a pile of old lumber.

Around San Antonio they show up where food and water sit close together. Think a lot near a drainage channel or one of the creeks, a backyard with chickens or a compost pile, or a strip center dumpster behind a row of houses. If you're hearing noise in the ceiling instead, you probably want roof rat control.

Telling a Norway Rat From a Roof Rat

If you get a good look, the tail settles it. A Norway rat's tail is shorter than its head and body together. A roof rat's tail is longer. Most of the time you don't get a good look, so go by where the signs are:

• Round burrow holes about the size of a baseball along the foundation, under the AC pad or beside the shed
• Droppings with blunt ends, bigger than a roof rat's, near the ground
• Worn paths through the grass along a fence line
• Gnawed holes in the bottom of a garage door or a plastic trash cart
• Activity in the garage, the crawl space or the yard, not the attic

Where They Set Up Around Here

San Antonio has a lot of creek and drainage corridors. Leon Creek, Salado Creek, Olmos Creek and the San Antonio River all run through neighborhoods, along with plenty of concrete drainage channels. Rats travel those corridors and move into the yards along them. Houses on pier-and-beam foundations, which you still find in older parts of town like Beacon Hill and much of the South Side, give Norway rats a crawl space to live in if the skirting has gaps.

The city's green organics cart is another thing to watch. San Antonio's Solid Waste Management Department says it takes food waste along with yard trimmings, so in summer it can smell like dinner to a rat. Keep the lid shut, rinse it now and then, and don't leave bags of scraps beside it.

How the Work Usually Goes

A good technician finds the burrows first and figures out what the rats are eating. Then they set traps along the runways and, where it makes sense, put bait in locked, tamper-resistant stations anchored outside. Burrows get checked on the next visit. Once activity stops, they're filled or collapsed.

Then comes the part that keeps rats from coming back. That means a gap under the garage door, a hole in the crawl space skirting or an open pipe chase into the wall. That's exclusion work. For a restaurant or a warehouse, see commercial rodent control.

Also see: Roof Rat Control, Sealing and Exclusion, Commercial Rodent Control

We take calls from Alamo Heights, Olmos Park and Terrell Hills, Stone Oak, Timberwood Park, Leon Valley, Castle Hills and Shavano Park, Medical Center, Windcrest, Live Oak and Universal City, Leon Springs and Fair Oaks Ranch, Beacon Hill and Five Points, South Side and the Missions.