Cost of Rat Control

[Account Closed]

I looked through a few of the previous forums on rat control and found a few interesting stories, but nothing regarding professional costs for the treatments.  

One of my tenants reported a rat under her sink, we had a professional come out and do an emergency check - Here are the exterminator's notes:  

 It is indeed a single rat and its access is from the crawl door being left open. It's shut ( 2 days ago). It's getting into the unit 2 under the floor of the sink, not actually in the under sink, but the void area under the floor of the sink cabinet. Kyle should put steel wool under the floor of the sink in that area and go under the structure and find the access point near that kitchen area. I did not crawl the unit.

Exterior rat stations are needed- I suggest 4 of them installed at $500 and a follow up refill in 30 days for $125. Cheaper alternatives are avail too but this is my recommended action. Please approve by replying to this email or sending a work order with authorization for $625.

I'm a bit confused as to the cost of these traps, it sounds expensive.  I expected a few snap traps and be done with it.  I'm open to any sort of guidance that can be provided, I have a conference call with the property manager Thursday.  

[Adrian Mata]

They're charging you a surcharge for the service. I don't understand why they didn't crawl the unit for that much haha

Rats and mice don't like to chew through steel wool. That should motivate the rat to go somewhere else.

The correct course of action is to cut off all entry points first then use bait stations and traps. The reason bait stations are liked by professionals is because they will kill more than one rat whereas a snap trap is only good for one rat. Snap traps are popular for regular people because they don't leave a smell from a dead rat.

You could do the same thing yourself for a lot cheaper. Just place the stations around potential entry points or where they've been spotted. Check the stations after a couple weeks to a month and the stations that have the most usage (most bait that has been eaten) are the areas that you have to focus on and keep filled.

They make different kind of baits because rats get used to one and switching things up can get them excited about something new. Also in the rare occurrence that a rat gets sick but doesn't die from the poison they won't eat the poison again so a switch will work wonders in those cases. Other animals like squirrels and chipmunks will eat and die from rat bait. Cats will go for it as well that's why you want to keep it in the stations.