⋅Rats, Feces and Odor Plague Well-Meaning Gardener⋅
Our client was a quintessential earth mother. She loved everything that lived and had a hand-carved sign in her spacious organic vegetable garden that read, “All God’s Creatures Welcome Here,” and she meant it. She killed nothing, not even All God’s thieves who pilfered her vegetable garden. She lived alone, but the vegetable garden took up a quarter of an acre. It was huge. That’s because over half of it was consumed by insects, rabbits, squirrels, mice, rats, chipmunks, gophers, birds, deer, and an occasional coyote. Whaut was left was what she harvested for herself and her human friends. She killed nothing, even if it robbed her of food – or worse.
She had a beautiful covered patio from which she could see the garden and beyond, where some of God’s rats had constructed an elaborate tunnel system in her lawn, which was hardly a lawn. It was full of overgrown vegetation because she wouldn’t use chemicals to destroy insects and weeds and rarely mowed it because mowing might disturb the rats and their tunnels.
Neighborhood Woes
One day, a very disturbed neighbor came over and asked her if she realized she had rats running around in her yard.
“Yes! Aren’t they interesting?” she answered.
The neighbor left without saying another word but mumbled something about burning down her house.
Well, God’s rats eventually got inside her well-kept home, and once rats get inside, it’s very difficult to get rid of them. They are not afraid of people. They will stare down a human 50 times their size, and they’re very smart. They learn how to spring traps and avoid poison. Their young come back to where they were born and bear their own young. Within a year, you can easily have a rat colony of hundreds.
Horrible House Guests
A horrendous odor began to permeate our client’s kitchen, and she thought it was food that had fallen into the floor vent and rotted, but cleaning the vent and ducts did nothing to alleviate the unbearable odor.
One day, she told us, she opened a bag of dry dog food and out flew three juvenile rats, who disappeared between the refrigerator and the wall.
Shortly after that, she turned on the dishwasher and within seconds, the entire kitchen flooded. She called a plumber, who said “something” had chewed through the water line under the kitchen sink. Worse, when he pulled the dishwasher away from the wall, the source of the unbearable odor revealed itself. Rats were using the area behind the dishwasher as their private powder room as they traveled between their food source – the dog food – and their nearby nest. The floor was caked with rat urine and feces, and they had chewed a gaping hole into the wall, which led to the garage, next to the dishwasher.
Searching for Effective Eviction Methods
None of her “humane relocation” methods were effective, and within a month, the rat population had grown exponentially.
They had chewed through the back of her 55” TV and destroyed it, had taken over the attic and chewed through an electrical wire to a ceiling fan in the master bedroom, shorting it out, and had chewed through the sheetrock, insulation, and siding of her house in several places.
They had eaten through interior walls and created huge nesting areas out of the insulation inside the walls and shorted out electrical wiring to wall sockets in the bedrooms, creating a fire hazard. They had gnawed through the back of her china cabinet, transported insulation into it, and built a nest under her table cloths. Rat urine and feces were now everywhere – behind furniture, in the attic, behind and inside appliances and drawers, and all over kitchen the cabinets and countertops. She could hear them scratching, scurrying, and squeaking all night inside the walls and in the attic.
When our client’s neighbor reported seeing rats in the overgrown yard, the health department issued her a warning to clean it up or face steep fines and eventual condemnation.
After our client accrued almost $10,000 in code-enforcement and health-department fines, her brother stepped in and called an exterminator, who got rid of the rats after a few weeks, but did not get rid of the massive destruction to our client’s home and furnishings, the filth of urine, feces, and nesting materials, or the decomposing bodies of rats who died inside walls, in the crawl space, and in other well-hidden areas. That job fell to us.
Professional Decontamination a Must
The fecal matter and urine of rodents, especially rats, are bio-hazards because they spread potentially fatal diseases to humans, primarily through hand-to-mouth contact. Decomposing animal carcasses, bodily fluids, and blood are also bio-hazards. You run the risk of stirring up dust if you incorrectly clean and remove feces, urine, and nesting materials, which can also be very dangerous. For these reasons, you should not attempt to clean up a serious rat infestation in your home by yourself.
We found and safely removed 12 dead, decaying rats from hidden and dark areas of the home, and we thoroughly decontaminated and cleaned the entire home, safely containing and disposing of all bio-hazardous material. We worked with the health department and code enforcement on her behalf, and they agreed to waive the fines after final inspection of her home.
If an infestation occurs on a property you own or occupy, please let us help clean and decontaminate your home for you. If you have questions about decontaminating a scene that contains feces, urine, blood or other bodily fluids, about your payment options, or about what your current insurance policy covers, please don’t hesitate to give Advanced Bio Treatment a call at 800-295-1684.
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