Kalamazoo County, Kalamazoo Rat Control Situation:
Hi David, I came across your website and found it extremely informative. We are in the process of home inspections on a house we want to buy. It is in a great neighborhood at a fair price. The homeowner died recently so there is no one with any knowledge of the home's current condition and history. Yesterday we had the general home inspection and found piles of rat droppings underneath kitchen drawers and under the kitchen sink, dead rats and piles of droppings (I mean tons!) under the house, a two-foot pile of attic insulaton under the house where the rats were carrying it out of the attic via inside the bathroom wall, and depositing it down there. When the inspector opened the attic crawl space door, piles of droppings fell out. The house has a faint bad odor. There are entry holes all over the house. We will be bringing in a rodent expert for an estimate. My question to you is, when is this too much to clean up and disinfect? We have two young children 5y and 7y, and I worry about the residual health impact of the droppings and urine. Can we ever live in this house and not worry about our health? Also, will the clean up cost add thousands of dollars to our home cost? Thank you! I am looking forward to hearing from you! Sincerely, Heidi
Kalamazoo Rat Control Tip of The Week
Can A Rat Hurt A Human?
Rodents are animals that do not represent a direct threat to people. Although they are intelligent, they do not harm for pleasure. Most of the time, they are just bacteria carriers, but they do not spread them with the intention of starting a pandemic. The cases in which rats have harmed children, might have been because at that moment their instinct was activated to survive. Most houses that are invaded by this urban plague is because they do not take necessary preventive measures and rats have easy access to any corner of the house.
Rats vs. people
Man is surrounded by animals that are predators, so over the years, he decided to protect himself and shelter in homes. Some animals are attracted to find refuge in these homes due to the same necessity of protection and food that humans have. Rodents and people in the same house are a bad combination because of the structural and health damage that rodents can cause.
Can a rat make me sick?
Rats are animals whose excrement, urine, and saliva can contain a great number of bacteria damaging for people's health. Among the most well-known diseases are salmonellosis, leptospirosis, and hepatitis. The most common wounds caused by rodents are bites and scratches. An open and deep wound caused by rodents that come in contact with fluid from a rat will be an open door for microorganisms to spread into the bloodstream causing systemic infections that can be severe and even cause death.
In summary, it can be said that rats can hurt humans through infections by having contact with their fluids or can accidently cause scratches and bites through measures of self-defense. On the other hand, people that have a phobia of these little animals may have psychological damage when coming in contact with them.
