Rat Services Description
We have a very specific process that has been proven successful time after time. We are exclusion-based, which means that our first priority is to keep rodents out, in order to protect your property from a potential invasion. If there are rodents inside of your property, it means that somehow they have gained access indoors. Our job is to find those entry points and seal them up so that no more rats can find their way in. We follow a very effective rat removal process that will permanently solve your rodent problem. Here are the steps:
1. Inspection: The first thing we do is to perform a 60-90 minute thorough inspection to locate all points of entry and understand exactly what the rats or mice are doing. What’s attracting them to your home and exactly what needs to be done to solve the problem for good: Nothing more, nothing less.
This is the step that most companies fail on or fail to do correctly, either due to lack of knowledge, lack of experience, lack of care, or desire to do what is best for the customer, not just for their wallets. Many will initially come out for free and perform a vague and quick inspection but then charge you for work you don’t need and overcharge you for whatever work they do. These companies may also attempt to keep customers
on a yearly contract, charging hundreds of dollars every month so that they can keep catching the rats that keep coming in through the various entry points which never get properly addressed. Monthly services are useful in some situations (such as huge outdoor infestations) or should be used as preventive services once the indoor problem has been solved.
2. Once we know what the problem is, we will tailor a plan on how we will solve the problem for good. At that point, we will schedule the repairs and the cleanup and disinfecting services. These 2 are done in different order based on your specific situation.
3. Repairs: We will schedule our repair crew to complete the necessary repairs to seal everything off at once. The quality, craftsmanship, and care that we have at All Star won’t be found anywhere else. We specialize in sealing up every single gap that rats and mice may use to enter your home, attic, crawlspace, roof, or living spaces. This is a very important step. A rat can enter any gap that’s the size of a quarter coin. So if your thumb fits, a rat can fit through it.
We know how to locate these openings, how to seal them up properly, with the correct materials, and with perfect craftsmanship to make them look clean, aesthetic, and professional.
In some situations, we do the repairs the same day as the cleanup so we can see the bare area without insulation and inspect for additional openings. This is up to the discretion of your technician.
4. Clean and Restore: We will schedule the cleanup and sanitation services of the areas where the rodents had been, which includes the vacuuming up of contaminated insulation with feces, hair, nests, etc., and disinfecting of the entire contaminated area. Often, a full attic and/ or crawlspace cleanup is necessary because rodents urinate and defecate up to 50 times a day! By this point, insulation is often highly contaminated and needs to be completely removed and replaced. Besides this health hazard, the pheromones left behind in the insulation will attract other rats to your home and invite them to use the same space to nest as the previous rodents. That’s why it is important to disinfect the area after rodents have contaminated it.
5. Rodent Trapping Program: Once everything is sealed up, and no more rodents can enter the structure of your home, we will start the "Rodent Trapping Program" where we will set snap traps to capture whatever may still be lurking around inside. Then we will come back every 3-5 days to check on the traps and remove the rodents that have been caught, re-bait the traps, and check for activity. We call these " Rodent services"
When the technician comes to perform a rodent service ( to service the traps), please make sure to update him on how it is going: Are you still hearing sounds? Where? Has the activity subsided? Any new activity?, etc. These are all clues to make sure we are in the right direction and whether we need to dig deeper or the problem is being solved. Usually, we will catch the majority of the rats within the first couple of rodent
services. By the time we do the last rodent service, we should not see any caught rats.
6. Once all of this is done, we will close the job. Should you hear new activity or should the activity not disappear, after everything was sealed up, and the Rodent Trapping Program is ongoing, we may need to re-inspect and, in some situations dig deeper. Once we seal everything up, rodents may try to get back in. And just like you would try to find a way to get in your home if you were locked out, rats will do the same. If you couldn’t enter your home through the front door, you probably would check the back door, try to open a window, or even break one to get in. Rats are no different. They will look for ways to get back in. That’s why it is important that we seal everything and that we seal it correctly the first time. This will prevent them from being able to break through again. Should they be able to break in again, we will need to reinspect and find the points of the break-in. Our repairs are guaranteed for 1 year. Should any pest break into the repairs we did, we will re-do them for free and we will set traps again and service those traps at no cost to you. This excludes new points of entry caused by the rat chewing through something that was not open before. This rarely happens but it does happen from time to time and we want our customers to be prepared. That’s why we make sure to do a good, sturdy job with high-quality materials the first time around.
7. In some situations, a smoke test is needed to check the plumbing for breaches that rats may use to get into your property. This may be recommended at the initial inspection or if sealing everything up in the structure doesn’t completely solve your problem. This is rare but it does happen and you should be prepared for that. Sometimes solving a rodent problem has to be done in layers; until the first layer is done, we won’t
see the next layer. This is the best method to get rid of rats based on years of experience.
This is the best method to get rid of rats based on years of experience. Don’t wait! Call today! (323) 540 2011
HOW TO PREVENT RATS AND MICE FROM ENTERING YOUR HOME:
Part of preventing rodents from coming into your home is to prevent them from wanting to come to your property in the first place. Here are some tips:
- Maintain a clean environment. You can accomplish this by wiping up any liquids or dry food spills as quickly as possible and vacuuming up any food particles. If it’s been a while since your house or office has been cleaned, you might want to consult a professional cleaning service to have it scrubbed down right. Most companies offer "Deep Cleaning Services" where they clean behind and under the refrigerator and stove, as well as other areas long neglected, to remove old dirt and grime which could potentially become a buffet that rats and mice can feast on. We recommend organic cleaners and are a 100% toxic-free company.
- Make sure to keep your trash inside the trash cans, instead of allowing it to collect outside of them. Trash bags are usually full of food, whether it's leftovers or crumbs. Leaving out a bag of trash is an invitation for mice into your home or office.
- Keep any boxed food properly sealed. If there are any plastic bags inside of the boxed containers, make sure to have them clipped or rolled down entirely. Another option is to place the food inside of glass or plastic containers.
- Get rid of any clutter such as piles of papers, magazines, newspapers, cardboard boxes, clothing, etc. Rodents love these kinds of environments to make their nests.
- Trim your yard often. Overgrown plants, bushes, trees, grass, and piles of dead leaves are the perfect home for rodents and even snakes! So keeping your yard tidy helps keep rodents away, or at least controlled.
- Call us to schedule a full 60-90 home 20-point preventive inspection to seal up all of the openings that wildlife, rats or, mice can use to enter your home. Here at All Star, we believe that peace of mind is priceless! But we put a low price on it so you can sleep knowing that nothing is destroying your insulation, electric wires, or internet wires, and contaminating your home. Call to schedule your preventive inspection at (323) 540 2011.
Don’t be afraid to enter your home or office because of mice or rats. At All Star Animal Trapping, we’ll provide you with humane mouse and rat removal at an unbeatable cost.
Let’s take a deeper look at the damage caused by rats…
Contaminated attic ( Before Pic)
Rodents can reproduce very quickly. That’s why our priority at All Star is to serve you as soon as possible and get the job done quickly and to get it done right, the first time. You can visit rat-control.com to learn more about how to control a rat problem. But for now, let’s take a look at the damage caused by rats.
Biological Damage
Rats are notoriously pathogenic creatures, carrying diseases and harmful pathogens which can spread. Hantavirus, rat-bite fever, the plague, you name it. And rats likely spread it. While the rats themselves can spread these diseases, their feces and urine pose an even higher risk of danger. After all, you can find rats much more easily than their half-inch droppings.
Electrical Risks
Nearly 20% of undetermined fires in the US are thought to have originated from rodent damage, so this problem is much more common than one might think. If you wonder as to how that’s even remotely true, rats continuously need to file their long teeth down. Wires are a plentiful source of biting material, usually thin enough for rats to fit their mouths around and chomp away.
If rats can fit their mouths on something, they’ll bite at it, causing potential electric issues, fire damage, shocks, and more. It’s very important to proactively look for wire damage, as these exposed copper strands can result in quite a bit of damage. Cut wires aren’t just hazards, after all; they can cause electric outages, electrocute family members, disconnect key power, and more.
Structural Issues
If rats didn’t seem dangerous enough already, there's also the issue of structural damage they can cause. While rats are usually quite little, they can cause a few structural issues. Rodents don’t care where they make their homes; they’ll often crawl into walls, ceilings, attics, insulated spaces, and beyond. In many cases, this could result in them slowly chewing through important foundational areas.
Structural beams, flooring, and ceilings are all at risk of either caving or falling in, thanks to rats. In addition to the danger this poses to you, the damage left behind can leave entry spaces for other pests. When this happens, the problem moves from exclusively a rat problem to a much more complicated situation.
Item Damage
While the above damages are quite dramatic, they’re not the lot of it. Rats often damage both important and unimportant aspects of your property, as well. Bedding, heirlooms, your favorite stuffed animal; they’re all at risk. While home entry points and structural are the most likely damage, rats will also ravage many other items in their path. These little rodents will chew on anything in their path, so you may need to replace common items on top of it.
This also includes food, a convenient bonus that attracts and keeps rats around. Nearby food will naturally attract rats, but it can also result in both the loss of food in the open and in storage. Rats leave behind feces, urine, and hair when moving about your property, including within and around your food. If that weren't enough, rats will chew past the food, eating everything from plastic containers to wood, paper, and more. There’s a lot that could go wrong.
Preventing Damage
With these damages in mind, it's important to protect you and your property from rats. Otherwise, you may have some dirty new tenants on your hands! All Star services homes within the Los Angeles area and our team will happily solve your rat problem. These animals can be incredibly dangerous and damaging if left alone, but we will quickly get to work and remove the problem.
All Star has the knowledge and tools to get your animal invasion problems solved. Control, removal, and cleanup –our team will take care of it! As part of our initial inspection, we will also let you know of anything else that needs to be taken care of or fixed, even if we don’t offer that service, we will refer you to another respected business to get it done for you. We’re just a call or message away.
Whatever is the case, we are here to help you!
Bare attic after All Star vacuumed up all contaminated insulation and completely disinfected the area.
Fully restored attic with new, fluffy, and most importantly, clean insulation.
Call today for a pest-free and pest-proofed home tomorrow! 323 540 2011
What rat traps work best?
When looking for the best methods to get rid of rats, you will find that there are almost as many options out there as there are rats in Los Angeles.
Years of experience have shown us that the best way to get rid of rats is through snap traps. We used the best and most cost-efficient snap rat traps that work. They are considered humane traps because they kill the rodents instantly.
We also offer live, humane rat trapping where we use cage traps that don’t kill or harm the rodents. This is not the most effective way to get rats out but more of a customer preference. Rodents can reproduce very quickly and live traps trap rodents slowly, making it difficult to keep up with the increase in rodent populations.
This is not recommended when there is a big rodent infestation
Why don’t we use poison to kill rats?
Using poison to kill rats is a very inhumane way to kill them as they don’t die instantly. Furthermore, rats will try to find shelter when they feel sick. As a result, they could get into the most remote places of the property, such as inside the walls, crawling spaces, or air ducts and die there. This presents an even bigger problem because now there is a decomposing body creating terrible odors. Now, that dead rat has to be located and removed and sanitation and decontamination services need to be performed to eliminate all traces of the dead rodent.
Besides being inhumane for the rodents, poison traps are also dangerous for other animals such as cats, dogs, birds, raccoons, and other predators. If any of these animals consume the poison themselves or even the poisoned rat, they will get very sick and most likely die, as well.
Live rat trapping is available in some cases but is not the most recommended method for infestations since rats reproduce very quickly and are considered pests. If you really want live trapping, we can provide that service. But keep in mind, this form of trapping is more expensive and can only be done if the degree of infestation is not extreme.
Plainly, snap traps are the best way to go about removing these poor little guys that have the misfortune to be at the bottom of the food chain.
Even if you don’t have rats or mice in your home, you can hire us to do a full house inspection. We can locate weak points and possible points of entry, and seal your house up tight to prevent any unwanted invasions or infestations.