10Jan2025

Don’t Let Rats Ruin Christmas: Inspection, Treatment, Repair, & Prevention

The holidays are the most wonderful time of the year. But lurking in the warm, moist shadows of the attic, kitchen, basement, crawl spaces, and nooks in your home are rats, mice, and other vermin that can turn a happy Christmas party into a chilling winter nightmare.

During the holiday season, homes may become particularly attractive as sources of food and shelter for pests such as rats seeking warmth and refuge from the cold. As homes across the country stock up and decorate for feasts and festivities, rats use their keen sense of smell to locate crumbs and liquid droplets, tracing them to pantry storage and containers. Rats are expert, nocturnal gatherers, crawling around your home at night while leaving urine to mark their territories and create scent trails for communication and navigation.

There is nothing more unsettling than opening up a jar of cookies or unwrapping a present, only to find that a rat has chewed up gifts or contaminated treats that were meant to be enjoyed by loved ones.

Rats can cause extensive damage to your home by gnawing through wires, electronics such as festive lights, and structural wood in beams, walls, and floors. This damage can compromise your home's safety, creating risks for a large gathering of family and friends. The sounds and odors of rats are startling and disturbing.

Rats are drawn to moist, water damaged areas and will destroy insulation, furniture, clothing, and paper products to create nests. Rodents can spread diseases to humans through airborne dried feces; contaminated air, food, and materials; and bites or scratches. Rat droppings and urine can give rise to mold and mildew and their bacteria can spread infectious diseases such as salmonella, Leptospirosis, and hantavirus.

Inspection & Rat Extermination

Natural Science Exterminating begins our pest control with a thorough inspection of your home, carefully noting any signs of rats, including their droppings, and areas where they have caused damage. We will identify all entry points that potentially allowed rats to enter your home, which may be small holes that were previously unnoticed or not properly sealed. We will block and seal these entry points to ensure that as we remove rats from your home, new rats will not enter.

We will then place an inconspicuous system to trap or poison the rats. Our exterminators will remove biohazardous waste—rat carcasses, blood, and excrement—while sanitizing and decontaminating all affected areas. During this process, we continue to monitor your home for signs of rats. Any rat traces or scent trails must be removed by our exterminators to prevent remaining odors from attracting new rats.

Rat Damage Repair & Prevention

In addition to removing pests from your home, Natural Science Exterminating’s rodent extermination and decontamination restores the safety, cleanliness, and comfort of your home with our own carpenters to replace wood that has been damaged or affected by dry rot. Furthermore, we are qualified and licensed to replace your insulation with Thermal Acoustical Pest (TAP) insulation, which provides thermal insulation, soundproofing, fire retardation, and pest control, while guarding against mold and mildew, with a lifetime warranty. TAP insulation helps homeowners save thousands of dollars in energy bills by keeping cool air conditioning from escaping your home in hotter months, and warm air from your heater from escaping during the colder holiday season.

TAP insulation is made of cellulose fibers, derived primarily from recycled old newspaper, and infused with a naturally derived borate solution that is toxic and repelling to pests but safe and non-toxic to humans. TAP insulation can only be installed by a licensed Pest Management Professional and it is the only pest control insulation product on the market today with the Energy Star® label. Customers who choose to add this insulation to their homes are eligible for up to a $500 tax credit.

As a leader and trusted Orange County pest exterminator, Natural Science Exterminating advises homeowners on best practices for rat prevention and offers inspections that detect early signs of rat infestations.

Rats are dangerous to human health. Rodent extermination and decontamination preserves the value of your real estate and keeps your family and loved ones safe from the damage and health hazards of rats, mice, and other vermin.

Call Us Today: 1-714-451-2890

E-mail: info@naturalscienceexterminating.com

Keep Pests Out Of Your Home & Holiday Parties

Some of the things that make the holidays delightful can rile up pest activity. But with proactive pest control and maintenance, that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying your holidays to the fullest. Natural Science Exterminating will pest-proof your home so that you can experience the finer things in life with peace of mind.

Food, Drinks, & Ingredients

Baking and leaving cookies with milk out for Santa can unfortunately attract ants, wasps, or bees looking for sugary sweetness. Even the smallest crumbs of food or droplets of liquid can be sensed by insects and vermin. Rodents pose serious health risks, as they can carry rabies, fleas, typhoid fever, and hantavirus. Unlike store-bought traps or baits that leave surviving members, we exterminate the pests entirely. We not only remove the whole infestation—we also identify and seal entry points to prevent pests from coming back.

Aromas & Fragrance

As with food, the smell of almost anything—good or bad—signals to many pests that there is grub. From fresh fruit to rotten garbage, perishables left unattended can attract a hungry rodent or buzzing bee that gives someone a sting redder than Rudolph’s nose! We carefully remove wasp nests and bee hives so that you can ring in the New Year on the patio or deck without worry. We also control mosquito populations with natural, child-friendly solutions that kill mosquitoes and their larvae, preventing potential bites that can transmit Zika, Dengue, West Nile, and Chikungunya viruses.

Trees, Wreaths, & Plants

Christmas trees and fireplace wood are essentials for warmth and comfort to many people. Wood can attract a variety of creatures, the most concerning of all being termites. Termites damage and destroy homes by feeding on cellulose, which is abundant in wood and plants. The damage caused by termites in the United States alone equals billions of dollars annually. We use scientifically-proven and naturally-derived solutions, BoraCare, to prevent termites from feeding on wood, and orange oil, to kill and remove termite colonies. Natural Science Exterminating specializes in termite removal spot treatments for residential and commercial properties of all types, including multifamily and apartments in Orange County.

Now is a perfect time to repair and spruce up your home before hanging the mistletoe and decking the halls with spirited decor! We are certified to install TAP pest control insulation and have our own carpenters to replace termite damage and dry rot.

To avoid emergencies and last minute fixes, give us a call today to pest-proof your holidays for the most cheerful time of all!