Roof Rat & Mouse Control in Newnan, GA

Rodents in your Newnan home

Roof rats are climbers. They run along tree limbs and utility lines, climb wood siding and brick, and get in near the top of the house through a gable vent, a gap at the eaves or a soft spot in the trim. In Newnan's older homes that is only half the story. Many of those houses were built with balloon framing, where wall cavities run open from the crawlspace to the attic. Once a rat is inside, it can travel between floors inside the walls, so you hear it in the dining room and the bedroom and the attic, and it can feel like the whole house is full.

Mice usually come in low, through crawlspace ground vents, gaps around pipes and wires, and under doors, which describes the newer subdivision homes along I-85 as much as the old ones. Both rats and mice breed year-round here, foul far more than they eat, and chew wiring. Bait alone doesn't fix it. Here's what does.

Rats, mice or squirrels? Listen to the clock

The time of day is the best clue. Rats and mice are active at night, so scratching after bedtime points to them. Squirrels are busy early in the morning and again late in the afternoon. Droppings are the other big sign: small, pointed rat droppings in the attic or along walls, tiny mouse droppings in kitchen drawers and behind appliances. Knowing which animal it is tells the pro where to look for the way in.

Open walls in older homes

In a balloon-framed house the studs run past the floors with no blocking in between, so each wall is an open channel from bottom to top. Rodents use these like stairwells. A rat that came in at the roofline can nest near the kitchen; a mouse from the crawlspace can end up in the attic. That changes the job: the pro has to close the entries at both ends of the house, the roofline and the crawlspace, and sometimes the tops and bottoms of the wall cavities, or the rodents just keep using the walls as a highway.

Trimming trees isn't enough

Cutting limbs back from the roof helps, and the pro may recommend it. But roof rats climb wood siding, brick chimneys and downspouts without any trees at all, and mice don't need trees to begin with. Homes that have no trees near the roof still get rodents. The lasting fix is closing the openings themselves with metal.

Health risks

Rats and mice leave droppings and urine in insulation, wall cavities and food, and they ruin far more food than they eat. They're linked to salmonella and other illnesses, and in the Southeast roof rats are associated with murine typhus, which spreads through their fleas. That's why rodent work should include cleaning up droppings and soiled material, not just removing the animals.

Why bait alone fails

Bait does nothing about how rodents are getting in, so new ones keep arriving as fast as old ones die. And a poisoned rat often dies inside a wall. In an older home with tall, open wall cavities, that can be very hard to reach, and you're left with a smell that lasts around two weeks. Sealing the entries and trapping the rodents already inside avoids both problems.

How the pro does the job

The pro inspects the whole house, from gable vents, eaves and roof joints to crawlspace ground vents, pipe gaps and the gap under the garage door. Entries are closed with steel mesh, hardware cloth and metal flashing, materials a rodent can't chew through. Traps clear the rodents left inside, and follow-up visits confirm they're gone. Big infestations take longer, and the technician should be able to give you a realistic estimate of how many visits to expect.