How to get rid of rats under decking?

A nice bit of decking can be a great way to enjoy your garden. However, when rats start living under your decking it can soon turn your outdoor dining area into a nightmare.

So why are rats nesting under your decking?

Rats are looking for three things:

• Shelter
• Food
• Water

So let’s look at how your garden decking could provide these:

Shelter:
Most decking is raised off the ground to stop it from rotting. Rats are shy creatures by nature and prefer to stay hidden, so your decking provides a nice dry hiding place to make a nest.

Food:
Gardens provide a lot of potential food for rats from bird feeders to animal feed and your compost bin. People often eat on their decking, and crumbs and particle of food fall through the gaps.  All these things provide plenty of food for rats.

Water:
Rats need to drink plenty of water and most gardens provide this in abundance, common examples are bird baths, ponds and old buckets and flower pots that have become filled with rain water.

So is there any point in getting rid of the rats under your decking?

There are a number of health and property risks that a rat infestation can cause.

Disease:

Rats are carriers of a number of diseases. The two most common are Leptospirosis (weil’s disease) and Salmonella, both of these can cause serious harm to people.

For more details on these diseases, we recommend you visit our article on the brown rat.

Brown Rat (Rattus Norvegicus).

If you have come into contact with rat faeces or surfaces that wild rats have touched, it’s a good idea to wash your hands with antibacterial soap.

Property damage and further infestation.

Rats love to gnaw. It’s important for their dental health. And they will happily chew through many different materials to gain access to potential shelter, a food source or just for the pleasure of gnawing.

Rats have been known to chew through wooden planks, electric cables and even plastic pipes.

It is also good to keep in mind that as the rat population increases under your deck, they will eventually look for new places to inhabit. More often than not this means moving into your house.

Most of the rat problems we come across in lofts originate in the garden.

So if you have a rat problem in your garden we suggest getting it treated straight away.

The longer you leave it the harder it will be to resolve.

The best way to get rid of rats under decking:

The best form of prevention is to keep the area around your decking clear of any possible shelter, food or water as listed above. However, if your decking has become infested with rats it will be hard to shift them simply by just doing the suggestions listed above.

We always recommend getting a professional pest control contractor to look at your problem. Each property is different and an onsite inspection is needed to give accurate, useful advice and decide on the best and safest treatment possible.