How to spot and clean rat droppings

Rat droppings are a nasty indication that you have a rat infestation. The first question for many is what rat droppings look like and how to spot them. The second is how to properly get rid of them and the health risk they bring. Let’s learn how to spot and clean rat droppings.

What Rat Droppings Look Like

Rat droppings look like long brown tubes when they’re fresh. They’ll be a quarter to half an inch long. They’ll be about half that width. The ends may be pinched or rounded, but that is not a concern. They’ll be brown when fresh and dry to a grey color when a few days or weeks old. Fresh rat droppings may have a kind of sheen, but they’ll always be squishy. You don’t have to touch it with your hands; use a stick or pencil. Mouse droppings look similar, but they’ll be smaller. Roach droppings look like small rat and mouse droppings, but they are far smaller. They’ll resemble black pieces of rice. The biggest difference will be location. Rat and mouse droppings will be in a small set in a hidden area. You will find dozens of droppings in a corner of a box, a single location behind the fridge or a small area behind your furniture. Roach droppings may be similarly hidden, but they’ll be scattered over a much larger area. Rats can climb, but they won’t leave droppings on the wall or the side of the tub. Rats may live in the attic and poop in a corner there, but roach droppings will cover an entire wall or floor of a room.

If you think you’ve found rodent droppings, the first thing you want to do is call a pest control service.

How to Clean Rat Droppings

Now that you’ve found the rat droppings, you’ll want to contact a pest control company like Ames Group. They’ll eradicate the pests. However, you want to clean up their mess now. You should always use gloves. Pick up and put rat nests in a trash bag. Spray the rat latrine with disinfectant like bleach water. Then use a paper towel or cleaning rags to wipe it up and throw them in the trash. The area will need to be disinfected and wiped at least one more time. You’ll want to wash it with bleach water or a similar disinfectant. You can treat urine-stained areas with baking soda mixtures to neutralize the urine stain. This could be swept up or vacuumed up, assuming the rat droppings have been picked up. Then throw out the gloves you used for this clean up.

What Else Do You Need to Do?

Note that you’ll want to clean in areas where the rats where rubbing and scratching, too. Throw out the newspaper and cardboard they were chewing for bedding. Sanitize the woodwork that is stained by the passage of rats running through them and patch the holes that the rats were using to enter and exit.