Rat control in gardens in Perth
Rats in Perth were running riot in gardens in broad daylight this week – look at the mother rat sitting up on the garden bench! 
The whole family was out; mum, dad and youngsters, and very brazen too. Rats prefer to come out at night because they’re nocturnal by habit. But if there’s food to be had and a family to feed, then they’ll come out in daylight, as they were doing in this back garden.
The rats been attracted by the bird food that had fallen down onto the ground around the bird table that was next to the garden bench; 9 times out of 10, feeding birds attracts rats to gardens. Once the rats are in the gardens then they look for a place to live, a cosy home that’s conveniently close to all that lovely bird food. Rats will live under sheds and decking and in compost bins; they’ll even dig in under the foundations or climb up into the roof spaces to get into the house.
Our customer called us in for rat control because it’s dangerous and unhealthy to have rats living in the garden, and so close to the house. Not only do they cause a lot of damage by chewing, but they spread diseases, fleas and tapeworm. For example, they carry Weil’s Disease, which can be fatal and infects dogs as well as humans. Rats spread it in the urine that they dribble everywhere they go. It survives well in damp areas so it would have been all around our customer’s bird table and garden bench, especially in all the wet weather we’ve had recently, ready to contaminate anyone or anything in the area.
It was a good job our customer called us when they did because the rats were digging in under the house walls and had got under the floorboards. We’ve got the rat infestation under control now, but we’ve recommended that the control measures be kept in place all year round. That way the garden is kept clean and uncontaminated by pest rats and our customer can carry on feeding the birds; it seems unfair that the birds should go without bird food in autumn and winter just because vermin like rats have moved in!