Rats' Affinity for Human Environments

"I can tell you one thing [about rats]. It takes someone that's on the ball, that's been doing their career for a long time, it's thousands of dollars because you've got to show up over multiple weeks to control it and find out [assess the situation], and you have to have everyone on board."
"They're smart, they're industrious and they can't be stopped by normal traps that work against mice. You can't just lay out poison."
"Humans are pretty good at passing the buck: 'Oh, it comes from the new house that got built next door, the reno'."
"For any type of rat population that's there, you can always look at the humans 90 percent of the time, and that's the reason, the mistakes people make."
David Saunders, 25 years as a pest controller

"There's sort of this belief that having rats is unacceptable and we should exterminate them."
"Rats are a part of the urban ecosystem, they're incredibly difficult to control in many ways. Effective control requires long-term, ecosystem-based control that limits food and resources."
Kaylee Byers, Vancouver Rat Project

Chris Scuffins / Getty Images

We should get a few things out of the way. Rats get a bad rap  historically; it is now under question whether rat population was a vector for the Black Death/Bubonic Plague epidemic of the late middle ages. And although humans think of rats as parasites on human waste such as kitchen scraps improperly disposed of, researchers feel that true body parasites such as fleas and body lice spread the European plague through the transference of deadly bacteria. Rats are highly intelligent, capable of evading human efforts to trap and destroy them.

Rats, particularly the brown Norway rat, have been used for countless years in laboratory experiments. Humans exploit rats in the name of research, just as rats exploit human settlements to advantage themselves with human castoffs. The use of laboratory rats is seen in an inexhaustible list of medical research from surgery, transplantation, cancer, diabetes, and psychiatric disorders including behavioral intervention and addiction, neural regeneration, wound and bone healing, space motion sickness, and cardiovascular disease.

Yet we shudder at the very thought that rats live among us wherever we are, town or country. Rats are known to make excellent pets. They are reciprocal, affectionate, readily trained and in actual fact, quite attractive little animals. Yet most people think of them as hostile intruders. Understandably, the thought of rats as carriers of harmful pathogens doesn't endear them to people. On the other hand, cats are known to be carriers of some types of disease harmful to humans. Though rats are known to transmit disease, mosquitoes represent a far greater threat.

Photo by AlexK100

David Saunders has had a lot of experience with rats over the quarter-century that he has come across them professionally. He has seen rats fall from power lines, bounce off pavement and then swiftly readjust and keep running. Residential areas that begin to lodge complaints of rat infestations mean his advice and expertise will be much sought after. If he has a choice, this owner of the Paramount Pest Control enterprise feels more comfortable working to eradicate the presence of bugs rather than rats. They're smart, and their intelligent efforts to avoid traps and death give pause for thought.

Photo by Uzbecka

And because Mr. Saunders knows that people call in pest control because they don't want to have to deal with their perceived rat problem on their own, yet usually it's human carelessness and neglect that has caused the problem to begin with. If the problem is solved by pest control eradicating the rat presence, what's to stop a follow-up infestation when people simply go on re-creating the same problem through inattention to their own hygienic obligations? The problem, he emphasizes, originates when the caller or a nearby neighbour fails to adequately ensure garbage is inaccessible.

Kaylee Byers, a University of British Columbia doctoral candidate, has developed research through the Vancouver Rat Project on how rat populations work in urban settings, and how most effectively to deal with them. Calling in pest control each time an issue with rats arises ignores the root of the problem, she asserts. She and her colleagues maintain there is a solution and that is to learn to accommodate themselves to living with a rat presence -- as part of our cities --while excluding them from entry to our homes.

At the Vancouver Rat Project, figuring out how municipalities are able to coexist with rats is the focus; not simply an issue of eliminating rats but of determining what would amount to an "acceptable" number of rats for any given city. Building infrastructure in such a way that it is engineered to ensure proper garbage disposal. Designing urban areas to exclude any potential "harbourage sites" where rats find an attractive haven. And clearing areas of rats prior to construction starts or demolitions to avoid driving rats elsewhere.

Good sanitation is the best and most economic way to control rats. Follow these steps to keep rats away or to keep their numbers in check:

• Clear away any rubbish piled close to buildings to expose burrows and openings that rats might use to get in.
• Store food in rat-proof containers, such as galvanized cans with tight-fitting lids. This includes birdseed, grass seed, and other possible foods kept in garages and/or outbuildings.
• Store and dispose of garbage properly, so that rats can’t get into it.
• If you feed your pets outside, leave the food out for just long enough to be eaten, and then remove it.
• Clean up pet droppings from the yard every day.
• Remove old wood or rubbish from the property since these are regular rat hangouts.

The Humane Society of the United States