Rat Invasion Do rats make you feel sick and make your skin crawl? Well they do to me especially when rats invade my home!

Well the Pest Control man came today. The bait that was laid down has been eaten. Now for the next step! Remember in my first blog I said that the rats had chewed through the cement in the walls around the copper water pipes - well as it turns out rats can chew through just about anything! They really are a marvel of nature! Did you know that the rats incisors (specialized for gnawing) grow throughout their life because they are open-rooted! "The eruption rate (the rate of growth) of the rat's incisors is very high: the adult rat's upper incisors grow on average about 2.2 mm per week (0.31-0.32 mm per day), and the lower incisors grow about 2.8 mm per week (0.4 mm per day) (Addison and Appleton 1915). It takes about 40-50 days for new tooth generated at the base to reach the tip. The entire tooth is therefore never more than 40-50 days old (Schour and Massler 1942)." Pretty impressive!
So the next step fill all possible access points with cement - but not just any cement cement with crushed glass in it or alternatively steel mesh - you see that's about the only thing that will deter the gnawing. However I will need to presume that they will find alternative access points so at this point it is a work in progress! Will keep you posted!