Should I hire a pro, or remove rats myself?
Handling a wildlife animal problem without a background may be risky, since there are cases in were people got seriously sick after eating a poisonous substance planted by the neighbor to get rid of rats in the garden. The neighbor had planted rat poison for rats and squirrels, unluckily, the neighbor’s pets were killed. If you have dogs in the house, you can just the wildlife animal around than to poison them and kill your pets as well. The toddlers may also be at risk of poisoning if they happen to play or put in the mouth the poison. This is a sad decision made by the neighbor and it made the entire neighborhood devastated by the incident. It may have been prevented if the person concerned made a research on how to get rid of the rats in a more humane way.
As a whole, the wildlife expert will just use one approach or a combination depending on the need., but the use of a one-way door at an access point to enable the animals to leave the building or the house and to also prevent them from re-entering the premises. The next is the live trapping. They will snare the rat or trap it and then it will be back to the wild which is also indicated in the law. The approaches may sound persuading and easy, however, that may take a while and only an experienced person can handle them the right way and can release them to the wild as well. If there are baby rats involved, it is another story. They will get rid of the mother through the one-way door and then remove the babies in a separate way by the hands. The process is both humane for the baby and for the mother.
However, if you prefer to DIY, then you must make sure you know the proper way to get rid of them and the tools you must use to protect yourself against the diseases that they carry. This takes time and patience, because you must wait for them to go out of the nest before you can place the trap. You must make sure that there are no babies left in the den or else they will die of starvation and they will rot there. That will bring you more troubles along the way. Before you try the DIY, you must check the law about trapping to prevent you from being penalized.