Rats and ants: do you know about the most common household pests?

From bed bugs to cockroaches and birds, all kinds of household pests can infest your home. Two of the most common pests are rats and ants.

From bedbugs to beetles to cockroaches and birds, a home can be infested by all kinds of household pests. Two of the most common household pests are rats and ants. Here's what you need to know about these common critters.

Rats are difficult pests to control, and they can prove to be a serious hazard for your home. They usually colonize in places like attics, burrows, under porches, concrete, and in hard to access spaces like wall voids. Rats have strong instincts that make them wary to changes to their environment, such as rat traps and bait.

Historically rats have carried diseases, particularly contagious diseases like the plague, and they continue to carry serious diseases today. They can also bring parasites that carry disease (like flies or ticks) into your home.

Just like humans, rats are warm-blooded mammals. They can be found around the world, and have oversized front teeth that grow perpetually and need to be ground down by means of chewing. Rats chew on a variety of items and can cause a large amount of damage within the home.

Many species of rats breed year-round, and do so frantically and abundantatly. Rats are able to squeeze their bodies into spaces that seem to be far too small for them, due to their biology.

Because of this, all holes, small or otherwise, should be sealed within the home to prevent the entry and re-entry of rats and other rodents.

A pest control professional should be contacted for assistance. The feces and urine of some rodents may contaminate surfaces they come into contact with.

Ant control can be challenging, but there are some important facts you should know about ants behaviour: they enter the home through even the tiniest of cracks, and can smell sugar from kilometres away. They come seeking water and sweet or greasy food substances in rooms with easily accessible food, like the kitchen cabinet or pantry.

Ants leave invisible chimerical trails made from pheromones that other ants then follow to locate a prosperous food source. Ants can nest anywhere in and around your house, including underneath your house’s foundation.

It's necessary to call a pest control professional, since most do-it-yourself solutions only kill the ants you see, but don’t actually penetrate and destroy nests to prevent these pests from returning.