Understanding Sewer Rats and how they become a problem in home and business

Rats taking up residence in your home can be extremely distressing and unpleasant. The first you may think you have a rat problem is unusual noises within attic areas and flat roofs. In urban areas we almost always find that rats are coming into properties via the sewers.

Water companies are well aware that there sewers contain rats and do place poisons within sewers (called sewer baiting).

Most people don’t realise that water companies will assist you if you have a rats coming up from the sewers into your house. They will normally provide a free drain camera survey of your pipes to see if any breaks in the lines are causing the issue.

If a problem is found then it would need to be repaired. Who is responsible for the sewer and repair can be of debate but water companies will say the pipe from the house to the manhole is your responsibility.

The mainline pipe serving other houses is the responsibility of the water company. Sometimes mainline pipes run under extensions and this can cause problems regarding responsibility.

Why Do Rats Use Sewers

Think of sewers as a motorway for rats along with service stations and hotels dotted along the motorway. The rats use the sewers to move around and to feed and obtain water to survive.

Sewers are full of food if a home or business is flushing food stuffs down the sewers this can act to encourage rats and if a defected pipe is present they could then move from below ground into the hotel above ground.

Rats can be controlled via poisoning but can be tolerant to certain poisons. They can also recover there populations quite rapidly in 2009 a rat census was carried out to measure the recovery rate after baiting within eight sewer systems.

In three of the sewer systems the mean rate of increase was of the order of 3%. This increase was attributed to breeding and is thought to be typical to sewer rats. Higher rates were also recorded of 11.8% due to immigration.

Populations are able to recover there numbers within six months. Rats also cause damage as they are well known to chew through most materials including plastic and taking advantage of damaged pipes.

What can you do?

Arrange to have your property inspected by a pest control professional they will be able to identify if rats are present and not another pest such as mice.

Most pest control companies now have sewer survey equipment but will normally charge for this. Alternatively contact your local water company as they maybe able to help.

If a problem is found repair of the line is important along with installation of non return valves or ratflaps in the sewer chamber.

Contact Sewerstore if you have any questions or leave a comment and we will reply to you