You may not consider mice to be much of a nuisance, but rats are a different story. Pack rats can cause serious damage, stealing things from inside your house and generally causing chaos by inhabiting your home. Read on to learn how pack rats operate and what you can do to prevent a pack rat infestation.

About the Pack Rat

The wood rat, or pack rat, is a nocturnal creature common in southwest desert regions like Arizona. It has soft fur, large ears, and a thick tail covered with short hairs. What makes the packrat unique from other animals is how it digs for goods.

Pack rats gravitate to anything bright and shiny, whether it is gum wrappers, sparkly jewelry or eating utensils. They see the items, take them and bring them back to their nest where they hoard them. Twigs, nuts and seeds are often added to the nesting pile.

What Pack Rats Do to Cause Damage

What makes these fuzzy little rodents so hazardous is the disease they bear, such as hantavirus, along with a host of other problems that come with their stockpiling habits. The nests of packrats can harbor fleas, lice, brown spiders and other creepy crawlies, while nests in the backyard or underneath the house can attract other wildlife, such as snakes, birds and coyotes.

These agile climbers get up high in a house, nesting in attics and walls. They also hide in pools, spas, gas grills, sheds, woodpiles and car engines. Their constant burrowing can destroy landscaping, while their tendency to chew on electric and car wiring causes a fire hazard.

How to Get Rid of Pack Rats

In order to keep your home free of pack rats, you need to take away any opportunity for the rodents to find shelter. They can crawl into a half-inch wide spaces, so you’ll need to seal up cracks and holes in the wall where they could squeeze through.

Screen exhaust fans and vents in addition to trimming trees, bushes and plants where you can observe the ground for signs of nesting. Keep ground cover low and, particularly in southwestern areas, don’t grow cacti like Desert Spoons, Agaves and Yuccas in small groups.

Don’t try to get rid of the rats on your own. It is essential to eliminate the nest, since creating vacant nesting space will only encourage more rats to reoccupy the area. If you are able to destroy the nests, there will be no need for more pack rats to come back. It’s best to call a rodent expert who can locate the nests and potential nesting sites, as well as treat and remove the nests for you.