About rats
Facts about rats
General about rats
Length: body 110-290mm, tail 85-230mm (75-90% of body length)
Weight: up to 600g
Color: Mostly grey/brown with lighter/white neck and belly, can vary in color and even be almost completely black.
Rats are creatures of habit and incredibly skeptical by nature. Foreign objects or new smells placed in their environment are something the rats investigate but quickly avoid if it poses a danger. Tricking a rat can often be quite difficult and sometimes impossible.
Where do rats live?
The brown rat is an incredibly adaptable species that, thanks to the help of humans, can be found almost everywhere in the world. It is largely associated with humans and therefore lives in and near settlements. The brown rat is the most common species of wild rat in Sweden.
Indoors, rats like to collect different types of materials to make nests. They can build nests in anything from walls to ceilings or other undisturbed areas. Outdoors, they dig long tunnels underground, mainly in flower beds or along house facades.
They tend to settle where there is continuous access to food and water, but can also travel long distances in search of food.
Diseases
Rats can carry and spread a number of different bacteria and viruses that can make people and animals very sick, such as salmonella, toxoplasma, hantavirus and leptospira.
All our dogs are vaccinated against leptospirosis, which can be spread through rat urine.
We recommend that all dog owners who live in areas where rats are visible vaccinate their dogs as a preventive measure.
Reproduction
The brown rat has the ability to reproduce all year round and can have between 2-7 litters of 6-15 young per year. They become sexually mature between 2-4 months of age and can then start breeding.
Did you know that...
The brown rat can become
The tail may be whole
A brown rat can weigh up to
Brown rats can get over
Remember!
…not all bites are from bedbugs, not all black dots are bedbug feces, and there are lots of different insects and bugs that can enter our home.
Signs of bedbugs
- Recurrent itchy bites on the body
- Black dots on sheets resembling ink stains
- Blood stains on the sheets. The blood stains are not from the bite itself, as many people think, but are caused by rolling over a blood-filled bedbug.
- Something crawling in the bed. Take a picture with good sharpness and send it to us for assessment.
Studies show that about 30-40% of the population does NOT react to bedbug bites.
The safest way to find out whether or not you have been affected by bedbugs is to hire a bedbug dog from a company with extensive experience and knowledge of bedbugs. Want to book a dog search right away? Email or call us.
The sooner the better!
If bedbugs are detected at an early stage, it is usually very simple and easy to decontaminate. If the bedbugs have been settling and trying for a long time, there is a risk that the decontamination process will be long and expensive.
How do you get bed bugs into your home?
It can sometimes be difficult to find out with certainty how you got bedbugs into your home. Bedbugs can exist and thrive in all sorts of places where people sit or lie for short or long periods of time. They are good at hitchhiking in our clothes, bags or other belongings and can therefore spread relatively easily and quickly between different locations.
Here are the most common causes of bedbug infestation:
- From vacations, staying in hotels, Airbnb, or sleeping cars on trains.
- Via a spread from a neighboring apartment or another apartment in the stairwell.
- From the workplace, particularly vulnerable are people working in healthcare and in other people’s homes.
- You buy a house where the previous owner had bedbugs.
- From a used piece of furniture.
Have you found a bed bug in your home?
The first thing to do is to get a professional assessment of your find. The easiest and fastest way to have your find assessed is to take a close-up picture with good focus and send it to us via text message. You will get an answer within an hour if it is a bedbug or something else. You can find our contact details further down the page or under the contact us tab.
Once you have confirmed your findings, you need to get in touch with a remediation company.
This is what you need to do:
- If you live in rented accommodation, contact your landlord.
- If you live in a condominium, contact your housing association.
- If you live in a house, contact your home insurance company.
Under the Environmental Code and the Land Code, it is the property owner’s responsibility to remove vermin and pests. The division of responsibilities between landlord and tenant is regulated by the Land Code. As a landlord, you are obliged to take measures to eradicate vermin and pests in residential apartments in your property.
Remember that as a tenant or right-of-occupancy holder, you have an obligation to notify the property owner of a confirmed pest problem in your home. In cases where you fail to address the problem or inform the property owner and the infestation spreads to more apartments, you may be liable for damages to the property owner.
In many cases, you may need a professional assessment to confirm a bedbug infestation. We can help with this.
Book a search dog with Quality Detection Dogs!
We help both individuals and businesses with pest control.