Our Rodent Control and Remediation process is detailed, thorough, and guaranteed to resolve current rodent infestations and permanently prevent your home from experiencing future rodent infestations for as long as you own your home. When dealing with a normal infestation of rats in the attic, the entire process usually takes 2-4 weeks to complete. However, each home and rodent infestation is different, so sometimes our process takes longer to complete, or may be completed more quickly in some situations.

Omega’s Rodent Control and Remediation Process – The Initial Consultation and Inspection

It all begins by scheduling a consultation with one of our Dallas area Rodent Control Specialists. Upon arrival, they will discuss all of the issues you have been experiencing in order to have a more detailed understanding of the overall problem. Our Rodent Control Specialist will then head into your attic to identify what type of rodent infestation you’re dealing with and will also look for and take pictures of any evidence that they find. They will look through the entire attic and document any areas of damaged insulation, concentrations of urine and feces, chewed wiring, damaged ductwork, active nesting sites, and anything else related to having rats in your attic.

Once they have a good idea for the type of infestation and the overall severity, they will then inspect the exterior of your home to determine each and every possible area the rats are finding their way into the structure of your home. They will also document anywhere around your home that the rats can compromise in the future to ensure that those areas are preventatively sealed off as well to prevent future infestations. After completing the inspection, our Rodent Control Specialist will share all of the pictures that they have taken and briefly discuss all of the work that needs to be done in order to permanently resolve and properly remediate the rodent infestation. They will then write a detailed and itemized quote and discuss everything with you in further detail.

Omega’s Rodent Control and Remediation Process Step 1 – Rat Trapping and Removal 

Immediately upon signing paperwork, our Rodent Control Specialist will place un-baited, unset rattraps throughout your attic. This is done in order to allow the rats to get used to the new foreign objects that are suddenly in their environment. Rats are notoriously cautious animals and often times avoid traps unless they have no other available food source. By placing the unset traps throughout the attic it desensitizes the rats to the traps. That way when our Home Exclusion Specialist team seals off your home, the trapping is quicker and more effective.

The overall trapping process will begin on the day that we start the exclusion work on your home. Our Rodent Control Specialist will arrive at the start of the exclusion to bait and set all of the existing traps that the rats have already become accustomed to interacting with. Throughout the duration of the time that we are working with on your home, your dedicated Rodent Control Specialist will return at least twice per week to check the traps, remove any rats from them, re-bait them and resituate them as necessary. Typically, this will occur about 3-5 times throughout the duration of our entire process. Since you will need to be home to allow our Rodent Control Specialist to check the traps throughout all of the areas where they have been set, your dedicated Rodent Control Specialist will work with you to ensure that the timing fits into your schedule. Once all rats have been eliminated from the attic and all other scheduled work has been completed, our Rodent Control Specialist will then retrieve the traps and do one final walkthrough to ensure that all trapping and work was completed perfectly.

Omega’s Rodent Control and Remediation Process Step 2 – Full Home Exclusion

Our full home exclusion process is by far the most crucial part of our entire rodent control and remediation process. It entails sealing off all current entry points around your home, both on the roof and around the ground level. It also involves sealing off all similarly structured areas around the home that rats can easily compromise in the future to regain access into your attic. Ensuring that the exclusion work is completed perfectly and that each and every possible area around the home is sealed off is what truly separates Omega Animal Removal from all other rodent control companies in Dallas. If the exclusion is not done properly, then the rats will positively find their way back into your attic. That’s why we never use foam products, or other materials that the rats can easily chew through. Our Home Exclusion Specialists use only the highest quality galvanized steel products and weatherized sealants when working on your home and always take aesthetics into account. That’s why our team will always paint any visible work to exactly match the exterior color of your home ensuring that any work we do blends in as seamlessly as possible.

In Dallas, the majority of areas that rats find their way into your home are on the roof. Typically they come in through areas on the roof where two separate levels of roof come together. Technically, they are called roof returns, but some companies in our industry calls them eave areas. To seal those areas off our Home Exclusion Specialists will rebuild or reinforce the areas with galvanized steel flashing and they will paint it to exactly match the exterior color of your home, ensuring that all of the work we do is functional and aesthetically pleasing. Another common area in Dallas that rats find their way in your attic is through the attic ventilation. There are numerous styles of attic ventilation and, unfortunately, rats and other nuisance wildlife can easily compromise nearly all of them. Since attic ventilation is essential to your home, they cannot be sealed off. When our team reinforces your attic ventilation we use galvanized steel hardware cloth to secure the openings in the ventilation and ensure that there is still 100% the same airflow rate through the vents. Unlike the majority of our competitors, we will never install big obnoxious covers over your roof or attic vents. We prefer to reinforce roof or attic ventilation at a structural level so that it is unnoticeable and even more secure than simply screwing metal boxes into your roof.

Some other common areas that rats find their way into homes throughout Dallas, TX can be found around the ground level of your home. When dealing with homes on a concrete slab foundation, those areas typically only include air-conditioning lines, garage door gaps, weep holes and miscellaneous cutouts for pipes around the exterior of your home. So typically if you home has a slab foundation, then the vast majority of exclusion work will be done on the roof of your home.

Homes that typically require extensive ground level exclusion are built with pier and beam foundations. Unfortunately they are more common in the Dallas area and are significantly more difficult to secure. This is due to the fact that pier and beam homes have ventilation around the base of the home that helps regulate the moisture and airflow underneath the home. Rats can easily push through the prefabricated insect screening that covers each of these vents and gain access into the crawlspace of a pier and beam home. From the crawlspace, the rats can traverse through the walls and gain access into the attic or any other area of the home. In some cases, rats will actually burrow underneath the exterior foundation walls of a pier and beam home to get into the crawlspace. In these situations, our team will have to complete what we call a “rat wall” around the entire perimeter of the home. Rat walls are expensive and take a tremendous amount of time, labor and materials to complete. They aren’t necessary on every pier and beam home, but if rats have burrowed underneath the foundation anywhere around the home then rat walls are 100% essential to permanently resolve the rodent infestation.

Omega’s Rodent Control and Remediation Process Step 3 – Attic Decontamination

The completion of steps 1 and 2 of our rodent control and remediation process means that the rat infestation your home was experiencing is completely resolved. All of the rats will have been trapped and removed from the attic and the entire home will have been completely sealed off and protected from future rodent infestations. That’s when we move into part 3 of our rodent control and remediation process, decontaminating the attic.

With the rapid expansion of Dallas and subsequent displacement of rat populations, properly decontaminating your attic following the resolution of a rodent infestation is imperative. Rats urinate and defecate dozens of times throughout the day and do so all over the place. As gross as it is, it is the preferred method of communication for rats and they actually use their urine and feces as “scent trails” for other rats in the area to pick up on. These scent trails are comprised of pheromones that alert other rodent populations in the area to come join them in their safe nesting site that used to be your attic. If your attic isn’t properly decontaminated then all of those pheromones and biological markers will just remain in your attic and continually send signals to other rat populations telling them that your attic is a safe place to nest. Essentially, without proper attic decontamination, rats will always be around your home and always trying to find a weak area that they can compromise and gain access into your attic. That’s why we only offer warranties on homes when we complete all three steps of this process. We know that if the attic isn’t properly decontaminated, then rats will relentlessly trying to get back into your attic.

Aside from the pheromones and biological markers, it is important to decontaminate your attic following a rat infestation for other reasons as well. As gross as it is, rats were breeding, creating nests, urinating and defecating throughout your attic. If left unaddressed, it can lead to air-quality issues in your home and can potentially cause allergies and other symptoms as the excrement begins to breakdown and deteriorate over time. In all honesty, in Dallas you don’t have to worry that much about potential health issues related to having had rats in your attic. In some parts of the country there is an actual concern, but the only species of rats in Dallas do not carry potentially deadly diseases in their urine and feces. Their urine and feces still does have the potential to cause allergies or other mild issues similar to allergies, but that is about as far as the potential health implications go.

When it comes to the actual decontamination of your attic, there are two separate services that we offer. One of them is our industry-leading attic fogging decontamination treatment and the other is our full attic restoration service. Our Rodent Control Specialists will let you know their recommendation as to what level of attic decontamination your attic requires and can discuss both options with you during the initial consultation. You can also find very detailed information about our attic decontamination treatments by clicking here, or for more detailed information about our attic restoration services by clicking here.