Effective Ways Of Keeping Your Dumpster Rat Free
Posted on: 4 June 2015
A dumpster rental can help keep your home environment clean, but can easily end up hosting unwanted guests that can run riot in your home. A rat problem can not only cause a serious nuisance, but can also present a serious health hazard and even result in damage to your clothing and furniture.
Fortunately, good practices when using dumpsters can help avoid the chances of suffering harm from pests. Here is a look at several preventive steps to help you avoid a rat infestation.
Use the right locations
Carefully choosing the location for your dumpster instead of just placing it as an afterthought is important. Rats prefer areas where they can easily burrow, so avoiding areas with muddy soil can be an effective deterrent. If you can, place your dumpster on asphalt or concrete surfaces, and elevate it to further inhibit rodent activity.
Furthermore, avoid placing your dumpster near bushes or hedges, as dense vegetation in such areas often serves as a nesting site for rats, and can also make detection of pests harder.
Secure the lid with a trap
Dumpsters usually have a lid that helps keep small-bound pests such as rats and mice out, but locking a dumpster down may not entirely keep rodents out. While the lid makes their entry more difficult, rats can easily squeeze through tiny spaces when the lid isn't shut properly.
Adding a trap at the point where the lid meets the top of the dumpster will act as an extra deterrent for those persistent rats that usually squeeze into your trash.
Add repellants
Adding repellants such as mothballs or cayenne pepper to your trash is an old and effective strategy for keeping rats and other rodents at bay. Rats find their way into your dumpster mostly thought their sensitive sense of smell, so adding a heap of repellants into the bottom of your dumpster will sure deter them from coming anywhere close. Additional layers of deterrent can then be added occasionally to the top of the debris.
Adding poisons to the dumpster is not advisable, as they actually attract rats, and may often not be strong enough to kill the rodents. Poisons also force you to deal with the rotting, and possibly diseased bodies of dead rats, so using preventative options such as deterrents is preferable.
Segregate your trash
Using specially designated trash bins to keep foods and other consumable items that are the main attractors to rats and mice will greatly reduce the chances of an infestation. Indiscriminately storing your trash often increases the locations where rats can appear.
For more information, contact Discount Rubbish Removal Co or a similar company.
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