Roof Rats

Roof rats make terrible messes in attics.

Roof rats are superb climbers and have excellent balance.  They can scale stone walls, brick walls, siding, trees, and can easily run across electrical wires, telephone wires and cables with the agility of circus performers.  They prefer heights, and can be found living on roofs, in attics, and in trees.  Roof rats are distinct from sewer rats, which prefer to live in or near water.

In addition to being climbers, roof rats are also chewers.  Getting up to a rooftop is no problem, and once there they can create holes into the attic by chewing with their ever-growing teeth.  They can chew through wood with no problem, and can also chew through many metals and plastics.  They only need a hole the size of a quarter to get through.

Once the roof rats have chosen a home site, they bring in food, build nests, and make baby rats.  They are exceptionally messy animals and leave urine and droppings everywhere they go.  They readily destroy and contaminate attic insulation, and may chew through electrical wires causing shorts, outages and even fires.

Allstate can trap and remove all kinds of rats, including roof rats.  We also modify structures so that rats cannot penetrate them again, and provide clean-up services for rat infestations.


This shows one method of how to stop rats from climbing up wall studs.  Removing the dead rat from this arrangement does get a bit messy, but it is an effective technique.