Coming across a rat in the home is far from a good feeling. You likely are very eager to find out where rats might come from, and it is a possibility for rats to move from house to house in search of food and scraps. While it is possible for rodents to travel from one house to the next, before you blame your neighbor, understand that all rodent infestations do not start inside the home, but outside.
Where Do Rats Hang Out?
A habitat of a rat will depend on both what kind of rat they are and what type of neighborhood you live in; whether it is a rural or urban setting.
The two most common rats found in the United States are the roof rat and the Norway rat. As suggested by studies, they both go and live their lives where there are people around.
Rats can either sleep in burrows underground or in nests. If the rat in question is a roof rat, then it can also build a nest in a tree or even the roof of your house.
If rats prefer to live outside the home, it’s not uncommon for them to find a place to live nearby so that they have near-instant access to food. However, it also isn’t out of the question for rats to spread to two or more homes so that they can gather more food or have better odds of finding food.
Why Do Rats Like to Travel?
Both Norway rats and roof rats are considered in a class known as the “Old World” rat. These types of rats living in America today, surprisingly, have had ancestors of their own that migrated from Europe to America, where they especially have been known to make New York and New Jersey their home.
Old World rats are definitely known to be travelers that can move from 50 to 500 feet away from their habitat in order to search for food and water. Whether you are having a barbecue in your backyard, or your neighbor sets a pie on the window sill to cool, rats will tend to go to that home to search for food, whether or not they choose to stay there for the time being.
Abarb Pest Services have been serving families across seven counties in New Jersey and have been around for over 25 years in the pest control business. Contact Abarb Pest Services at the first sign of a rat infestation, and call us for a free quote today!
