Roof Rat Page Header

Roof Rat

  • Scientific Name: Rattus Rattus
  • Nicknames: Ship Rat, House Rat, Brown Rat
  • Length: 6" - 8"
  • Color: Brown, Black
  • Aggressive? Can be if cornered
  • Do They Bite? Yes
  • Poisonous/Venomous? No
  • Disease Carrying? Yes
  • Invasive Species? No

The Vole

Roof Rats are often attracted to a home that has unsanitary conditions either inside or around the homestead. The roof rat likes to live (surprise) in attics, trees, upper areas inside higher structures and can sometimes also be found living in sewers, crawl spaces, and other tight and closed in areas. Their diets consist mainly of fruits and vegtables but will also eat human foods such as cereal and other dry boxed items that are in cabinets.

Roof Rats have poor vision and are color blind but their sense of hearing, smell, and taste have developed to be extremely good. It is best to call the McMahon pest control experts in to resolve an infestation of roof rats. The reason for this is because you want to make sure that you identify what rat that is infesting the property accurately so a plan can be put in place to help deter and remove them from the home.

Living Spaces

They like to live up high in trees or attics in homes

Diet Choices

Cereal, nuts, and leaves

Fun Fact

These rats are not as common as other rats found in homes, but could be if you live in a heavily wooded area.

How Do We Remove Them?

One of the pest management experts at McMahon Exterminating will visit your home and provide a proper assessment and ID the bugs that are infesting your home or property to better understand the type of insects or pests that they are dealing with to properly coordinate a plan that will work best for you.

We help educate the customer on things that they might be able to do to help deter the pests as well, and will try to prevent this from becoming a reocurring infestation.

The treatment will begin and we will monitor the situtaion closely to make sure that the numbers are being depleted in the area. We want to try to deter the insects from coming to your area as opposed to just chemically treating them, as that will only be a short term solution for you but with McMahon's C.A.N. initiative and our three easy steps — Canvas the area, Act on those results, and Negate re-entry for the pest, we can work to getting your home to pest free status.