Hello everybody, it’s the Harpoon Pest Solution Podcast, I’m your host Mike Stewart. Harpoon Pest Solutions, the pest experts in the Philadelphia area, and I’m here with pest expert Quincy Jones today and we have a very relevant, interesting question. Quincy, rats, what are they doing now because of this quarantine? I know they’re probably hungry cause the restaurants are not putting out as much food in the dumpsters, and there’s all kinds of reasons. What are these rats doing to people’s homes now in this quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic?

You know what, Mike, that’s exactly what’s happening. The fact that you have closure of restaurants and public schools, hotels, tourist attractions, and other public places because they’re closed now you have all these, the rats, and they’re extremely hungry. They don’t have the overflowing trash receptacles that existed in these places. So they’re looking for food sources, and unfortunately, what’s happening in large cities like Philadelphia, New York, New Orleans, and a few other places that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic is that the rats have been come displaced. They’re looking for other food sources, and that means people’s homes and people are home. People are home and they’re putting their trash out, they’re creating more trash, and so now we will get a few calls about… We’re getting a lot of calls about rodent activity or increasing rodent activity even from our existing customers.

Well, so what you’re telling me now is because rats are going to want to survive, that’s only natural, their food source has been displaced and their food source now is you were home in Philadelphia and because people are home, even if they were having these problems, they’re around it 24 hours a day and they’re seeing it. So let me ask you, what can you do to help in the midst of all of this when a Philadelphia homeowner sees a rodent or a rat, can you help us? Can you help us protect ourselves and what are the things that you do differently and safely to make sure that it’s not a problem anymore?

Absolutely. So one way to help rat proof your home is to seal any areas like cracks and holes around the foundation, or the utility lines, or pipelines where rodents can get in around your home. And sometimes you see that around plumbing lines, the air conditioning lines that maybe run into the house. If there’s areas where foundation walls that are made of brick, if some of the mortar is missing, it may be a wise to have some brick pointing done or something like that to prevent rodents from entering that way. Indoors, we want to make sure there are few places where they can hide, we keep areas free from clutter and keep food in rodent proof containers, that’s very important. I’ve seen situations where there was just a person was just storing a lot of items, he just had a lot of clutter inside of a house. And when that stuff doesn’t move, the rats and mice, they create homes in that stuff. And so it was important for people to keep their homes clutter-free and keep their food protected, especially pet food, anything that could be laying out, normally out in the open floor and keep that stuff in containers where rodents can’t get in. And those are some of the basic things.

But okay, I made the mistake and now I can see evidence that these vermin are in my home. What can Harpoon Pest Solutions do to get rid of them, exterminate them, and get me back to the point where I can protect myself?

Good question. So what happens at that point if that is the case, you have rodents in your home, it would be good to have a professional come and take care of it. And so at that point we, we’d be looking to implement many things, many control measures to remove whatever’s running around that house....