How to Get Rid of Rats in the House (2026 Guide)
How to get rid of rats in the house: trap with pre-baited snaps, seal gaps over 1/2 inch, remove food and shelter. A poison-free indoor plan.
DIY with a stop line: DIY can work, but know the stop line: spreading, in walls, or near kids, pets or allergies means calling a pro. Hiring guide →
In this guide
A rat in the kitchen is never just a rat. Where one feeds, more follow the same scent trails, and a breeding pair can seed a colony in months. The good news is that extension programs across the country agree on one plan: sanitation plus trapping plus exclusion, applied together. Drop any leg of that tripod and rats return. This guide walks through all three in the order that works, with poison kept outside where it belongs.
How do I know I have rats and not mice?
Size tells first. Norway rat is the burrowing brown rat of sewers, basements and ground floors, heavy-bodied at up to a foot long plus tail. Roof rat is the climbing black rat of attics, ivy and rooflines, slimmer with a longer tail. House mouse droppings look like grains of rice. Rat droppings are thicker, capsule-shaped, and clustered along runways.
Confirm with sign, not sightings. Look for dark rub marks where oily fur brushes baseboards and pipes, gnawed corners on doors and food packaging, and tracks in dusty attics. Outside, burrow mouths run 2 to 3 inches across with packed-smooth soil at the lip, plus shallow bolt holes nearby for emergency escape. Rats hug cover and avoid open ground, so inspect along foundations, under decks and behind stored lumber rather than mid-yard.
Why do my traps sit empty for days?
Because rats are neophobic: they avoid new objects in their territory for up to two weeks. A freshly set trap is furniture to be distrusted, and a rat that gets snapped at and escapes may never approach another. The fix is pre-baiting, and it changes everything.
Snap traps beat poison indoors: every catch is confirmed and removable, while poisoned rats die where you cannot reach them.
Set out more traps than feels reasonable, baited with peanut butter, bacon, nutmeat or marshmallow tied to the trigger with string, but unset. Leave them three to five days along walls, behind appliances and in dark corners, refreshing bait as needed. When bait starts disappearing without the traps firing, the rats have accepted them. Set the triggers then, perpendicular to the wall so rats must step over the plate, two back-to-back where runs are heavy. Nebraska Extension reports this patience routinely doubles success, and a trap that catches should be reset in the exact same spot.
Run an unset-trap census first
Number your unset traps and sketch their positions. Each morning, note which baits were touched. After five days the pattern maps the colony: heavy hits mark the main runway, untouched traps mark dead zones to relocate, and the count of hit traps estimates how many rats feed nightly. Only then set triggers, starting where hits concentrate. This turns trapping from guesswork into a measured campaign, and the sketch becomes your record if a pro ever needs to take over.
About a dozen traps per house is the working number for rats, fewer than for mice but larger and placed where kids and pets cannot reach them. Glue boards catch juveniles and sick rats but rarely hold a healthy adult, so treat them as monitors rather than the main weapon. Check every trap daily with disposable gloves, double-bag carcasses into household trash, and never handle rats barehanded.
What should I seal, and with what?
Trapping empties the house. Exclusion keeps it empty, and research is blunt that rodents reinvade through any gap left open after control. Rats need little more than half an inch, so the working rule is to close everything larger than a quarter inch, which also stops mice in the same pass.
Walk the foundation, roofline, vents, utility entries and door thresholds with a flashlight. Cover vents and gaps with 19-gauge half-inch hardware cloth, pack holes with steel wool or copper mesh, and cap edges with sheet metal where gnawing is likely. Caulk and expanding foam alone fail because rats chew straight through them, so use them only as backing behind metal. Fit door sweeps until no daylight shows, screen floor drains with tight grates, and keep a two-foot weed-free gravel strip around the building so new burrows start in the open where you can see them.
| Trap or tool | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Wood snap trap | Workhorse indoor killing | Needs pre-baiting, daily checks |
| Expanded-trigger snap | Wary rats, light touches | Same placement rules apply |
| Electric shock trap | Hands-off kills in living areas | Higher cost per trap |
| Glue board | Juveniles, monitoring | Will not hold large rats, check daily |
| Locked bait station | Outdoor perimeter only | Never indoors, label and lock |
| Loose poison pellets | Nothing indoors | Carcasses in walls, pet and wildlife risk |
Inside, starve the operation. Store dry goods, pet food and birdseed in sealed hard containers, take up uneaten pet food nightly, fix dripping taps, and keep trash in cans with locking lids. Outside, pick ripe fruit promptly, clean spilled seed under feeders, stack firewood a foot off the ground and away from walls, and thin ivy and vines at least four feet from the roof. Hungry rats take bait faster, so sanitation directly raises trap success.
Why not just use poison indoors?
Because you trade a visible problem for a hidden one. A poisoned rat does not die on the spot. It retreats into a wall void, attic or subfloor, then decays there for weeks, producing odor, flies and sometimes a mummified surprise during the next renovation. Georgia IPM advises traps over poison baits inside houses for exactly this reason, and county programs go further: never bait indoors or under the house at all.
The second cost is wildlife. Anticoagulant rodenticides move up the food chain when owls, hawks, dogs and cats eat poisoned rodents, a process called secondary poisoning. If bait has any place in your plan, it belongs in locked, labeled tamper-proof stations on the outdoor perimeter, checked twice weekly, and removed when the job ends. Even then, exclusion matters more: poison without sealing is a subscription, not a cure.
When is this a job for a professional?
DIY fits a light, early infestation: a few rats, no nesting inside walls or attics, reachable entry points. Escalate when droppings keep appearing after two weeks of correct trapping, when you hear gnawing or movement inside walls, when wiring or pipes show chew damage, or when burrows tunnel under slabs and foundations. Roof rats in attics and ivy deserve early professional attention because their routes run through places homeowners rarely inspect safely.
DIY or pro in 30 seconds
Answer honestly. DIY if every box is checked. Call a pro at the first no.
- Droppings in one or two rooms only, none inside wall voids
- No gnawing sounds at night and no chewed wiring
- Entry gaps you can reach with a ladder and hand tools
- No burrows under slabs, porches or foundations
- Catches within a week of setting pre-baited traps
A good pro does three things worth paying for. They find entries you missed with a full exterior inspection. They sequence pre-baiting and trapping across the whole colony instead of one room. And they warrant the exclusion work so reinvasion is their callback, not your weekend. Combine that with the same sealing discipline in our mouse guide, the food-storage habits from the cockroach guide, and the inspection routine in bed bug identification. Start from the rat hub for the full topic list, browse every pest when trails cross species, and use the pro finder once the colony outgrows the trap line.
How to: How to Get Rid of Rats in the House (2026 Guide)
Remove the rats inside, then close the building so replacements cannot follow.
You'll need
- 12+ snap traps
- peanut butter
- steel wool
- 1/2-inch hardware cloth
- sealed food bins
- disposable gloves
Tools
- flashlight
- ladder
- string
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Confirm rats and map activity
Look for droppings, gnaw marks, rub smudges along baseboards and burrows 2 to 3 inches wide outside. Note every active room before buying a single trap.
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Pre-bait unset traps for days
Place baited but unset traps along walls for three to five days. Tie bait on with string. Rats learn the traps are safe, which doubles later catch rates.
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Set, check and reset daily
Set triggers perpendicular to walls, behind objects and in dark corners. Check every morning with gloves, rebait, and reset successful traps in the same spot.
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Seal and sanitize
Close every gap over 1/4 inch with metal, store food and pet rations sealed, fix leaks, and clear shelter within a few feet of the foundation.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fastest way to get rid of rats in the house?
Set a dozen snap traps along walls where you see droppings, after three to five days of pre-baiting unset traps. Most light infestations collapse within a week once trapping pairs with sealed food and closed gaps.
Should I use rat poison inside the house?
No. Extension services recommend traps, not poison, indoors. Poisoned rats crawl into walls and die there, causing odor for weeks, and carcasses can secondarily poison pets. Save rodenticides for locked outdoor bait stations, if at all.
Why are my traps catching nothing?
Rats fear new objects and often ignore traps for up to two weeks. Leave traps unset and baited for several days so rats learn they are safe, use more traps than feels necessary, and set them perpendicular to walls along travel routes.
How small a gap can a rat fit through?
A rat needs a gap just over half an inch. Seal every opening larger than a quarter inch anyway, since that also stops mice, with hardware cloth, steel wool and metal flashing rather than foam or caulk alone.
When should I call a professional for rats?
Call a pro for nesting inside walls or attics, burrows under foundations, chewed wiring, new droppings after two weeks of correct trapping, or any roof rat activity you cannot reach. Pros find hidden entries and warrant their exclusion work.
Useful links (3)
- University of Nebraska Extension G1737: Controlling Rats— extensionpublications.unl.edu
- UGA IPM: Rats and Mice, Get Them Out of Your House and Yard— ipm.uga.edu
- San Diego County Vector Control: Rodent Exclusion and Control— sandiegocounty.gov
Photo credits
Thank you to G. Scott Segler and Evan-Amos for sharing these beautiful photographs and helping bring this guide to life.
