Rat Facts

• The oils in cedar and pine are toxic to rats.
• Rats have poor vision. To compensate for this, a red or pink eyed rat will often weave its head side to side to add "motion" to see better. They also don't see in color.
• With lack of sight rats have a very keen sense of smell, taste, hearing, and touch.
• Adults are sexually mature in two to five months.
• Females produce three to six litters per year, each averaging seven to eight young.
• Adults live from six to twelve months.
• Rats transmit Murine typhus fever, rat bite fever, salmonellosis or bacterial food poisoning, Weils disease or leptospirosis and trichinosis, melioidosid, brucellosis, tuberculosis, pasteurellosis, rickettsial diseases, and viral diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease. Norway rats can also carry the rabies virus.
• The Norway rat and the roof rat are not native North American species. They traveled to the new world with the first explorers. The two species quickly invaded the continent because of their adaptability and fertility.
• Norway rats are found throughout the United States while roof rats primarily inhabit southeastern, Gulf Coast and southwestern states.
• Rats memorize their environment by body and muscle movement alone. They become so engrained by body movements that when objects are removed from their territory, rats will continue to move around them as if the objects where still there.
• Many times roof rats live in the upper stories of buildings, while Norway rats occupy the basement and first floor of the same building.
• Rats always travel the same runways and leave "smudge marks" - a buildup of dirt and oil from their fur - along walls, pipes, gnawed openings and beams and rafters.
• Rats constantly leave droppings. Fresh droppings are dark in color and soft in texture, but after three days they harden and lose the dark color.

Ant Facts

• The average life expectancy of an ant is 45-60 days.


• Like all insects, ants have six legs. Each leg has three joints.


• They have three sections to there body. Head, Thorax, Abdomen


• The ant has two eyes, each eye is made of many smaller eyes. They are called compound eyes.


• An ant can lift 20 times its own body weight.


• There are more than 12,000 species of ants all over the world.


• Ants don’t have lungs. Oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body and carbon dioxide leaves through the same holes.


• Queen ants have wings, which they shed when they start a new nest.


• Some queen ants can live for many years and have millions of babies.


• The job of the queen is to lay eggs which the worker ants look after.


• Worker ants are sterile, they look for food, look after the young, and defend the nest from unwanted visitors.


• There are three kinds of ants in a colony: The queen, the female workers, and males.


• The queen and the males have wings, while the workers don’t have wings. The queen is the only ant that can lay eggs.


• The male ant’s job is to matewith future queen ants and they do not live very long afterwards.


• Once the queen grows to adulthood, she spends the rest of her life laying eggs! Depending on the species, a colony may have one queen or many queens.


• Many ants such as the common Red species have a sting which they use to defend their nest.


• The common Black Ants and Wood Ants have no sting, but they can squirt a spray of formic acid. Some birds put ants in their feathers because the ants squirt formic acid which gets rid of the parasites.

Mice Facts

• There are several different species of mice of which some of them are deer, white-footed, and the house mouse.
• The house mouse is the most common of the species, weighing 1/2 to 1 ounce.
• The body is three to four inches long and the tail is three to four inches long as well.
• The muzzle is pointed, the ears are large, the eyes and body are small.
• Adult droppings are 1/8- to 1/4- inch long and rod-shaped with pointed ends.
• The female house mouse reaches sexual maturity in 35 days and averages eight litters per year, each of which averages six young.
• They typically produce their largesr litters in the sring, depending on climatic conditions and begin to breed at five to six weeks of age.
• There life span is one year.
• They are good climbers, jump 12 inches high, can jump down from eight feet, and can easily squeeze through holes and gaps wider than 1/4-inch.
• House mice prefer to nest in dark secluded areas where there is little chance of disturbance, and in areas where nesting materials, such as paper, cardboard, attic insulation, cotton, etc., are easily available.
• They will go no more than 20 feet for food; however, if enough food is nearby they nest within four to five feet.
• They nibble on food, preferring items such as seeds and cereals.
• The major health risk associated with house mice are salmonella contamination and leptospirosis.

Cockroach Facts

• There are are eight different species or cockroaches, american, brown-banded, brown, german, oriental, pennsylvania wood, smoky brown, and surinam.
• German cockroaches are the most commom household insect within the United States.
• Mature german cockroaches are 1/2 to 5/8- inches long, have a light brown tan, and have fully developed wings.
• The nymphs, 1/8-inch long when they emerge from the egg capsule, are almost uniformly dark except for a light tan area on the back of the second and third segments.
• The purse-shaped egg capsule of the german cockroach (i.e., ootheca) is light brown in color, 1/4- to 3/8-inch long, and typically has 15 to 20 eggs per side.
• During her lifetime, the female german cockroach produces four to eight egg capsules eachof which contains 30 to 40 eggs.
• Nymphs molt six to seven times before becoming adult, which requires about 103 days; thus allowing three to four generations per year.
• Adults live 100 to 200 days.
• German cockroaches typically infest kitchens and bathrooms but will live anywhere inside heated structures in which there is food, water, and harborage.
• German cockroaches feed on all types of human food, as well as on pet food, toothpaste, soap, glue, etc.
• German cockroaches remain hidden in dark, secluded harborage areas, e.g., under cupboards, behind cabinets, in wall voids, and around motor housings in appliances where they spend 75% of there time
• Sightings of foraging cockroaches during the day is a good indication that there is a tremendous population.

Bed Bug Facts

• Adult bed bugs are about 1/8-inch long with reddish-brown, oval flattened bodies. The nymphs resemble the adults but are smalles and somewhat lighter in color.


• Bed bugs feed solely on the blood of animals. The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, prefers feeding on humans, but will also bite other warm-blooded animals, including pets.


• They feed by piercing the skin with an elongated beak. The person seldom knows they have been bitten. Bite symptoms vary from an itchy welt or localized swelling to little or no reaction.


• Bed bugs do not fly but can move rapidly over floors, walls, ceilings and other surfaces. If necessary, they will crawl more than 100 feet to obtain a blood meal.


• Female bed bugs lay their eggsin secluded areas, depositing up to five a day and up to 500 during a lifetime.


• The eggs are whitish and hard to see on most surfaces without magnification. Individual eggs are about the size of a dust speck. When first laid, the eggs are sticky, causing them to adhere to whatever the surrounding they are in.


• Newly hatched nymphs are no bigger than a pin head. As they grow, they shed their skin five times before reaching maturity. A blood meal is needed between each successive molt.


• Under favorable conditions ( 70*F to 90*F), the bugs can complete development in as little as a month, producing three or more generations per year.


• Nymphs can survive months without feeding and the adults for more than a year. Infestations are therefore unlikely to diminish by leaving the premises unoccupied.


• Bed bugs are active mainly at night. During the daytime they prefer to hide close to where people sleep.


• Bed bugs do not have nest like ants or bees but do tend to congregate in habitual hiding places. Typically these areas are marked by dark spotting and staining. Also present will be eggs and eggshells, and molted skins of maturing nymphs.