Rat Control in Overland Park, Kansas

Rats are a smaller share of our calls than mice, but you don't miss them when they show up. What you'll see in Johnson County is the Norway rat. It's heavy, it's brown and it's a digger. Burrows turn up under concrete pads, along foundations and beneath sheds and decks. If the droppings you're finding are small like grains of rice, start with mouse control instead.

Rats need food and water close by. In Overland Park that usually means a lot that backs onto a drainage channel or creek, an open compost pile, a bird feeder throwing seed all day, or a restaurant dumpster behind a strip center on Metcalf or 95th. Our guide to creek lots and bird feeders covers the yard side of it.

How You Know It's Rats and Not Mice

The burrow is the giveaway. Mice don't dig like that. Look along the foundation, under the shed and at the edge of the patio slab for round holes, usually 2 to 4 inches across, with packed dirt worn smooth at the opening. Other signs:

• Droppings about the size of a raisin or bigger
• A smooth path worn through the grass along the fence
• Greasy rub marks along a garage wall or slab edge
• Gnawed holes in a shed door, trash bin or feed bag
• Thumping or scratching in the garage or crawl space at night

Where Norway Rats Hang Out Between Johnson Dr. and 135th

Rats follow food and cover. The older retail strips and the houses behind them, like around Johnson Dr. in Mission and Merriam, get more rat calls than the newer suburbs. So do yards near the restaurants along College Boulevard. Out back, it's usually the creek: Indian Creek, Tomahawk Creek, or one of the smaller drainage ways running behind a whole row of houses. A shed on a dirt base twenty feet from a creek bank is about the best rat housing there is.

If you run a restaurant or a grocery, commercial rodent programs are the usual answer, with locked stations around the building and a service log. Homeowners near the older storefronts on Santa Fe Dr. downtown should keep an eye on their sheds and slab edges, since rats behind the shops travel the alleys.

Why Rat Jobs Usually Take a Few Visits

Rats are cautious. They'll walk around anything new for days before they touch it, so the first week can look slow. That's normal. The technician sets traps and, if bait is part of the plan, locked tamper-resistant stations anchored in place. Never loose bait in a burrow. Burrows get watched and closed once they go quiet, and anything letting rats into the garage or crawl space gets closed with metal and mesh as part of exclusion work. Yards along Tomahawk Creek in Leawood see this pattern a lot.

Meanwhile, take the food away. Rake up fallen seed, lock the trash lids, bring the dog food in at night and get the firewood up off the ground. If you keep chickens, the feed goes in a metal can. Please don't fill in burrows before the tech sees them, because open holes tell them how big the problem is. If rats are using the shed as home base, the garage and shed page has the fixes that matter most.

Cost depends on how many burrows there are, whether rats are inside or only in the yard, and how many follow-up visits it takes. The company quotes it after seeing the property. If rats got under the house, ask about crawl space cleanup once they're gone.

Related: Rodent Exclusion and Sealing, Garage and Shed Rodents, Commercial Rodent Control

Serving Downtown Overland Park, North Overland Park, South Overland Park and Blue Valley, Corporate Woods and College Blvd, Leawood, Lenexa, Olathe, Prairie Village, Shawnee, Mission and Merriam.