Rodent Control in McKinney

Roof Rats in the Attic, Mice at the Weep Holes: McKinney's Two Rodent Calls

Almost every rodent call we take from a McKinney address is one of two things. The first is a roof rat in the attic of an established neighborhood, somewhere the live oaks and cedar elms have had twenty years to reach the roofline: Stonebridge Ranch, Eldorado, the older streets between the square and Wilson Creek. The second is house mice coming through the weep holes in the brick of a 1990s or 2000s slab home, usually noticed in the garage or under the kitchen sink in November. 

Norway rats are the third call, and they keep to the creek corridors and the alleys around downtown. We've handled all three from our Plano office, about twenty-five minutes down Central Expressway, since 1984.

The approach is the same for each: find where it's getting in, seal that properly, remove what's already inside, and come back to confirm. Call (972) 945-9226 or reach out online, and the first visit is an inspection with a written price, not a sales pitch.

The Noise You Heard Last Night

It starts about twenty minutes after dark. A scratching, or a light, quick scurry, in the ceiling over the bedroom or the hallway. You go up the attic ladder with a flashlight and it stops. You come down and it starts again. That is a roof rat, and it is the single most common rodent complaint in McKinney between October and February.

Before you call anyone, take five minutes and check these, because the answers change what we quote.

• Walk the outside at dusk and look at the roofline. Any limb touching the roof, any gable vent with the screen pushed in, any gap where the fascia meets the roof deck. That's the route in nine times out of ten.
• Look along the top rail of the back fence and under the pecan or the live oak. Half-eaten pecans, chewed acorns and snail shells lined up in one spot mean rats are feeding there at night.
• Check the garage floor along the walls and behind the water heater for droppings. Rice-sized and tapered is a mouse. Olive-pit sized with blunt ends is a rat.
• Run your hand along the bottom course of brick outside. The gaps every couple of feet are weep holes. If you can see daylight through one from inside the garage, mice can use it.

If you found droppings in the attic and a limb on the roof, you have roof rats and it's a call. If you found droppings only in the garage and no limb on the roof, it's probably mice through the weep holes, which is a smaller job. If you found nothing at all, it may have been a squirrel in the daytime, and we handle those too.

How We Get Rodents Out & Keep Them Out

Exclusion first, then removal, then a follow-up. That order matters, and we'll explain why on the first visit.

• Inspection and entry map. A state-certified technician walks the roofline, the fence lines, the foundation and the weep holes, then the attic and the garage, and marks every entry on a diagram you keep. On a McKinney slab home that is usually the weep holes, the gap at the garage door bottom seal, and one or two spots at the roofline.
• Sealing. Weep holes get covers that vent moisture and block mice; they must never be mortared shut. Roofline gaps get metal flashing or hardware cloth, not foam, because rats chew foam by morning.
• Removal. Traps go where the rodents already travel: along the top plate in the attic, behind the water heater, on the runway a rat uses along a fence. We set them, check them and clear them ourselves. We don't put poison bait inside a McKinney attic, because a rat that dies in a wall void in July is a smell you'll live with for weeks.
• Follow-up. We come back, check the traps and the seals, and confirm the attic has gone quiet. If it hasn't, we find the entry we missed, at no extra charge.

Here's the honest part: sealing without removal traps rats inside the walls, and removal without sealing means the next family moves in from the same live oak within a month. We do both, and we'll show you every entry we found.