Rodent Removal in Poinsettia Heights

Poinsettia Heights hands a roof rat three things at once: tree limbs against the roof, sixty-year-old soffit and fascia at the eave, and a river bank to live along when the attic is closed. The neighborhood sits north of Sunrise Boulevard and west of Federal Highway, with the Middle River as its northern boundary and Lake Melva at the east end. The civic association's own history records that the tract was built by Gill Construction right after the Second World War as housing for returning servicemen, and that most of the single-family stock dates from the 1950s and 1960s.

Those houses were built small and plain: concrete block or frame, low hip or gable roofs, wide overhangs with screened soffit vents, and a carport or a one-car garage that has often been enclosed since. Many still carry the original aluminum or fiber-mesh soffit screens, which have had sixty summers of sun and salt air to tear and pull loose. A torn screen over a soffit vent is a doorway, and the roof rat treats it as one.

The canopy has had the same sixty years to grow. Streets here run under live oak, black olive, mahogany and ficus, with mango, avocado and citrus in the back yards and palms along the lot lines. Any limb or frond within about six feet of the roofline is a bridge. Roof rats are arboreal by UF/IFAS's description, moving along branches, wires and palm trunks, so the walk from the neighbor's mango to your fascia is a short one.

The eave is where most Poinsettia Heights infestations start, because the eave is where the oldest and weakest materials on the house are. A ladder walk of the full perimeter finds the openings; the attic finds the evidence. Openings a quarter inch and larger are the ones that matter, since UF/IFAS gives a quarter inch as the rat-proofing standard.

• Original soffit screens that have torn, rusted or pulled out of their channel
• Fascia boards that have shrunk and split away from the roof deck, opening a slot along the top edge
• Gable vents with a light wire screen chewed through at one corner
• The gap where an enclosed carport or a room addition meets the original roof
• Roof-to-wall joints on houses that have been re-roofed with shingle over the old deck
• The utility side of the house: the AC line set, the cable entry and the electrical mast
• A tile eave on the houses that were re-roofed in barrel tile, where the bird stop is missing or corroded

The rear of a lot on the northern streets deserves its own look. Properties that back onto the Middle River carry sea walls, docks and a strip of mangrove or hedge along the bank, and that strip is harborage for roof rats and burrow ground for Norway rats. Inspection includes the bank, the dock line and the wall cap along with the roof. Sealing is quoted as its own service under rodent exclusion, and it goes before or alongside the trapping described on the roof rat removal page.

The first call from Poinsettia Heights usually comes after a November cool snap, when an animal that has been in the attic since the summer rains begins to move over the bedroom ceiling at night. The noise is light and quick, it starts within an hour of the house going quiet, and it is a roof rat far more often than a squirrel or a mouse. Hearing it every night and being told by friends that it is nothing takes a toll; the inspection is free, so book it on the first night and settle the question.

The other signs are on the ground and in the yard. Droppings a quarter to half an inch long and pointed at both ends on the garage floor under the attic hatch. Avocados and mangoes on the lawn with a chewed side. Rub marks up a downspout or along a fascia corner. A musky smell in a closet under the attic. Breeding here is year-round, so a pair in the attic in July is a family by the time the cool weather arrives, and UF/IFAS puts a litter at five to eight young with four or five litters a year.

After a storm the calls come faster. Wind lifts shingles and tears loose soffit panels, debris piles in the yard become nests, and the animals move to whatever roof is easiest. A post-storm rodent inspection exists for that window. The state credential for trapping in a structure is an FDACS Limited Commercial Wildlife Management certificate at minimum; every contractor we route holds the FDACS credential the job needs, and the number can be checked with FDACS before work starts. Questions before anyone comes out go through the contact page.