Rats are not just as dangerous as an infestation, they can also be an even bigger danger once they are dead. This may sound strange but rats are the most destructive pest that can be imagined.
When they die they void their bowels which make a big mess and they also rot for a long time. They have a massive amount of water in their bodies and need to drink water every day while mice and almost no water content and can go for years without drinking water. When a mouse dies it dries out and desiccates unless it died somewhere wet in which case it will smell bad. When a rat dies in a wall the effects are truly horrific. The rat has so much water in them that they rot, slowly, and for days. There will be a reddish-brown stain on your wall that cannot be washed off and the smell will be so incredibly strong that you will have to have the walls torn down so the rat corpses can be removed. This is the primary reason professional rodent technicians will use snap traps exclusively to catch rats on the interior of a structure. Poison can be used for mice, especially commercial grade rodenticide which actively desiccates them so they do not smell at all after death but this process does not work on rats as well as it does on mice. Exterior rats can be treated with poison but on the interior, the risk of them getting into the walls and dying is far too severe.
If you have had a serious rat infestation and you are still smelling the scent of rat urine which smells strongly of ammonia then there is a good chance that rats have died inside if your walls or attic. This is something professional exterminators try desperately to avoid. Unlike mice rats do not dry up and desiccate, they need a lot of water to survive and when they die they rot for a long time and create horrifying smells. When they die they also evacuate their bowels this can be a serious issue in your home. The alternative is that your attic insulation is filled with urine and feces. The feces does not smell as much but the urine smell is very potent.
Tearing down walls and remediating your attic are very costly endeavours that usually go up to ten thousand dollars in repairs and remodelling. The house would have to be torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up to ensure there are no more rats in the walls.
So if you have a rat infestation call a professional rodent control company straight away, do not wait even for a moment. Every second is a second where a rat could die in your walls, and one is already far too much.
