THE PRINCIPLES of modern construction of buildings are opposed to
everything conducive to the best interests of the rat. They call for
the liberal use of indestructible and noncombustible materials, as
well-made concrete and steel, and these are too much for even the
sharpest of rodent incisors. They include, also, fire stopping in
double walls and floors and the elimination of all dead spaces and dark
corners, and the rat is left no place in which to hide. They embody
sanitary features that provide for hygienic storage of food, and the
rat can not live without something to eat.
Many men have devoted their lives to a study of methods of rat control,
and as a result countless preparations, devices, and contrivances are
constantly being made available. Trapping, snaring, trailing, flooding,
digging, hunting, ferreting, poisoning, and fumigating are employed,
and rat limes, rat lures, rat repellents, and bacterial viruses are
resorted to, and even antirat laws, local. State, and national, are
constantly being passed in a world-wide effort to conquer this rodent.
These have been important factors in keeping down the surplus, but
all destructive agencies that have been used have utterly failed to
reduce materially the total number of rats in the world. Rat proofing,
however, is at last making definite headway against the age-old enemy
of mankind, and it is upon this that the ultimate solution of the rat
problem will depend.
The destruction of rats for temporary relief and for keeping them under
control in places where rat proofing is not possible or practicable
will always be necessary, and knowledge of the best means of destroying
rats is essential to any rat-control program. Information on poisoning,
trapping, and other means of destroying rats is given in Farmers'
Bulletin 1533, Rat Control. Permanent freedom from rats, however,
should be the goal of everyone troubled with the pests and rat proofing
offers the best means to this end.