Will the city or county animal services help me with a rat issue?

It is important to remember that most county animal services no longer provide assistance in cases involving wild animals and wildlife management. If you have a wildlife problem, need to get rid of wildlife, need an exterminator or exterminating company, or if you require pest control, critter trapping, traps or wild animal prevention for your home or property, you should call a privately owned wildlife removal company.

No, government animal control entities, such as city or county animal services, only deal with domestic animals – dogs and cats. This includes things like bite reports, pet abuse complaints, barking or dangerous dogs, etc. It's true that certain government services used to help with select wildlife cases, but they did NOT perform true professional wildlife control. For example, if you had a raccoon in your attic, the county might lend you a cage trap to put on the ground, then pick up the raccoon and trap once it's caught.

They wouldn't inspect the attic; they wouldn't tell you about the ducts that were torn open; they wouldn't remove the litter of baby raccoons by hand; they wouldn't set a professional type trap on the roof near the entry hole; they wouldn't seal the hole shut after the raccoons were removed; they wouldn't identify vulnerable areas on the roof and do preventative sealing; they wouldn't clean the raccoon waste, etc. Wildlife control is a complex and specialized field requiring a lot of work and dedication. Even if the county animal services were willing to help with wildlife issues, they wouldn't do close to a complete job. Regardless, the city/county won't help, and wildlife control is now in the hands of the private pest control sector, and thus service has drastically improved!

Go back to the How to Get Rid of Rats page or email us if you have any other questions about Will the city or county animal services help me with a rat issue?