Rats are a part of life whether you live in the country or the city. They can be even more bothersome in the city since they nest so close to homes and often break into attics and crawlspaces. There are many things you can do to keep rats out of your house and make them less interested in your property. One of them is to maintain the trees on your property. Here's how proper tree care helps keep rats under control.

Trimmed Branches Keep Rats Off The Roof

Rats are expert climbers, and they will climb up trees and jump onto your roof if they can. Once they get on your roof, they may claw and gnaw until they find a way to get inside your attic. One way to keep these rats off your roof is to make it hard for them to climb up there. Hire a tree service to trim branches and remove limbs that create rat highways to your roof. As an added benefit, you'll reduce roof damage caused by the branches scraping your shingles.

Pruned Fruit Trees Keep Rats Away From Your Fruit

The same rats that love to climb high places and get on your roof also love to eat the fruit and bark of fruit trees. These rats are known as roof rats and fruit rats because they target these two areas of your property. One way to keep them from destroying your fruit trees is to put guards around the trunks that keep the rats from climbing up the trees. Next, you'll want to keep up with pruning the trees to train the branches to grow in a way that the rats can't jump onto them from a high place. Trimming branches helps too as this will keep rats from running treetop to treetop if the branches aren't close enough.

A tree service can help maintain your trees so rats can't use them to their advantage. Another reason to hire a tree service to cut down limbs and branches is, so the debris gets hauled away immediately. If you don't have a way to get rid of branches you cut down yourself, they may pile up in the yard and create a haven for rats to nest in and reproduce. These steps alone won't eliminate rats or prevent them from bothering your property, but when implemented along with other rat control efforts, they may keep the pests out of your attic and away from your fruit trees.

For more information, contact a company like Hudson & Sons Tree Service.