Starving, angry and cannibalistic: America’s rats are getting desperate amid coronavirus pandemic

America's rats are being hit hard by the coronavirus.

As millions of Americans shelter indoors to combat the deadly virus, many businesses — including restaurants and grocery stores — have closed or limited operations, cutting off rats’ main sources for food. On deserted streets across Southern California, rats are in dire survival mode, “Daniel Wheeler, CEO of Wheeler’s Pest Control said.”

"Rats that have been established in the area or somebody's property and they're doing well, the reason they're doing well is because they're eating well," Said Daniel. "Ever since coronavirus broke out, nothing has changed with them, because someone's doing their trash exactly the same in their yard as they've always done it — poorly."

“But other rats are not faring as well”, said Daniel, who Company works in Sothern California.

"All of a sudden a restaurant closes now, which has happened by the hundreds  in not just Temecula and Murrieta but all over Southern California, and those rats that were living by that restaurant, or someplace nearby, and for decades having generations of rats that depended on that restaurant food, well, life is no longer working for them, and they only have a couple of choices."

And those choices are pretty bad. They include cannibalism, rat battles and infanticide.

"It's just like the history of mankind, where one people try to take over lands and they come in with militaries and armies and fight to the death, literally, for who's going to conquer that land. And that's what is happening with rats," Daniel said. "A new 'army' of rats come in, and whichever army has the strongest rats is going to conquer that area."

Rats whose food sources have vanished will not just move into other colonies and cause fights over grub. They will also eat one another.

"They're mammals just like you and I, and so when you're really, you're not going to act the same — you're going to act badly," he said. "So, rats are fighting with one another, the adults are killing the young in the nest and eating the pups."

People of dense urban areas and rural parts of the country have coexisted with these vermin, but the sightings in Temecula and Murrieta have increased in recent weeks because of the pandemic.

In Temecula, where the governor has imposed a stay-at-home order that closed many restaurants, like those in popular tourist areas like Old Town, have seen swarms of rats taking to the streets to find food. And officials said social distancing is to blame.

" We have seen these practices are driving our rats crazy,". "What do rats do, they will find food, and they will find water. That puts our street homeless in dire, dire straits. And that's why Daniel is so laser-focused on it right now."

The city is should be preparing aggressive rat control measures.

"These rats are hungry, so we want them to eat our bait," Daniel said, adding that the city should be " putting a lot of pressure for at least the next month" until the population decreases.

Most big cities already have taken steps to combat rat issues. Many businesses have been shut down but pest control workers have been declared essential. 

Daniel said it will be a "case by case" and "block by block" issue in Temecula. Rats will get desperate, and people might see them near their homes or properties.

"Rats have an acute sense of smell and can pick up molecules of anything that's food-related," Daniel said. "They follow those food molecules like heat-seeking missiles — and eventually you know they end up where those molecules are originating."

Wheeler’s Pest Control can set up a rat control program that will reduce the chances of you having a rat issue. Give us a call at 877-595-2847 to talk about what we can do for you!