‘Riddled with rats’: New Vernon company getting into a growing industry

North Okanagan resident Caylen Klassen spends most of his time in dark, cramped spaces in houses searching for holes as small as half an inch in diameter.

He and his friend Drayson Netzelwood own Vernon Rat Experts, a business the pair started less than a year ago to tackle growing rat populations wreaking havoc in homes in the Okanagan Valley and Shuswap.

“Drayson was dealing with rats in his house and local companies couldn’t seem to be able to get them out and permanently fix the problem,” Klassen said. “He approached me about starting the business to deal with the issue plaguing a lot of people in the valley.”

These rat experts don’t use bait or traps, instead they crawl into tiny spaces, often underneath houses, to find the smallest entry points and seal them up with mesh wire and stainless steel screens to prevent the rats from returning.

“I show up to homes and there are bait boxes outside of an entry point so the rats go into the bait box, take the poison and then we find carcasses inside the building,” Klassen said. “Often time clients are complaining about a bad smell. We think bait boxes and poison is a waste of money and isn’t protecting homes or health. Rats reproduce so quickly the bait boxes are not keeping up with populations.”

The two species of rats causing problems across the province are the Norway rat and roof rat and it isn’t news their populations have been increasing over the years. The province of Alberta has a rat free policy where if a rat sighting is reported, a control staff member will remove it, but that policy doesn’t exist in BC.

A breeding pair of rats can produce more than 900 offspring per year. They can carry and spread a variety of diseases and cause expensive damage to buildings.

“We sealed a home where the owner was using bait boxes for years and the rats eventually avoided them and ended up chewing through her plumbing pipe and electrical lines. She paid to remove her drywall and had to hire a plumber and electrician for repairs.”

Once a home is completely sealed, the rat experts monitor the structure for roughly two weeks until it is considered rodent-free. If the rats come back, the experts come back free of charge, but Klassen said sealing homes is highly successful.

“Rats whisk the air with their whiskers for drafts and scents and when they feel a draft they’ll follow it to the hole. If the hole isn’t big enough to squeeze through, the rats chew it big enough. We seal up entry points to stop the draft. Rats want to be safe, they won’t sit in the wide open chewing a new hole, they’ll find an easier way to get in or move on.”

Klassen and Netzelwood didn’t have experience at rat removal when they started the dirty the job that requires crawling under patios and decks and underneath mobile and modular homes among creatures that most people are afraid of. They researched similar rat removal practises in the states and rolled up their sleeves.

“It’s a disgusting job and a lot of it has been about just manning up and getting under there, but we absolutely love it,” Klassen said. “When we started, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into, but the reward of bringing peace into a home that has been filled with chaos and helping protect a family’s investment is well worth it.”

Part of the job is educating homeowners on removing rat attractants from properties, such as bird feed, compost and water sources.

Vernon Rat Experts cover the Okanagan Valley from West Kelowna to the North Okanagan and beyond to parts of the Shuswap with plans to expand into Kamloops, cities Klassen said are riddled with rats.