Damage Identification

Woodrats prefer to build their nests in rock crevices. If this habitat is not available, woodrats will build nests in brush piles, under fallen trees, around the base of trees, sometimes in the branches of trees. The woodrat packs sticks and twigs to the den for construction.

Woodrats have a peculiar habit of collecting objects, which gives rise to the common names mentioned earlier: the pack rat and the trade rat. These rats pick up many things, particularly shiny or metallic objects such as pop bottle caps, bolts, washers, nails, tin cans, coins and rifle cartridges.

If they happen across something more appealing on their way to their den, they will drop the first object and pick up or trade for the second object.

If a person were to dissect a woodrat house in the autumn, he or she would find that woodrats generally segregate the items they collect. One woodrat house yielded more than 2 gallons of hazel nuts, 1 ½ gallons of wild grapes, a quart of partly dried mushrooms, between 3 and 4 dozen hickory nuts and a score or more sprays of bittersweet berries.

Urban Woodrat Problems

Most problems involve woodrats moving into barns or outbuildings or into trucks, cars, tractors, combines and other equipment left in one place for some time.

Woodrats also get under mobile homes as well as in crawl spaces or attics and basements of houses. They will often carry tools away and eat the insulation off electrical wiring