RATS!

Just one bite - buy a lot of it.

Bait stations and BlueMax blocks inside. Links below..

If you have any branches touching your house, remove them. They hate the scent of peppermint oil. You can buy it online cheap and pour it in a cup and place it in your attic in a few spots. It does evaporate over time. That’s the main ingredient in the sprays and shake away packets.

Coworker had a similar issue with squirrels and a company went out for $4,500 and did what you were quoted. Also in the Lafayette area, house size matters of course.

Bait Station

Bait

An old house in my subdivision was torn down and everyone suddenly had rats.
Big Ones.
I went to one of those do it yourself pest extermination places and loaded up on sticky traps and poison. Then I foamed and caulked all the holes I could find.
I managed to get rid of all of them. On the negative side, a few died where I could never find them. Holy crap the smell. Good luck on that.

Tons of turds and tunnels throughout the attic and insulation and they chewed through a few of the HVAC ducts.
We only were alerted to it when we heard some scratching in the wall which made me go investigate upstairs

High Frequency - Amazon

You will need to do research to see which one to buy, but I am a firm believer in these devices. Had a client whose office was in his horse barn next to the place he stores his horse feed. He used these to keep rodents away.

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Steel wool in entry points keeps them from chewing. Tried and true technique from the French quarter

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I've stuffed in SW and then shoved the nozzle of a spray foam can into it and let it rip. Steel reinforced sprayfoam.

OP needs to concentrate on sealing them off from getting in. People like to say its impossible to seal rodents out but I've done it on several houses. Just make sure you kill them all before sealing or they chew their way back in somewhere.

Just get a headlamp and methodically go around house checking and sealing. Sometimes some carpentry/siding work must be done if gaps are particularly problematic.

Bottom line is you CANNOT tolerate rodents in your home. They are incredibly destructive.

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Just one bite - buy a lot of it.

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Probably once a year we would get mice and it drove me insane. Found out about Just one bite and haven’t had any since.

Definitely a scam… send that fricker packing. Stop up every hole larger than a pencil.

The bad news for you is if you have attic trails you probably have 15-20 rats around. So you need to prepare yourself for a battle. I'm no professional but I've had this issue 3-4 times in my own home or rentals.

You can easily do this for $200-300 at most. Go on DIY pest control. There's a lot of good poison out there. Do you have kids? Dogs? If so be careful with the poison. You can buy the kid proof/ dog proof boxes for about $25 each.

I like to put peanut butter on the poison, a lot of the poisons include scent/ bait already but I find the peanut butter really helps.

They seem to get smart to certain traps, so I'd get 5-6 snap traps, a couple poison boxes, and then I really like the HavAHeart live traps also. You just gotta kill them once they go in there or release them a long way away, I just shoot them in the head with a BB gun.

Chances are they are living in your attic, so I've never been a huge fan of covering up the holes until you kill them all out of your house first.

But you want to kill them all first, then keep traps around for a bit, keep poison around basically forever, and then patch your holes they are getting into your house by.

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Do you have kids? Dogs? If so be careful with the poison.

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Exactly. That’s why the bait boxes I posted a link to have the wire pins. You slide the Bluemax blocks over it and once closed they can’t take the block out with them. Also, the bluemax causes internal hemoraging, which in turn makes them thirsty. They typically leave the area to find water. So more times than not they don’t die inside your house.