Most of us are quite familiar with the kinds of animals that fall into the family of rodents. This includes such things as rats, mice, raccoons, and other kinds of little critters that are known to be quite disruptive to your home.
What separates these critters from many of the others you will find in the animal kingdom is the fact that they have very sharp and elongated front teeth. Think about a squirrel for a moment. This animal has teeth that are perfectly designed for breaking open nuts to be able to eat. This means that its teeth are sharp and can do a great deal of damage.
Squirrels are not the only rodents that have teeth like this. Rats and mice have very similar teeth, and raccoons, possums, and other rodents have sharp teeth as well. This enables them to be able to get open food that they desire to eat and to help them to be able to get through areas that deny them access to food or a place to stay.
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Do more rodents live in urban areas, or wild areas?
Sadly, rodents will find themselves into your home at times. No matter what kind of rodent you are talking about, they are able to actually work their way into the walls or the attic of your home, setting up their own residence so that they have a warm, safe place to stay. If this isn’t bad enough, some worry about the kinds of damage that these animals can cause inside their home. This makes many wonder if rodents chew on wires?
This is a question that is a little more complicated to answer than you may suspect. There are many myths about the fact that rodents will spend hours a day chewing on the plastic or rubber coating around your electrical wires, creating a huge potential fire risk for your home. This has some merit, but is also been blown out of proportion.
Because of the teeth that these animals have they need to gnaw on things to be able to strengthen and protect those teeth. Besides using them to gain access into areas, they will frequently just chew on something so that they strengthen their teeth. This is usually on the wood boards that make the framing of a home, however, you can also mean that they will chew on the electrical wiring as well.
This is most likely to occur when the wiring is directly along the wood area of the home, as it so often is, and is in an area where the rodent is living. If a raccoon, for example, is living in your attic, it is quite unlikely that this animal will chew on the wiring because there is such a large area for it to find more suitable options. However, a rat living in the wall of your home is quite likely to chew on the wiring, because it is right there where the rat is living. This poses a serious fire hazard to your home, and is another reason why you want to ensure you get rid of these critters out of your house as quickly as possible.
Read more:
Rat Control,
Get Rats Out of the Attic,
Rat Trapping,
Rats in the Ceiling,
Rat Feces.
