★★★★★
"Polite and very thorough also knowledgeable of what needed to be done"
Rat Exterminator in North Texas
Noises in the attic rarely fix themselves. Forterra is the rat exterminator North Texas homeowners call to seal entries first, trap what is left inside within about a week, and maintain secured exterior stations quarterly.
Starting at
$49/mo
Free quote · Flexible contract · 100% money-back guarantee · 60 seconds online
◉ Rodent Control · Attic
Rat trap placement
in progress
in progress
Seal-first protocol
Overview What is Forterra's rat control service?
Forterra Rat Control starts with a free interior inspection, then runs the order that actually ends infestations, entry points sealed shut first, trapping for whatever got closed inside (about a week for most homes), then secured exterior stations serviced every quarter. Roof rats and Norway rats enter differently, so the inspection maps rooflines and low penetrations alike before anything is priced. Exclusion is quoted per home, typically $500 to $3,000 by roofline and construction. Money-back guarantee, TPCL #850046.
Reviews
2,900+ five-star reviews.
All public. All verifiable.
★★★★★
"Cody did an excellent job, very happy with the communication and results."
★★★★★
"Caroline was very thorough and professional."
★★★★★
"Ryan did a great job.Thanks"
★★★★★
"As first-time Forterra customers, we are very pleased with our overall experience. From the initial informative phone call and prompt appointment scheduling to the hassle-free service itself, the entire process was seamless, with proactive communication throughout. Our technician, Allen Sterling, arrived promptly and was both friendly and professional. He was also happy to accommodate my request to leave our house key with a neighbor so they could lock up afterward, which I greatly appreciated. We look forward to our next scheduled service. Thank you, Forterra, for such a positive first experience!"
★★★★★
"Fortera always does a thorough job. I highly recommend. Caroline serviced us this time, she took her time, she did a complete job, and she was very pleasant to speak with."
Service area
Rat exclusion, three home bases.
Free interior inspections book fastest when the office is close. Southlake, Dallas and Aubrey each keep exclusion crews on local rotation.
ON THE ROAD
You'll spot our trucks across DFW, branded and driven by our own licensed W-2 technicians. All of our trucks have cameras and GPS devices installed because we take careful driving as seriously as we take pests.
HQ Southlake
Forterra Pest Control
935 S Kimball Ave Ste. 162
Southlake, TX 76092
Serving: Southlake, Grapevine, Colleyville, Keller, Trophy Club, Westlake, Roanoke, Fort Worth, Arlington, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, Watauga, and more
Pest control in Southlake, TX → 2 Dallas
Forterra Pest Control
8300 Douglas Ave Ste. 800 - #802
Dallas, TX 75225
Serving: Dallas, Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow, Lakewood, Richardson, Plano, Sunnyvale, Forney, Addison, and more
Pest control in Dallas, TX → 3 Aubrey
Forterra Pest Control
9053 Ike Byrom Rd Ste 2C
Aubrey, TX 76227
Serving: Aubrey, Prosper, Frisco, Celina, Little Elm, Providence Village, Cross Roads, Flower Mound, Lewisville, Justin, Highland Village, Denton and more
Pest control in Aubrey, TX → Know what you're seeing
Signs it's rats, not mice or the house settling.
Rats are cautious and mostly nocturnal, so you will hear and find evidence long before you see one. These four signs also tell us which rat you have.
01
Droppings you can measure
Rat droppings run half an inch to three quarters, blunt-ended for Norway rats, pointed and curved for roof rats. Mouse droppings are rice-sized. The trapping plan stays the same either way; the difference tells us where to look, so leave them for the inspection.
Look here Attic decking · garage corners · pantry floors
02
Gnaw marks and chewed wiring
Rat incisors grow continuously, so rats gnaw hard materials to wear them down, wood framing, plastic pipes, and the insulation on electrical wiring. Chewed wiring in an attic is a fire hazard, not just a pest problem.
Look here Attic wiring · pipe runs · joist edges
03
Grease marks along runways
Rats run the same routes nightly, hugging walls and pipes, and their oily fur leaves dark rub marks along those paths. A visible grease trail means an established population commuting through your home.
Look here Along baseboards · rafters · pipe penetrations
04
Noises after dark
Scratching, scurrying or gnawing overhead in the first hours after dusk points to roof rats in the attic. The same sounds from under floors or inside lower walls point to Norway rats working up from the foundation.
Look here Attic · wall voids · under floors
Spotted any of these? Get your exact price online in about 60 seconds, or call the office and we will take it from there. See my price →
Roof rat or Norway
Two DFW rats, two opposite break-ins.
Roof rats attack from the roofline, Norway rats from the foundation. Identification decides where the traps and the sealing work go.
FROM ABOVE Roof rat
13 to 18 in with tail
- Behavior
- Sleek, black-brown, tail longer than its body, the DFW default. Travels fence lines and tree limbs, enters at ridge vents, gable vents and soffit gaps, and nests in attics.
- What makes them tricky
- It lives overhead. Traps go in the attic where droppings and rub marks point. The roofline gets sealed too, or the next rat rides the scent trail.
- How we approach them
-
- Attic and roofline trapping on the runways
- Ridge, gable and soffit entries sealed shut
- Fence-line and tree-limb routes noted for trimming
FROM BELOW Norway rat
16 to 20 in with tail
- Behavior
- Heavier and blunter, tail shorter than the body. Burrows along foundations, enters low, utility penetrations, HVAC line gaps, garage doors, crawl spaces. Weep holes usually run too small for it.
- What makes them tricky
- Its burrow network sits outside the house, so indoor-only treatment just harvests visitors. Control means trapping the routes and closing every ground-level gap, weep holes included.
- How we approach them
-
- Ground-level trapping along the foundation
- Weep holes screened, utility gaps mortared
- Burrow activity tracked to the source
Why we seal first
Seal the way in, then trap what is left.
Trapping rats without sealing the building is a subscription to more rats. We seal the building first, then trap to clear the house, and exterior bait stations keep the outside pressure down between visits.
Stage 01
01
Seal entries
The building gets closed first. That is the fix.
Every entry route from the inspection gets sealed shut with the right material for each opening. Sealing first makes the problem finite. Whatever is still inside is all we have to remove, and trap-shy rats have nowhere left to rotate to.
Stage 02
02
Trap inside
Whatever was sealed inside gets trapped out.
Traps go where the activity is actually seen, on the runs and rub marks, in secured stations wherever kids, pets or people could reach them. With the routes closed, most homes go quiet in about a week.
Stage 03
03
Maintain outside
Exterior bait stations keep the pressure down.
Bait is a maintenance tool, not a shortcut, tamper-resistant stations on the exterior reduce the surrounding population before it ever finds a new gap, checked and refreshed on the quarterly visit.
Photo: David Dance, Forterra
Why exclusion matters, David Dance, Forterra
"You can pay somebody to trap rats in your attic every quarter forever, or you can pay once to seal the building and stop the problem at the source. Trapping is somebody else's recurring revenue. Exclusion is the actual fix. We do exclusion because it's the part that holds, the rats either find a way in or they don't, and our work is what decides that."
David Dance Owner · Commercial Certified Applicator · TPCL #850046
Ready when you are. Real prices online in about 60 seconds, phones answered 24/7.
Where rats actually get in
Roof rats above, Norway rats below.
The rat inspection splits the house horizontally. Roof rats work the top four points, Norway rats the bottom, and the sealing plan follows whichever evidence we find.
● Inspected entry point
▲ Above grade Climbers and high entries
▼ Below grade Ground-level entries
- 01
Roof and ridge vents
The roof rat's front door, worn flashing at ridge vents, reached by fence-top and tree-limb.
- 02
Gable vents
Chewed screens here mean attic nesting; re-screened with hardware cloth after trapping.
- 03
Soffit and fascia gaps
The roofline seam opens with age; sealed in metal, not foam a rat chews through.
- 04
Roofline junctions
Dormer and chimney flashings are the climbing highway's on-ramps.
- 05
Garage door bottom
Norway rats walk under worn seals at night; replaced with rodent-resistant sweeps.
- 06
Sewer and utility penetrations
The Norway rat's route, slab gaps at plumbing, sealed shut and mortared.
The rat job
Forterra's rat process, step by step.
Rats are the exception to quote-first. The interior inspection is free, and the exact trap and sealing price follows it in writing.
- 01
Free interior inspection
Attic, roofline, foundation and garage. We identify the species from droppings and gnaw evidence, map the runways and find every entry point.
- 02
Transparent quote
Species, trap plan, sealing work and exact price before anything starts. Trapping and exclusion are itemized separately so you can see what each costs.
- 03
Seal and trap
Sealing comes first. Every entry route closed with the right material for its opening. Traps then work the active runways inside, cleared and repositioned until the house goes quiet. No rats dying in your walls.
- 04
Ongoing monitoring
Exterior bait stations keep the surrounding population down, checked and refreshed on the quarterly General Pest plan. The sealed routes stay guaranteed, rats back through a sealed route, we come back free.
Frequently asked
Questions, answered plainly.
If you don't see yours, call (817) 665-6527 or text us, a human will answer.
In DFW, an attic rat is almost always a roof rat. They travel fence tops and tree limbs, enter at ridge vents, gable vents and soffit gaps, and nest in insulation. Norway rats, the other local species, stay low, burrowing along foundations. Noise overhead after dusk plus curved, pointed droppings confirms roof rats.
Poison and traps do different jobs. Inside the house, trapping is the tool. It removes the animal where you can retrieve it. Poison earns its keep outside, in locked tamper-resistant stations, as ongoing maintenance that keeps the surrounding population low. One is removal, the other is pressure control, and a real program uses each where it belongs.
It depends on the order. Trapping first sometimes gets lucky with one or two rats, but they are smart. Once traps read as danger they get avoided, and open holes replace every catch with a new arrival. Sealing everything first, then trapping whatever is stuck inside, is the fastest and most reliable way, and it typically takes about a week.
They will try. That is exactly why the work happens in this order. The entry points get sealed so they cannot get back inside, and exterior bait stations stay maintained on the quarterly visit to keep the outside population down. The sealed routes are guaranteed, and if rats break back through a sealed point, we come back free.
The trapping program and the exclusion work are quoted separately once the free inspection wraps, and most full exclusion jobs in DFW land between $500 and $3,000 depending on the roofline and the number of entry points. You see the exact number, itemized, before any work starts.
Near you
Rat Exterminator, city by city.
Rat problems by city, coverage, the responsible office, and the seal-first plan applied to local housing stock.
Ready when you are
Start at $49/mo.
Quote in 60 seconds.
No phone call. No credit card up front. See the real price for your home, pick a start date, and a technician will be at your door in about two business days.
TX LicensedTPCL #850046
5.0 ★ · 2,900+ reviewsGoogle verified
100% money-backForterra Guarantee
BBB A+Rated
Starting at $49/mo
- ✓Quarterly Zero Gap treatment
- ✓50+ pests covered
- ✓Free re-treats between visits
- ✓Licensed W-2 technicians, never subcontractors
- ✓Flexible contracts
- ✓Money-back guarantee
Typical DFW home, 2,000–3,000 sq ft. Your price may vary.