Drats! Rats are all over this year; jump in rodent population gets homeowners scurrying to exterminator companies.

In early October, exterminator Lee Clifton was called to the house of a Torrance woman who complained about noises in the attic. During his preliminary inspection, Clifton peeked under the kitchen sink.

"Lucky, I saw him first," Clifton says, relating the next few minutes: Moving quickly, he got a "glue trap" -- a wooden board covered with a powerful adhesive substance -- and opened the door below the sink where a rat was hiding.

"I slapped him with the glue trap," Clifton says. "I got him on the tail and on his back."

The woman, who did not know that the rodents had gotten into the living area of the house, was "very happy" when Clifton disposed of the rat and the glue board, he says.

"I've been doing this for 27 years and my heart is always beating just as fast as the rat's," Clifton says. "I've been in attics where two or three (rats) run in front of my face. I've been in underground areas where dozens of 'em are running all around me."

This year there are more than the usual number of rats running around Los Angeles County.

Although the county has no scientific rat census, indications are the count is up, says Alan Harwood, chief environmental health specialist of the Los Angeles County Vector Control Program.

"We measure rat population by the amount of calls and requests for services and the amount of rat poison we issue," he says.

So far this year, there has been a 15 to 20 percent increase in calls by county residents requiring help for rat problems, Harwood says.

And as of the fiscal year ended June 30, the county issued almost 20,000 pounds of rat poison, compared to 13,000 a year earlier, according to Harwood.

This is the second consecutive year that the country's rat population has grown, Harwood says.

The increase is mostly due to the above-average rainfall last winter. During the five-year draught, the county experienced a decline in rat numbers, Harwood notes.

There are two kinds of rats -- roof rats and Norway rats.

"Roof rats are up," Harwood says. Roof rats, whose scientific name is Rattus rattus, live in trees and fields and on roofs.

"They eat snails, they eat fruit, they eat garbage. Their population increases as the amount of shelter and food supply increases," he says.

Roof rats are "more timid" than the Norways, whose scientific name is Rattus Norvegicus, Harwood explains.

The Norway rat, also known as the sewer rat and the wharf rat, is the fearsome rodent typically featured in horror movies, he says. They live in urban areas. Their number has not increased appreciably this year, although they are present, Harwood says.

"We have them in downtown Los Angeles and we have them in South Los Angeles and we have the them down by the wharves," he says.

The primary was to distinguish between Norway and roof rats is that the roof rat's tail is longer than its body and the Norway's body is longer than its tail, Harwood says.

Both breeds can grow to about 18 inches in length from the nose to the end of the tail.

The rat rise has helped business for L.A. County's estimated 700 exterminators, says Eric Paulsen, director of education for Pest Control Operators of California Inc., a trade association.

Pest extermination generates revenues of more than $300 million a year in California and about 10 to 25 percent of that is rodent extermination work, Paulsen says.

"This year and last year the rodent population around homes is absolutely up," Paulsen says. "That is a good thing for exterminators, especially because fleas are down."

Many extermination companies will wipe out any kind of pest from fleas to rats to gophers to termites. And others specialize in termites, Paulsen says.

"Rat calls are up 200 to 300 percent this year," says Clifton, general manager of the L.A. office of Long Beach-based Hydrex Pest Control Co.

And he has had to increase the number his rat control staff from three people to seven this year.

Mark Canipe, general manager of Cal-Western Termite & Pest Control Inc. of Pasadena, says he's been in the extermination business for 40 years and "I've never seen a summer like this one."

"The roof rats are on the power lines, up in the foothills and up in the trees," Canipe says. "We've done a lot more (rat extermination) work this year."

But in addition to there being more rats, there is more fear of rats this year.

The hantavirus, which is believed to be carried by rats and transmitted through their feces and urine, is believed to be responsible for the deaths of 16 people in the Southwest earlier this year.

"The virus scare has made people more aware of rats," Canipe says.

David Spinelli, branch manager of Western Extermination Co.'s San Gabriel office, says he is getting a lot more calls this year.

Sometimes people complain about noises they think are rats and instead 'it's a branch rubbing up against a house or a next of birds," Spinelli says.

But other times it's a rat.

Clifton says the fall will be worse (or better, if you're an exterminator) than the summer in rat terms.

"This time of year is the prime time that rat problems around the home go up," Clifton says.

"As you go into the fall, the foliage areas in the fields are drying out. As rats' current places of living disappear, they seek new places to live and homes are perfect places to live for rats."