Got Some Pesky Critters Taking Advantage Of Your Cozy Cottage? 4 Tips for Pest Control With Mice

There’s a reason you need to know about pest control with mice before you have a problem. You see, house mice live and thrive pretty much anywhere they can make a nest and find food. The trouble for humans is they love to thrive in our homes and eat our food. Mice are more than just pests when they eat our food and gnaw through pretty much everything they can reach. They can actually spread disease, too.

House mice contaminate surfaces they come in contact with through their urine and feces. This is one of the main ways you discover an active mouse or mouse population. Their feces may contain salmonella, a common cause of food poisoning. And if they have fleas, the fleas may spread diseases lurking in the rodents’ blood to your pets and your family.

There is hope however, mice infestations can be kept in check and stopped before they start. Here are some tips to help you improve your rodent control efforts:

1. Keep It Clean.

Though mice can live in small spaces with limited food, and a nice clean and tidy home by no means gets rid of a mouse population, it will help to limit your risk for an infestation. Always keep your food in sealed containers, your kitchen clean, and make sure you’re not unwittingly offering safe and cozy places to nest and hide. Mice find a home irresistible if it is dirty, has lots of scraps and crumbs of food, and gives them warm, hidden spots to call home.

2. Mind Your Construction.

Mice can squirm, squeeze, and wriggle through the smallest openings in your home. Plastic sheeting, wood, rubber, and other materials that are easily gnawed through are not suitable for blocking these entry holes.

While you’ll need to call an exterminator for help, you may want a temporary fix in the meantime. Simply mix a paste out of caulking compound and steel wool. Stuff it into any opening, crevice, or hole larger than a fourth of an inch. This will help as a temporary plug until you can get an exterminator out to take care of the problem more effectively.

3. Keep Your Food Off-Limits.

Be sure to seal up any food you use in a good quality container of thick plastic or, better yet, glass. Mice can smell the contents of even the most tightly sealed plastic baggie – so don’t rely on baggies to protect your food.

4. You May Want to Set Traps.

Trapping mice is a common method for controlling mice – even though you’ll still want to rely on a professional exterminator to help you completely rid your home of mice – and to ensure they don’t come back. There are a few options for mouse traps:

• Snap Trap: This is an effective way to ensure population control as many traps can be set at once in multiple areas of your home. The traps can be baited with a various variety of enticements such as peanut butter, cheese, and even bacon.
• Live Trap: These traps are more humane than the snap trap as they catch the mice, but don’t kill them. They are baited similarly to the snap trap and some stores that sell mouse control products even provide multiple-capture live traps, which can catch several mice once set.
• Glue Traps: These traps are quite simple to use. The come in small black rectangle form and are set in areas where mice travel, such as behind furniture, dark corners, close to walls, and where recent mouse activity (feces and/or gnawing) has been detected.

Call (770) 475-7419 if you need some help with pest control with mice. Help is close at hand with North Fulton Pest Solutions.