3 Reasons You Have Mice In Your Home

Reasons You Have Mice

Rats and mice are the most common invasive pests worldwide. If they can find warmth, food, water, and a good spot of building nests in your home, then you are staring at a serious mouse infestation. And since mice multiply very fast, you should employ proper rodent control measures before the situation gets out of hand.

This article will highlight what attracts mice to your home and how best to control them. Read on.

 

What Attracts Mice To My Home?

Shelter

For every parent, the family's health is the number one priority, and that's also the case with mice and other wildlife. Mice love warm places where they can raise their family. If your house is not rodent-proof, and there are secure, warm spots across the house, then mice will definitely set base.

Seeking warmer living spaces is an instinctive thing for mice and other animals, especially before winter kicks in. Rats and mice do not hibernate, and therefore, they depend on the heat from your home.

To stop rats and mice from seeking shelter in your home, ensure that you seal all entry points like holes in the basements, broken garage doors, and cracked walls that can give mice easy access to your property.

 

Food Source

The major attractant of rodents to your house is the availability of food. And since food availability is the biggest rat and mice attractant, you must devise proper measures to counter this problem.

I am certain that what's running through your mind reading this is, "but I keep my food secure," or 'I don't even have food in my house' that's if you are an UberEATS or Dominos guy. What you don't know is that even little food debris is enough to sustain rodents. Moreover, mice eat nearly everything, including pet food, dried fruit, or even paper and clothing, when they are starved.

To avoid this, ensure that you clean your dining area after every meal. Moreover, if there are any food particles, vacuum the carpet to clean up.

Pest control professionals encourage proper storage of food. Mice prefer eating soft food just like humans do. Foood on the fridge or freezer is safe because mice cannot find access to that. However, if you have any food that is stored in sealed containers or plastic bags, then you are vulnerable to mouse infestations. A proper pest control measure is using glass or metal containers to store food because even with their strong teeth, rats, and mice cannot tear them up.

 

Bird Feeders

If you have pet birds or chickens or just love feeding wild birds in your backyard, you can suffer a rodent infestation if you are not careful. The major component of bird and chicken food is grain, and that's what mice love.

Even though it might be difficult to keep mice off the chicken and bird feeders, you can minimize a mouse problem by raring cats to scare them away. If you are raring free-range chicken, using baited traps and buying feeders instead of throwing the food on the ground is encouraged. This not only helps to prevent a rodent problem but also saves your birds from rats that are agents of spreading disease.

 

How Do You Know if It's a House Mouse or a Rat?

Mice are nocturnal creatures that are very active when most people are asleep. Luckily, their presence is easily noticeable because of the unmistakable signs. The Signs Of Mouse Infestation include...

 

Presence of Nesting materials in tight hideouts

A house mouse is one of the most intelligent rats. Before even moving to your house, they start scouting for where to build their nests. Oftenelly, house mice prefer setting bases in the darkest and most inaccessible spaces around your home to avoid being noticed.

Once they establish where to build their nests, the mature family members will start ferrying nesting materials and start to build. Once they settle, these pests can multiply quickly because of their short gestation periods and fast maturity rates. One female mouse can give birth 6 times every year. Every litter has 12 puppies, and since mice are very good at nursing their young ones, their morality rates are very low. That means a family of 5 rats can multiply to thousands within a very short period.

When you notice any nests in your house, you should get rid of them before you have a fully-fledged mouse infestation. The nests are normally constructed with dry tree matter, grass, or shredded paper. You can also talk to our professionals at secret pest control and wildlife removal to get rid of the mice.

 

Mouse droppings on the floor and their trail parts

The surest way to know if there is any mouse activity in your house is the presence of rodent droppings on the flow. The amount of droppings depends on the number of mice in the house and how often they visit the spotted area. Moreover, pest control professionals use the amount of mice droppings are used to measure the extent of the rodent problem in the house.

You can also trail the droppings to find the nest where the family of rats and mice reside in the house.

 

Bad smell on the roof or basement

Rats and mice eat everything including garbage, steel wool, electric wires, and other soft metals. That said, they are also very good at keeping food. When fish bones disappear after dinner in your house, don't worry, you are infested with house mice! Roof rats are the worse of them all because they build nests on the roof. when they store food, the pungent smell from the roof can make the house inhabitable.

Since most mice's food is perishable, it will decay, and over time, you will start having an unbearable smell terminating from their hideouts. That said, these creatures also get sick and die. Imagine having dead mice on the roof!

To avoid these occurrences, ensure that you employ proper pest control strategies to get rid of these rodents.

 

Soft footsteps of the roofs and walls

House mice are very active animals and you will always hear them moving around, especially at night.

 

How to eliminate mice and rats in your house

Remove all food sources mice eat

A reliable food source is what brings mice to your home. It is unthinkable not to buy food, but what is practical is proper food storage. The easier and better thing to do is to keep food in glass or metal containers that rats and mice cannot break into.

Proper storage of food cuts the food source attracting the mice to your house, which in turn prevents them from contaminating food.

 

Sealing Holes, Cracks In The Foundation, & Other Rat Entry Points

Sealing every entry point is a great way to prevent rodents from easily accessing your house. Employing this method also helps when fighting mice infestation. Closing all the holes will prevent the mice from escaping, and when you lay out traps or use poison, you are certain no mouse will escape.

 

Setting live traps

You can set live traps for house mice and other in-house rodents. when setting these traps, use pet food or grains such as rice and within no time, all the mice will be eliminated.

However, you do not need to stress yourself up because our experienced personnel at secret pest removal and wildlife control have you covered. Contact us today for mice removal.