Mice are one of the most common pests you will find in your Tulsa home. However, they’re also one of the worst: they can spread disease, leave the house smelling like feces and urine, and chew on everything they can find, even electrical wires. In fact, many house fires are started when mice chew on a live wire and it sparks.
In this blog, we’ll take a look at the common house mouse, the dangers and problems they pose in homes they infest, and what you need to do to keep your Tulsa home protected.
Meet The House Mouse
The common house mouse is about three inches long, excluding the tail, which is often as long as the mouse’s body. The tail is bare and brown. Field mice are about the same size but have furry tails. Whichever mouse you have, both breed early and often.
Mice are nocturnal, so if you see one during the day, you can be sure he has lots of friends with him already inside your home. Mice are only seen in the daytime when their populations become large enough to force individuals to forage for food during this time.
Mice Are Dangerous
Mice have teeth that never stop growing: they must chew continuously to keep their teeth from growing too big, so they chew on practically everything they can find, which means any part of your home except solid steel, rocks, concrete, glass, or cement. In addition to making holes in things that are not supposed to have them, mice will also tear into paper, cardboard, and fabric products in order to scavenge nesting material. The nests are made in dark, out of the way places, so most homeowners will not even know they are there.
One way most people are alert to a mice infestation is by the smell of urine and feces present in the home. If you start detecting either of these smells, you probably have a mouse problem.
In the kitchen, mice will chew into cardboard cereal boxes, cracker boxes, and many other types of food, and whatever they don’t eat, they contaminate. As mentioned above, they also chew on wires, which may cause them to spark and start a fire.
Finally, mice carry many diseases that they can transmit to people. Mice carry hantavirus, leptospirosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV), Tularemia, and Salmonella, and more. You can get these diseases when you are cleaning the house and stir up feces, or by ingesting food that mice have gotten into.
DIY Tips To Get Rid Of Mice
Mice can squeeze into your home through a hole the size of a dime. If you see feces near a hole, mice are probably using it to get into your house. Cracks around pipes are notorious for letting mice in. You need to go around and fill each hole with steel wool. Caulk the steel wool so it is sealed in the hole and can’t be easily removed by foraging rodents.
Mice are encouraged to enter houses due to easy access to food, water, and clutter they can use as shelter. Here are some useful tips you can use to limit your risk for infestation:
- Declutter your house and you may find several mouse nests in the dark, forgotten edges of the rooms.
- Seal food and trash in mice-proof metal containers.
- Keep pet food and birdseed stored in sealed containers off the ground.
- If you have a birdfeeder, put a squirrel baffle on your bird feeding station so the mice cannot climb up the pole and eat the seed.
- Clean up the birdseed that falls on the ground.
- Pick up your pet’s food each evening.
Once you have sealed your house so no more mice can enter, you have to get rid of the ones you have. House mice do not travel far from their nests. You will need to set traps near the places mice run through. Mice prefer to stay on the edges of the rooms, so place traps along the edges and corners of the room, or close to any feces or tracks you find, in order to catch them.
When you clean up after rodents, wear a face mask to help keep you from breathing in feces or other things that could infect you.
Why To Call For Professional Help With Mice
Unfortunately, no matter how well you treat your home, there are always a few mice who refuse to get caught. If they are young mice, the trap may go over their heads without hurting them. Others may just be too deft at removing the bait from the trap without tripping it. Still others simply won’t take the bait in the first place because they’re too cautious.
If any of these events occur, you will need professional help if you want your rodent infestation gone for good. If you have a rodent infestation, the professionals at Montgomery Exterminating are here to help. Call us today for a rodent treatment and our technicians will come out and do an inspection to determine how bad an infestation you have.
When you contact us, we will put out strategic tamper-resistant bait stations where the mice roam in your home. If you have a bad infestation, we will even put out bait stations on the outside of the house, along with additional control methods as they are necessary. Finally, you can sign up for monthly inspections where the technicians will come out and refill the bait stations and make sure there are no other pests in the home.
Take back your home with Montgomery Exterminating. Give them a call today at (918) 218-2221.
