How To Easily Get Rid Of Mice Around Your Home

Signs You May Be Dealing With A Mouse Infestation

There are a few ways mice will let you know they're in your home. Some warning signs are obvious, but most are not. These tips can help you uncover a mouse problem and also work to let you know if you've succeeded in controlling the mice in your home.

Droppings Indoors And Outdoors: There is no better way to tell you have mice than to locate and evaluate droppings. The droppings of mice are dark colored and slightly smaller than grains of white rice. You'll find them in secluded spaces, such as closets, attics, boiler rooms, crawlspaces, the void under your deck, and between your landscaping and exterior walls.

The Scent Of Urine: Mice leave droplets of urine as they explore. They mark their areas to help them navigate. Mice have poor eyesight and must use their ears, whiskers, and noses to get around in their environment. These droplets create a sort of olfactory landscape that mice can navigate in the pitch dark. The more mice you have, the more you'll notice the smell of urine, particularly in closed spaces.

Gnaw Marks And Holes: Mice are rodents. One of the characteristics of rodents is that it has long incisors that continue to grow throughout the life of a rodent. Mice must file these teeth down. One way they do this is by gnawing on wood. Finding wood holes can help you track where mice are getting into your home and where they are active inside your home. Keep in mind that the holes are usually small. Mice are tiny rodents able to squeeze their soft bodies through surprisingly tight gaps and holes. A full-sized, adult rodent can wiggle through a gap the width of a dime. If a mouse can get its head through, it can fit the rest of its body through.   

Bumping, Scratching, And Squeaking: When you hear mice noises in your walls, you may want to consider yourself lucky. Yes, lucky. Mice don't usually make noises that humans can detect. They can live in your home and cause you harm without you knowing it. Plus, those sounds are annoying. They're likely to drive you to contact professional pest control to get rid of them. 

Once you uncover a mouse problem, the next step is to evaluate the threat. Wild mice in your home is not a good thing. Here's what you need to know.   

There are a few ways mice will let you know they're in your home. Some warning signs are obvious, but most are not. These tips can help you uncover a mouse problem and also work to let you know if you've succeeded in controlling the mice in your home.

Droppings Indoors And Outdoors: There is no better way to tell you have mice than to locate and evaluate droppings. The droppings of mice are dark colored and slightly smaller than grains of white rice. You'll find them in secluded spaces, such as closets, attics, boiler rooms, crawlspaces, the void under your deck, and between your landscaping and exterior walls.

The Scent Of Urine: Mice leave droplets of urine as they explore. They mark their areas to help them navigate. Mice have poor eyesight and must use their ears, whiskers, and noses to get around in their environment. These droplets create a sort of olfactory landscape that mice can navigate in the pitch dark. The more mice you have, the more you'll notice the smell of urine, particularly in closed spaces.

Gnaw Marks And Holes: Mice are rodents. One of the characteristics of rodents is that it has long incisors that continue to grow throughout the life of a rodent. Mice must file these teeth down. One way they do this is by gnawing on wood. Finding wood holes can help you track where mice are getting into your home and where they are active inside your home. Keep in mind that the holes are usually small. Mice are tiny rodents able to squeeze their soft bodies through surprisingly tight gaps and holes. A full-sized, adult rodent can wiggle through a gap the width of a dime. If a mouse can get its head through, it can fit the rest of its body through.   

Bumping, Scratching, And Squeaking: When you hear mice noises in your walls, you may want to consider yourself lucky. Yes, lucky. Mice don't usually make noises that humans can detect. They can live in your home and cause you harm without you knowing it. Plus, those sounds are annoying. They're likely to drive you to contact professional pest control to get rid of them. 

Once you uncover a mouse problem, the next step is to evaluate the threat. Wild mice in your home is not a good thing. Here's what you need to know.   

Mice Can Cause Problems In Your Home

It is critical to consider how mice impact your health and damage your property when you're deciding how to eliminate mice. Those little rodents are far from harmless

• Ticks. One little mouse can carry a lot of seed ticks on its body. When those seed ticks mature, they fall off. If infected ticks are littered about in your home, it can lead to serious illness, such as Lyme disease.  
• Hantavirus and other pathogens. Most people know about Hantavirus. There have been enough news stories about this rodent-related disease. Unfortunately, few people realize rodents can cause Lassa fever, leptospirosis, Lujo hemorrhagic fever, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, monkeypox, OMSK, and rat-bite fever. 
• Food contamination. Mice also spread harmful microorganisms, such as salmonella and E. coli. They do this when they move from dirty trash receptacles to food storage. 
• Damage to building materials. Mice chew on wood, rubber, plastic, sheetrock, insulation, and many other building materials. While the damage is often minor, these holes can allow moisture into your home.
• Create holes for secondary pests. Many pests can't get into your home on their own. They need available entry points, which mice are only too happy to provide. 
• Damage to stored items. When mice nest in attic spaces and storage closets, they damage items by chewing on them and soiling them with their feces and urine.
• House fires. Mice love chewing on wires. At best, this can lead to frustrating electrical repair work. At worst, it can cause a fire and a total loss of property.

It is best to keep mice out of your house. If they've already gotten in, consider professional rodent control to get rid of them. Professional control isn't just the easiest solution, it is the best way to guarantee your home is rodent-free.  

Natural Ways To Keep Mice Away From Your Home

Once you're rodent-free, or before you have a rodent problem, there are natural ways to keep mice away from your home and prevent them from getting inside. We touched on these at the beginning of this article. They have to do with exclusion work, sanitation, food sources, and moisture control.

Exclusion Work: Inspect the exterior of your home to identify gaps, cracks, and holes. Use a caulking gun, cans of expanding foam, wire mesh, and hardware cloth to patch those holes. Here are some common troublespots to consider:

• Exterior doors
• Pipes, wires, and wire conduits
• Unprotect vents or weep holes
• Voids behind joists
• Damaged siding
• Damaged screens
• Broken window panes

Sanitation: Poor sanitation invites a mouse problem in a few ways. Unprotected garbage may provide food. Yard clutter can give mice hiding places and help them use their whiskers to get around in your yard.

• Keep trash covered.
• Clean receptacles that develop an odor.
• Pick up piles of cardboard
• Move stacked wood, leaves, and brush piles away from your exterior.

Food Sources: There are many natural things rodents eat, such as seeds, nuts, fruits, and bugs. When you work to control these, you deter mouse activity. Mice want to live near food because they eat 15 to 20 times each day.

• Remove bird feeders or place them in areas that are not near your exterior walls.
• Rake nuts that fall to the ground under nut-bearing trees.
• Protect fruit trees by applying sheet metal around the trunks and by picking up the fruit that falls to the ground.
• Protect berry bushes with nets or hardware cloth.

Moisture Control: Water is necessary for life. Mice need it to drink. But moist conditions provide other things that are more important. What? More important than getting a drink? Yup. Mice can derive the water they need from many of the foods they eat. Damp habitats are ideal for mice because they can find rotted wood to chew through and lots of bugs to eat.

• Clean your gutters and address any damaged areas of your system.
• Remove weeds in your landscaping.
• Trim tall grass, bushes, and shrubs.
• Fix exterior plumbing issues, such as leaking water hoses and exterior spigots.

Along with these general tips, consider applying targeted control methods, such as trimming tree branches away from your roofline, applying guards to pipes that run up your exterior, inserting wire mesh into downspouts, and applying hardware cloth around your deck to keep mice out of the void underneath.   

If you'd prefer to have someone else deal with mice in your yard, contact A&M Pest Control for year-round pest control service. We address the bugs in your yard that mice eat, and we apply ongoing rodent control and monitoring. It is a win-win.