In the coming weeks spring will begin to give way to summer, and with this change of the seasons mice activity will increase. It is easy during the spring warm weather months to forego housework in favor of spending time outdoors and enjoying the sunshine. However, over flowing trash cans and open storage containers are the perfect enticements for mice to begin foraging around your kitchen.
Here are some ways that you can prevent mice from making their way into your home:
Keep clean. Mice feed on human food and they will chew through and destroy any and all types of containers to get to the food. In your pantry make sure to keep open boxes of cereal sealed or transferred into plastic storage containers. Sweep and mop your kitchen floor weekly to remove any traces of food that might encourage mice to come inside. Keep your kitchen garbage can covered with a tightly sealed lid. Wipe down kitchen countertops several times per day and especially before you go to bed at night. Use a disinfectant to clean your kitchen floors and countertops. Do not store packages of open food in any of your cupboards or pantry.
Plug the holes. Mice are especially good at getting through tiny holes and cracks around your home. In fact, if a hole seems too small for a mouse to get through – plug it anyway because they will get through. Gaps in ceilings and windows are another place where mice may enter your home. Around drainage pipes and through the bathtub or sink drains. Use metal or cement to seal all openings, a piece of wood propped up against a hole is not going to deter mice from coming inside.
Bait traps. If you hear gnawing or scratching inside of the walls in your home, it is likely that you have a mice infestation. Once mice are nesting inside the walls they almost never come out during the daylight. To get them to leave their nest, you will need to use bait traps using human food to lure them out. Rodents living within the walls can do significant damage to the structure of the home. They reproduce rapidly and with chew and gnaw on everything around them to expand the nest. Sometimes reproduction happens so quickly that the colony will suffocate themselves inside of the walls of your home, leaving no choice but to cut the drywall and remove them.
Mice can carry a wide variety of bacteria that they leave behind in their saliva and feces. If you think that you have a mice infestation, contact a professional exterminator to schedule an assessment visit.
