The Best Ways for Getting Rid of Mice

Cold temperatures outside can motivate mice and other critters to head indoors. It doesn’t take much to unwittingly invite a mouse or two into your home. But mice reproduce quickly.

Before you know it, those two little mice that entered your home at the start of temperatures dropping are an infestation. So what are the best ways to get rid of them?

Eliminate entry points, adopt a pet cat, seal, or remove any possible food sources, set up snap traps, and call a pest control professional. At what point, though, do you resort to that last one?

Let’s first look at why mouse infestations are so nasty and why you should rely on a pest control specialist for getting rid of mice in your home or business.

Why Mice are a Threat to Your Home

While two little mice finding shelter in your attic doesn’t seem like a big deal, one mouse can give birth to 5-6 babies in about three weeks. Those babies will reach their sexual maturity by 6 weeks of age. Then those 5-6 babies have their own 5-6 babies and so on. 

Even worse, a mouse can give birth to a second litter in as few as 25 days.

Mice can cause and/or exacerbate allergies. Worse, mice carry diseases and rodent droppings spread both disease and virus.

Mice are known to spread salmonellosis, an intestinal infection, through their droppings. The deer mouse spreads hantavirus pulmonary syndrome when a human breaths dust contaminated by its urine or feces or if, while accessing items in your attic, pantry, or storage areas, you come into contact with either.

Leptospirosis, a bacterial infection that can lead to kidney damage, is caused by eating food or drinking water that’s been contaminated with urine from a rodent carrying the disease.

Rodents cause other diseases but we’re sure that just the idea of them setting up their home in your home is alarming enough.

Lastly, mice can chew their way through an amazing number of products and items. They can leave a path of destruction behind them that’s 10 times their size.

Do-It-Yourself Mouse Control

Sealing holes in your home or office is a good place to start getting rid of mice. Even if they’re already indoors, you should at least prevent more from entering.

Finding these entryways is difficult, however. Typically, you can find them near pipes, gas lines, dryer vents, and cracks in the foundation.

Consider adopting a cat as your pet. Cats are natural hunters of mice and able to hear mouse activity that humans won’t necessarily notice. The problem is you can’t let your cat roam behind the drywall in your home or prowl around the attic safely. So, they will only help mitigate the risk of a mouse infestation.

Bait stations can be effective in getting rid of mice. We do not recommend using pellet baits since the mice may transport the pellets without necessarily consuming them. They might hoard the pellets in places that children or pets could find them, which creates a potentially dangerous situation. It’s best to let a professional pest technician set up proper bait stations for getting rid of mice.

Do Dryer Sheets Keep Mice Away?

We hear of all kinds of new home-remedies, and sometimes they work.  Dryer sheets may work but only for a short time.

Rodents are kind of like the Marines, they are geared to ‘Adapt and Overcome’.  Certain items may originally repel them, but if an item stands between them and food, they will run toward the danger, and the food source, eventually. 

Why Professional Pest Control is Best

Professional pest control for getting rid of mice can help prevent infestations year-round. Ideally, you’re proactive when it comes to rodent control in your home or business, instead of reactive.

If you use pest control throughout the year, and not just seasonally, you can better control the number of mice that find their way into your space.

Our pest control technicians investigate each living space and situation to determine the best way for getting rid of mice.

If you are seeing or hearing mice inside your home or office, give us a call. Even better, if you’re not seeing or hearing mice now and you don’t want to in the future, give us a call.