Dealing With Rodents the Right Way

Transcription

1 Dealing With Rodents the Right Way : : published by Clean Crawls : :

2 Most of us have experienced a mouse problem. First, we hear the telltale scurrying sound beneath the floorboards or in the walls at night. Then, we notice that bag on the counter with tiny little holes chewed through it...and finally, the inarguable sign of mouse droppings across the dining room table and in the silverware drawer. For those of us who live in the woody climates, we seem especially prone to attracting the local field mice. And one of the first places your brush-dwelling rodents have their eyes on is your crawl space. And why not? This area is warm, protected from predators, and provides easy access to the rest of the house, where that little mouse family can find all sorts of things to chew up and ingest, including clothing, your groceries, and the dog food. Most of us don t frequent our crawl spaces on a regular basis, leaving these areas are always dark and quiet. Even if you have a crawlspace that is moderately well sealed, mice can slip through a hole the size of a dime, and rats can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter. What you think is a tiny crack may be the golden gate for that little mouse to access the rest of the house!

3 Rodents can cause lots of damage. The holes they make in your crawlspace plastic, insulation, and walls damage the vapor barrier that is protecting it from the great outdoors. When moisture accumulates, mold and fungi quickly follow. In addition, the smell of rodent droppings beneath your kitchen will eventually drift through the floorboards to your olfactory nerves and make an unpleasant statement to whatever guests you have over for dinner. Here are some ways you can make your crawl space a little less attractive to the local rodent population! Never store food items in your crawl space. Mice have an acute sense of smell, and they are not above chewing through solid wood to get at whatever goodies you are packing away. Put a light in your crawl space. If you haven t noticed, mice don t like light. A light in your crawl space will serve as a deterrent. The light can be installed as a switch accessible from the main part of the home that you can switch occasionally, or it can be put on a timer that is programmed to go on and off a couple times throughout the day.

4 Eliminate water and humidity from your crawlspace. Just like the rest of the mammalian population, mice need water to survive. If your crawl space is well protected from any moisture, the mice will have to travel elsewhere to get a drink. This makes your crawl space seem a much less attractive to them. Put down a rat slab to deter tunneling rodents. This slab is usually a thin plate of metal, thick plastic, or stone. It might not seem daunting to you, but a mouse will only run into that hard surface once before tunneling away! Look for holes! Take a walk around your house. Do you see any cracks or entrances for a mouse? Seal them up with wire mesh or hardware cloth. Peek into your crawl space too any cracks or holes there are a perfect entrance for a little whiskered rodent? Be sure the material used to block the cracks and holes allows for air movement, as we do not want to trap any moisture in our house foundations. Remove low-hanging shrubbery from around the edge of your home. If you have grass right up to the walls, try to keep it well trimmed and short. Rodents like to stay hidden when they venture out of their burrow, so forcing them to venture out into the open will make your house seem less homey. Try not to let piles of brush or wood build up on your lawn. If you do need to have a wood pile for frosty nights, don t place it up against your house, but

5 instead, put it yards away from the house. Rodents and snakes love to live in wood and brush piles. Wait up, you say, I ve already GOT a rodent problem! How do I get rid of them? Well, lucky for you, we know the tricks to getting rid of rodents, not just deterring them.

6 Mice eat food. They also need to drink water. By diminishing their natural resources as much as possible, you will help to making your home a less than ideal place for mice to set up shop. Unfortunately, this process is not always easy, and may require some amount of effort on the part of all of the home s occupants. The first thing to do when you ve discovered that you have a rodent infestation is take measures to make your home less of an ideal place to live. Sit down with the family and have a chat about the following issues: It happens in every family, so don t feel badly. Whether your kids seem to have an allergy to cleaning up their messes, or whether you re too busy to get the dishes out of the sink each night, food and crumbs always seem to be strewn about the kitchen. Unfortunately, leaving leftovers left out for the rodents is going to make your problem worse. Mice naturally reproduce a lot REALLY a lot. And when there s a food source, the increase in mouse population rises accordingly. By cutting down

7 on their food sources, you can help to stem the tide of mice and turn the battle in your favor. Initiate these household reforms to cut down on the food supply for the mice: Do not leave food on the counters. Bags of bread, bowls of fruit, and butter dishes should either be stored in a secure cupboard or placed in a tightly sealed container. Any cupboards that let in rodents should only contain tightly sealed containers. A truly determined rodent won t shy away from chewing through plastic, either, so try to keep your storage containers made of glass, metal or, in a pinch, very heavy duty plastic. Clean your dishes before going to bed each night. I know it can seem a terrible chore when you ve had a long day at the office or wrangling your children, but keeping dirty dishes crusted with food off of the counters and out of the sink leaves nothing for mice to munch. Keep pet food off of the floor. If your pet isn t eating it, then it shouldn t be out! Mice and other rodents love to eat unprotected pet food. During the evening, make sure Fido has had his dinner, and then put his food dish away. In addition, make sure that pet food bags are either placed in a plastic bin, such as a wastebasket, or in an area that mice won t be able to access.

8 While you re putting away the pet food, pick up the water bowl as well. Mice need water, and it s important that you make it hard to find. Mice aren t only after the food in your kitchen, however. There are plenty of other spots that a mouse can invade. Before you know it, you may find a little rodent army coming up from beneath your floor boards. When you re discussing the kitchen remodel, don t forget to talk about other areas of your house as well. Don t allow food in other areas of the house. Remember that box of Valentine s Day candies that has been tucked away in your nightstand? How about the stale candy corn hiding in the side pocket of your sons backpack? Anything edible needs to find its way back down to the pantry, or it will risk being found and eaten by hungry mice. Fix any leaky pipes or faucets. Don t let any mouse-accessible houseplants gather standing water in their trays. Fix any leaks and clear out any standing water in the crawl space area. This is imperative to maintaining the health of the home.

9 Mouse traps have been around for centuries probably just about as long as mice themselves. Because of all of our years of experience trapping rodents, we now have a veritable arsenal of effective rodent catching accoutrements. The snap trap is our top choice of removing the crawl space rodent populace. It is a humane way to exterminate them, as it kills the mouse quickly and cleanly. Because of this, the mouse carcass is easily removed as the trap will remain in the same place you set it.

10 Snap traps are a good option for homeowners that don t check their traps each day. They should, however, remove the dead mouse as soon as possible, otherwise the corpse will begin to decay and smell. Also, dead carcasses in your home invite diseases. A downside to snap traps, however, is that they can be difficult to set without snapping your own fingers. Try to buy easy-bait traps to save yourself on bruised fingers. Variations of the snap trap are the horseshoe trap, choker traps, and guillotine trap. All of these traps function by quickly snapping down upon a mouse or rat as they inspect the bait that you ve set for them. Tips to Keep in Mind While Baiting a Snap Trap: Contrary to popular belief, mice are not as attracted to cheese as the cartoons have portrayed. Instead, mice find aromatic, sweet, and fattening foods most attractive. Peanut butter Vanilla extract Oatmeal Bits of sweets, such as frosting

11 Set multiple traps. This may seem intuitive, but there is a strategy. Find likely entry points or mouse highways and place traps at either end of their likely path. Do this throughout your crawl space and upstairs. Be sure to place the traps in a place where curious cats and dogs won t accidentally trigger them, though! Set traps along walls. Mice don t like open spaces. Instead, they run adjacent to walls, underneath cabinets, or along beams. Placing a mousetrap in the middle of a large area won t attract many mice.

12 This is the trap of choice for the tender-hearted and practical minded. It allows homeowners to trap rodents without killing them, so that they may be released a safe distance away from your home. Live traps are not a good choice for homeowners that are unwilling to check their traps multiple times a day. Mice that are left in live traps for even a few hours can die from stress induced disorders. If they survive the trauma of

13 being trapped, even a day in the trap will cause them to slowly die of dehydration or starvation. Electric traps are an upcoming form of dealing with pest problems. These traps are baited and set in the rodent pathways similar to the practice of snap traps. These traps use a high-voltage, quick, and humane shock that kills the mouse within seconds. Most electric traps are multi-kill traps killing up to ten mice per setting and collecting them in a drawer beneath the tunnel area. Some traps are even equipped with lights to indicate when they have been triggered, letting you know when it s time to change out the collection drawer.

14 Allowing your house cat down into your crawl space can be an excellent way to remove rodents. Sometimes even just the presence of a predator in their safe haven will scare rodents away from the home. After several days of periodically letting your cat prowl about beneath your floor boards, take several hours to tightly seal your home from rodents. As you finish, set a couple of live traps or snap traps to ensure that any remaining mice are effectively removed.

15 Do NOT allow your cat down into the crawl space if you have used poison traps, sticky traps, or have loose fiberglass insulation. Also, if your crawl space has open dirt floors instead of properly installed vapor barriers, your cat might think your crawl space is one giant litter box. Cat urine smells very strongly, and thus, we recommend not allowing cats into an improperly sealed space. There is one form of rodent removal that we would strongly suggest that you avoid, however, and that is the use of poison. Firstly, when mice and rats eat poison and begin to die, they have the unfortunate practice of crawling into the walls or other hidden places where their decomposing bodies cause a horrible stench. Not only is the smell of a rotting rodent carcass distasteful, it is hard to eradicate unless you can locate the body, which is unlikely. In addition, that rotting carcass brings a whole host of germs and potential diseases into your house. Secondly, we feel that, all too often, poison gets into the wrong hands or paws. Cats and dogs have been known to get into various rodent poisons and become very ill and some have even died. Even more concerning, children

16 can sometimes get into the poison as well. Whether it s ingested or simply gets into their lungs or eyes, it s a very serious situation and a very costly hospital bill. Severe cases have even resulted in death. If you re determined to use poison, it is vital to exercise extreme caution with where it is placed.

17 Once you feel you ve caught a good number of the rascally rodents, it s important to take measures to ensure they won t be coming back anytime soon. Begin sealing all entry points that you can find within the crawl space. Take note, however, that if you seal them all before trapping, mice may either be trapped in the crawl space and die in the walls or in hard-to-reach places, or they may be driven into the upper levels of your home. Use wire mesh or hardware cloth to cover vents, and caulk up all the small cracks and holes. Remember, anything larger than a dime can let in a rodent! Your rodent checklist: Examine the walls. Fill in any cracks or holes with putty, cement, or caulk. Seal around the vents with caulk. Check the vent mesh is securely attached. Replace any mesh with holes larger than a dime. Examine the insulation for rodent feces or nesting materials. Any insulation contaminated by the rodents should be replaced. Also, be aware of damp or molding insulation.

18 Install a rat slab to deter any rodents from TUNNELING into the crawl space. Following this initiative, have a vapor barrier installed. Clean and disinfect any beams or supports that have been contaminated by rodent droppings. Follow the other steps detailed in the first chapters on how to deter rodents. Congratulations! You have now secured your home from future rodent invasion. Make sure that you continue to check your crawl space for any development of leaks, holes, or cracks that could allow rodents back into your home. Mice are pests, but with a little effort, they can easily be removed from your list of worries. Have your crawlspace inspected occasionally by a professional to ensure that there is no slow decay, mold, or little furry friends taking advantage of your home!

19 Clean Crawls is a home improvement company offering crawl space and attic cleaning insulation services. "Our mission at Clean Crawls is to deliver superior, healthy and clean environments that provide comfort and peace of mind while creating extraordinary relationships with our clients and one another." Website: Address Highway 99 Everett WA Phone: (866) Fax: (425)