– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County OSU Extension
Some mice are more tolerable than others!
If you are opening your home for company this Thanksgiving, you are probably doing some tidying up and rearranging in your home this week. I hope your company brings you joy and I wish you safe travels everywhere you go.
Often during these tidying up times, we find that we have had some unwelcome company visiting our homes as the weather gets cooler.
The moment of alarm and disgust when you discover that a rodent has been visiting your living space is fairly common in the month of November. Even if you have a brand-new home and are an immaculate housekeeper, rodents may still find a way to sneak inside and snuggle up for the cold evenings of fall and winter.
Let’s address the answers to two common homeowner questions about rodents.
- Where did they come from?
Many rodent species thrive in the outdoor environments of rural, suburban, and urban neighborhoods. They are typically nocturnal in nature and many are omnivorous. Whatever rodent entered your living space probably got there by exploring the outside of your home and finding a hole large enough to enter.
A hole the size of a dime is large enough for mice to enter. A hole the size of a quarter is large enough for rats to enter. If you haven’t seen the rodent, but you have seen the feces it leaves behind, you can judge the rodent by the feces. Mouse droppings will be tapered and the size of a grain of rice. Rat droppings will be rounder and the size of a raisin.
Mice, rats, and a variety of other rodent species can become problems in homes, barns, garages, cars, tractors, and essentially anywhere that there is food, water, and shelter available. Food may consist of human foods, pet or livestock feeds, or seeds. Rodents enter structures in search of these basic life needs. They also are highly mobile and may move from one area of shelter to another quickly and frequently.
- How do I get rid of them?
Preventing entry by excluding rodents from these spaces is the best method of control. Look for gaps outside and inside the space that could be sealed with caulk, need repairs, or could be screened to provide ventilation but prevent rodent entry. Remove sources of food and water from areas with known rodent pressure. This includes workspaces in garages, barns, and vehicles. Clean up food spills promptly, keep areas tidy, seal food while in storage, and fix leaky faucets.
Once rodents are known to be in the area, it is still important to seal up potential entry points, and then trapping and disposing is the next step for control. In homes, snap traps are the safest for humans to trap rodents with. They are most effective at killing the rodent upon trapping. Glue traps can be effective, but the rodent remains alive while trapped. This poses a risk for the trap moving or the rodent biting the person disposing of the trap. Poison traps are not recommended for use in living spaces. Rodents will consume the poison in one area and die in another area, leading to a stinky mess that can attract scavenging insects. Poisons also pose threats to pets and children that are in the living space as well.
Cleaning up after rodents entails protecting your body by wearing disposable gloves, masks in cases with heavy clean up required, and access to soap, water, and disinfectant. Mixing a solution of 10% bleach and 90% water is effective for disinfecting rodent messes. Before removing any rodent material, the area should be sprayed with disinfectant and let set for five minutes before removing from the space. After removal, the area should be cleaned with disinfectant again. All clean up material should be disposed of in the garbage, double bagged, and removed from the living space as soon as possible.
To learn more about why it is important to take rodent pests seriously in the home or workplace, you can read more from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at https://www.cdc.gov/rodents/index.html.
In some cases, it is necessary to get consultation and service from a professional exterminator. But an occasional mouse is just an opportunist. Use the information provided to prevent them from having the opportunity to join you over Thanksgiving.
Don’t let a rodent ruin your holiday!