With the holiday season in full swing, you may be hearing the familiar skittering or chewing sounds of mice behind the drywall among the other sounds of the season.
Are Mice Home for the Holidays?
When the weather gets cold outside, mice seek refuge indoors to nest, multiply, and of course scrounge up meals. These pesky, destructive critters are often heard in the walls or pantry at night, but it’s possible they may seem silent depending on their location.
So How Do You Know If You Have Mice?
Other than hearing their scurrying movements, signs of mice in the house include finding food scraps or wrappers in strange places, discovering gnawed or damaged boxes or clothing, finding droppings (they typically look like brown or black rice grains), or noticing the telltale musky smell of mouse urine.
Sometimes homeowners are alerted to the intruders by their pet cat or dog becoming fixated on areas frequented by mice. Occasionally you may even spot a live or dead mouse. The live ones will be moving quickly, mice run up to 13 km per hour, but for their size and weight it looks more like 250 km per hour!
How Do You Get Rid of Mice? Can I Kill or Trap Mice Myself?
Many people affected by mice in the home try to handle the problem themselves using various store-bought traps or poisons. Internet searches list dozens of DIY mouse removal strategies, from dryer sheets to changing your brand of soap.
Most of these methods are ineffective, and even traps and poisons, sure to kill mice, won’t tackle the infestation. Mice reproduce quickly and will feed on almost anything in your house they can get to, so even killing a bunch of mice won’t solve the problem.
Additional mice likely remain by going into hiding or switching food sources, and however mice originally got into your home is still vulnerable to more mice seeking shelter.
It’s best to get a professional pest control service to completely eliminate the problem and help you stop it at the source.
Make Sure ‘not a creature is stirring’ in your home this holiday season, and call Dave’s Quality Pest Control for a mouse-free winter.
