Over the past few weeks, you’ve noticed tiny droppings along the walls, holes chewed in pantry boxes, and the sound of skittering and scratching in your walls. Is it a mouse infestation? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. When you find signs of mice inside your home it is simply never just one mouse. Mice are social creatures that breed every 21 days. This means your small mouse problem can turn into an infestation quickly.
How do you get rid of multiple mice in your home? Learn more about what causes an influx of mice in the fall and winter, how this problem can quickly grow out of control, and how to remedy the problem before it becomes an even bigger one.
Why Mice Move Inside Our Homes
If you’ve been a homeowner for a while, you might have noticed that both insects and rodents operate on a seasonal pattern when it comes to finding their way inside your residence. When it gets colder, animals notice and start making plans that will affect them and the health of their future babies. Although they use wall cavities, garages and basements during the warmer months of the summer, during the winter our homes provide necessary shelter from the elements that mice love to use.
Mice tend to move into homes during the fall to avoid the cold of the coming winter. Imagine you have one family of mice living in your garage in September. A female mouse’s gestation period is only about 20 days long and she might have up to 12 “pups” per litter. By December, you could be playing host to the next two or three generations of mice from that one family! In other words, mice are using our home all year long.
3 Ways To Find the Mice in Your Home
Now that you understand how quickly mice can invade your home and when you can find mice, it’s time to take action. Consider the three steps below and call us for assistance.
1. Find Common Entry Points
The obvious first step to mouse removal is closing up the little “doors” they’re using to enter your home. These could be holes they’ve chewed themselves, or they could be small cracks in your foundation. Mice have the amazing ability to get where they want to go regardless of how small the crack is. Professional wildlife technicians are able to spot all these small holes from the roof to the foundation of a home. This protects homeowners from climbing to unsafe areas to assess the root cause of their mouse problem. Without the trained eye, most homeowners always leave another route of entry for the mice they are trying to remove and exclude. 2. Stay Up Late and Listen
Mice are nocturnal. This means that you may not see any mice during the day, but at nighttime, they come alive. This cna make it even harder to spot them. When thinking about how to get rid of mice in your walls, attic, garage, or crawlspace, consider staying up late and listening for mouse activity. This can sound like scratching in the walls, scurrying across the floorboards, or quietly eating through that bag of popcorn you keep in the pantry.
Mice don’t like open spaces. They tend to use their tunnel network in your walls and under your floorboards instead of running across the floor in plain sight — even in the middle of the night.
3. Be Vigilant About Movement Over Time
Just when you think you’ve caught all the mice and solved your problem for good, you discover a second possible encampment of rodents. How can this be? Mice tend to migrate through the home over time — they may be searching for new food sources, fleeing because they’re scared of the family cat, or simply relocating to make a nest for a new brood of babies.
It is always the best idea to protect your family and your home by hiring professional help to act as a second set of eyes and think ahead to discover areas you may miss when looking for mice in your home. Professionals have the safety equipment to access the top points of your home where mice can often climb and make their way inside. Hiring wildlife control services to assess these possible nest locations is a valuable idea in your quest for a mouse-free home.
Contact Skedaddle for Help With Your Mouse Infestation
If you can’t find the mice inside your home but there’s clear evidence they’re there — droppings, for example, or chewed-through boxes in your attic — it’s time to seek out professional help. Skedaddle technicians will give you a detailed understanding of their findings and the process that will be used to remove the mice in your home permanently. Our service includes a thorough decontamination process that leaves your home as clean and safe as new.
Get in touch with Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control today to learn about safe, effective options for ridding your home of unwanted rodent guests for good. Contact us today for a free estimate!
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