Best Way to Kill Mice and Keep Them Out

Get Rid of Mice, Rodents, , , , ,

Remove mice from your homeSo, you can tell you have mice in your home. Whether you’ve heard the scratching or gnawing in the ceiling or in the walls or simply see the mice or droppings, it’s time to get rid of them. Today, we’ll look at the best way to kill mice in your home.

Traps

There are pretty much four basic types of traps; mechanical snap traps, multiple catch traps, glue traps, and electronic traps. We find the mechanical snap traps are the most reliable and best way to kill mice in your home. Why? It’s economical and quick. They are easy to set up and most (especially the wooden Victor snap trap) can be used repeatedly. We don’t typically recommend poison for several reasons. First, once the mouse eats the poison, it doesn’t usually leave your home. That means it’s still in your home. Second, the dead mouse in your house causes more issues from decomposing. A decomposing mouse smells bad and can attract other insects. This also creates a mold problem which in turn causes unhealthy air quality for you and your family. And lastly, we do not recommend poison if there are small children or pets in the home that could possibly get into the poison.

Glue Traps or Sticky Traps

We do not recommend glue traps. Glue traps or sticky traps have a sticky surface with an attractant for the mice or other rodents. As they run across the glue/sticky trap, the mice get stuck in the glue. The mice typically do not die right away. They die from starvation or dehydration over a period of several days. This is a very inhumane way to kill mice and even though we do not want mice in our homes, we do not recommend glue/sticky traps as the best way to kill mice.

Baiting Stations

Bait stations are sealed components with poison placed inside the station. These bait stations are placed outside in strategic locations around your home. These stations are safe as the poison cannot be accessed by pets or small children. These baiting stations allow rodents to enter the station through small holes, eat the poison, and then leave the station. Our bait stations are maintenance free and offer protection year round. This is one of the best ways to kill mice or rodents around the exterior of your home (not inside, remember; Do not kill anything in your home you cannot get out of your home) which will prevent them from getting into your home.

But, before you start killing those mice, take a look to see how they are entering your home. If you do not seal up your home properly, the mice will continue to enter your home. This continues the cycle of having to kill the mice. For more prevention and sealing of your home techniques, please see our blog post on “Common Places Mice Get Into Your Home.”

The Best Way to Kill Mice

1) Seal Your Home to prevent Mice from Entering
2) Set Mechanical Snap Traps
3) Place Bait Stations Around the Outside of Your Home

If you have a rodent infestation, but can’t get rid of mice, call Erdye’s for a FREE inspection of your basement, attic or crawlspace – we’ll track down your unwanted guests and come up with a safe, reliable plan to get rid of them.

HOW TO PICK A GOOD RODENT CONTROL COMPANY

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How to get rid of miceThere’s no easy way to know if a company is truly a good rodent control company unless you are willing to do a little research and legwork on your end. We recommend starting your search online. You can use Google to search for companies in your area then look at their reviews. We suggest looking for a good rodent control company based on the reviews and comments on those reviews. Look for one that has many reviews, not just a few. You can also look at Yahoo and Angie’s List. Both of these online companies allow customers to leave reviews of the services used. Next, talk to neighbors and co-workers. They’ll be more than willing to share their good and bad experiences with you.

When it comes to rodent control, there is no one size fits all. Each home is different even if they were built at the same time. So then what should you look for when picking a good rodent control company?

Here are 5 tips in choosing a good rodent control company.

1) Someone with construction knowledge: Having a professional who understands construction and how homes are built from the ground up gives an edge in knowing where there may be gaps the rodents are using to enter into your home or business.

2) A full-service company: A full-service company provides a specialist to come out to your home and inspect your property not just give you an estimate over the phone. This is extremely important as you cannot give an accurate estimate without seeing the property. Each property is different, each rodent issue is different and the difference is not something known until an inspection is done.

3) FREE Inspections: You should not be charged to have your property looked at to decide the best way to control rodents. A good rodent control company will look in the attic, crawl space, basement, and go around the exterior of the home.

4) If they tell you where the rodents are getting in, they should also seal it: A good rodent control company will be able to share with you where the rodents are entering your home. They should also be able to seal that entrance on the spot. If they cannot do this for you, this would be a red flag.

5) Mechanical trapping in attics, basements, and crawl spaces: A good rodent control company uses mechanical trapping in their process of rodent control. You do not want to use a company that just scatters bait around and inside of your home. If the home is not properly sealed and a rodent ingests the poison and then enters your home to die, you now have even more issues. A dying anything in your home smells and creates mold. This is not something you want in one of your most valuable assets.

What is the next step? After a thorough inspection, the company should advise you about your infestation. Is it really bad? Can it be causing health issues in your home? Should there be some sort of cleanup and sanitation procedure performed? These are all questions that the company should offer solutions to even before you ask. And yes, at Erdye’s we offer all of these.

• Free Inspection
• Seal Your Home
• Cleanup and Sanitization

Call us with all of your rodent and pest control issues at 920.455.0373. We’re here to help you keep a healthy, safe, and rodent free home.

The Great Squirrel Invasion

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Squirrel Entering House

In case you haven’t taken notice, in the last few years, there has been a boom in the squirrel population. Squirrels are cute and furry little creatures, which jump to and fro from tree to tree. They’re playful and fun little creatures, and are often fun to watch while they play in the trees or grass. When they forgo the trees and grass, and decide to come inside, they don’t seem quite as adorable anymore. Now, instead of cute little creatures, they have become quite the interlopers…non-paying tenants of the very worst kind!

Weather has a lot to do with the growth in the squirrel population, and with the warmer summers and colder winters we have experienced in the last couple of years, there has been a huge influx in population growth, and therefore an increase in problems that homeowners and even commercial buildings have experienced in what seems like “The Great Squirrel Invasion”. Although many squirrels hibernate, grey squirrels do not, and will seek any heat source they can find as a more secure home, and a source of food.

While living in the wild, squirrels are arboreal, living solely in the trees. The squirrels will usually have several nests, called a drey that they can go to and in case they lose one, they will go to the next one. In the wintertime, you can see their summertime dreys. They are those collections of leaves and twigs visible in the trees throughout the leafless branches. They usually abandon these summer homes in the winter and seek something more secure. The hollow of a tree is an ideal winter home, but your warm attic is a much better choice for them. The problem is that once they find their way in your home, which is much more satisfying, they won’t want to return to the more cold, less abundant option.

Squirrels, unlike mice, are incredibly intelligent, causing a much larger issue than you might have imagined. They are quick to find ways to enter your home. As your home ages, the normal weathering provides the squirrel with the opportunity to discover a damaged piece of trim, allowing them partial entrance. They’ll finish the job, quite easily, and usually very quickly, if they want to. They don’t really need entrance to your attic, when exposed soffit will do just fine. If it’s a soffit, you may not even hear them, and they could be in there for months, undiscovered, causing damage to your home. They are intelligent enough to find any small area to enter in through, and will investigate whatever they can. Squirrels can fit through pretty much anything they can get their head through, which is a tinier space than one might think. Once inside, their innate curiosity will force them to explore their new surroundings, and this is when you will often hear or discover them.

Once squirrels gain access to your home, getting them out and keeping them out, often becomes a very difficult job. The longer they are in there, the harder it is to evict them. If they remain undisturbed for a great length of time, it will be especially difficult. Not only that, but such the structure, over a period of time, tends to acquire an odor that attracts more squirrels. Houses like these will often have intermittent and sporadic squirrel problems for years, unless you take immediate action once you suspect squirrels in your home. The best form of action to take is to hire a professional pest control professional to ensure that the issue is eradicated fully and quickly, and measures are recommended by that professional to prevent re-entry.

These animals, once inside your home, will destroy your home, and many of your possessions and soil the rest. They will search for food, breaking into even sealed containers they suspect of holding food. They could even attempt to consume non-food items as well. They will often times destroy your insulation, and they love to chew…chewing apart your building materials, and domestic possessions. Quick action will ensure you stop any further damage, and keep the population of squirrels in your home from growing.

Home Invasion of a Different Kind: How Mice in Your Home Effects More Than Just Your Home

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Mouse in house

Your home is likely a safe place where you live in comfort, in the way you choose to. I’m guessing you have it decorated in your style, and things placed where you like them. You do what you want to there…it’s your haven, and you likely live there with loved ones.   Your home is a safe place. It’s the place where you go in, and the rest of the world stays out. Ahhhh, home…. it’s an awesome place, and more often than not, we truly enjoy being there, but when an intruder comes in, it can turn your world upside down. Now, I’m not talking about the type of intruder you may think. I’m talking about a rodent.

This is the time of year where rodents are trying to take refuge from the cold, and attempting to find warm comfortable places with plenty to eat to set up their homes for the winter. Judging from the outside, you would think that your home is sealed up tight, and that there are no entry ways for rodents to get in, but the tiniest of spaces can go unnoticed by us, and yet still present themselves as the perfect entryway into your home.

There’s nothing worse then waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of tiny feet scampering back and fourth above your head in your ceiling, or through the walls surrounding your bed. I’ve been there. I have always gone through painstaking processes to ensure my children were safe and sound when I tuck them in at night. All doors and windows were locked up tight, no fire or choking hazards were present, they were surrounded with pillows to ensure their were staying in their beds, but little did I know there was a much greater risk right in our very walls. This particular year, we had mice invade our home. It was awful really. Every night I would lay awake listening to them run back and fourth, knowing that they were stocking up on whatever foods they could find in our kitchen that weren’t tightly sealed in containers that were impenetrable. Which things were they getting into? Did I have to throw out everything I had bought? What kinds of messes were they making? Will they come out of the walls and into our bedrooms? Can they get to my children? The swirling questions kept me up when the scampering would stop, but the restlessness was only part of the issue.

There is a very real threat to us as humans, caused by rodents that you might not be aware of. Along with finding mice in your home, another concern, Hantavirus, is life-threatening disease with symptoms that are much like the flu, and include fever, chills and muscle aches. Shortly after, you can experience nausea or vomiting, dry cough, shortness of breath and headaches. The presentation of this disease is so much like the flu that it would be very normal to assume it is just that. A human coming into contact with dust that is contaminated by the urine and feces of a rodent is what causes the disease. It is not harmful to the rodent itself, but can be legitimately life threatening to a human, and most people who have been exposed to the virus are those who have come into contact with the dust in their homes.

So what is the best way to keep yourselves and your families safe from Hantavirus?

As soon as you suspect that rodents have invaded your home, it’s best to call for professional pest control. Rodents, such as mice, live in colonies, and setting traps that are made available in stores may take care of one or even a couple of members of the colony, but if they have found your home to be a place of refuge from the cold, chances are, there will be more. A professional pest control company can take care of the problem in a way that will ensure you don’t have to worry about the health and safety of your family, or continue to suffer through sleepless nights listening to these eluding invaders, or worrying about what type of destruction they are causing to your home. If you think you may have already come in contact with contaminated dust from rodents, seeking professional medical advice and testing is important, along with professional pest control. We know that keeping your family and your home safe, healthy and worry free is of great importance to you, and hope that you will be confident in taking action if you suspect these tiny home invaders.

Erdye’s Pest Control cares about the health and safety of your family and home, and knows exactly how to help you if you suspect that rodents have entered your home. We are happy to help you, and are available for you…just click here: Contact Erdye’s