What Are The Different Mouse Problems

April 24th, 2012

Mouse problems in the house are irritating. Mice in your house don’t give a very you a pleasant view. They chew away your clothes and nibble on all the eatables they can find. The problem magnifies during the cold season as all the mice target households to be safe from the cold. It’s a matter of few days when they can be found all over the house, in your bedroom, in the kitchen and even on dinner tables in the night. A female mouse gives birth to 10-12 pups and these mice breed all the year round. These shy rodents make the kitchen cupboards or the basement of your house as their home and reproduce. They won’t be seen much during the day but at night, their activities are much higher. 

mouse problems

Mice are the carriers of very serious and life threatening diseases like Plague and Typhoid. They spent the day searching the garbage for food and in the night, intoxicate your kitchen with same mouth and feet. If the mice have touched any food item kept in a box or plastic bag, it is strongly suggested that you throw it away as it might be contaminated. Besides the contamination and the diseases they spread, mice scatter their droppings all around the house. These droppings are of the size of a grain of rice and black in color. They might not be that visible during the day but they always make their presence felt by the scratching and scurrying sound of their running and the strong and unpleasant odor they emit. The problems caused by mice are uncountable.

Mouse extermination can be achieved by using mouse traps or rat poison. The former is used by most of the households. It involves placing mouse traps near points which the mice frequent very often. The kitchen and the garbage bin is the best place to start. Rat poison might be dangerous to infants and pets and must be used wisely. Rat poison kills the mice sometime after the consumption, so finding the stinking and mutilated body may be a problem. Cats and Dogs in the house may further help to locate mice as they have better hearing capabilities than humans. Cracks and holes used by mice to enter and exit the house should be sealed. Completely removing mice from the house requires some time and will not happen overnight. Pest control professionals may also be called upon in case the problem persists. mouse problems should be dealt very severely and as soon as discovered.

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Interesting Facts About Mice

April 12th, 2012

There are some very important facts about mice that everyone should know. Apart from being the primary subject to almost chemical test done in laboratories, mice don’t extend any advantage to humans. They are a source of life threatening diseases like Plague, Trichinosis, Salmonella, Hantavirus, Leptospirosis, and Endemic Typhus to name a few. They are also the carriers of many parasites. They cause a lot of damage to your house by chewing away clothes and by contamination the eatables. All eatables should be kept in hard containers away from the grasp of mice. Any leftovers should be stored properly or disposed out of the house. A mouse ventures in the filth and garbage. A mouse bite may be fatal because of intoxication. Mice dwell on daily food and plants but some examples enlighten the fact they also consume non-vegetarian stuff too.

facts about mice

A female mouse starts breeding when it is 50 days old. It has a gestation period of just 20 days. After these 20 days, it may give birth to 10-12 pups at a time and can do so 6-10 times a year. The new born pups are red in color and weigh around 1-1.5 grams each. Mouse infestation, if attended, may give rise to a whole army of rats in your house. Female mice also care for babies not their own. Mice eat 15-20 times a day and generally stay near food sources. Reports suggest that mice eat their own droppings. Because of their eating habits, mouse traps and rat poison is very effective for exterminating them.

Mice demonstrate some human-like behavior also. The male mouse searches and brings food whereas the female mouse collects items useful for building of a nest and takes care of its pups. They may share their nests with their relatives too. They also produce their own Vitamin-C. An average house mouse lives for around 5 months. This short age is due to the predators like snake, cats, dogs and others. In a laboratory, where it is well kept, a mouse may live up to 2 years.

Mice can hear ultrasonic frequencies, a quality common to animals like Cats and Dogs. Their hearing ability is much more advanced than humans and that’s why they run away on hearing the slightest of sounds. The Indians, and many other religions, worship Mice. Their name comes from a Sanskrit word ‘mus’ which means a thief. One of the most important facts about mice is that they are attracted towards food that is rich in sugar.

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Tips On How To Catch A Mouse

March 31st, 2012

Before planting the trap, observe the travelling pattern of the mice in your house. This can be done by listening to the sound mice make while travelling. Mice like to travel along the edges of the walls as it gives them a sense of security.  Try placing the traps near the sources of food. Kitchen is a good place to start as it has abundance of eatables for the mouse. Mice are regular eaters. They eat around 15-20 times a day. Place the mouse trap near the suspected nest of the mouse and near the hole they use to enter your house. In all likelihood, they will fall for the trap. Take care not to seal off their entrance as it might trap the mouse in your house.

how to catch a mouse

How to catch a mouse is the most important question that surfaces when you decide that you have tolerated enough from the unwelcome guests. For mouse extermination, you can use a variety of means. The most famous of which is using the snap trap or the glue trap. These work quite well and most of the mice in your house will fall for them. Some people see the compassionate side and use more humane mouse traps. These involve just capturing the mouse, not killing it, and releasing it far from the house. House pets too serve the purpose but watching them hunt and eat the mice won’t be very pleasing. Another option is to use rat poison. Rat poison us very effective but it leaves behind a mutilated and smelly rat somewhere in your house which you would have to search and dispose. The planting of the trap when using them is very important to catch the mice.

Before placing the trap, decide on the bait that you want to use. Contrary to the famous opinion that mice love cheese, peanut butter is a more sought after food for them. Cheese might melt and would be easily licked away without activating the trap. Any sugar rich food attracts the mouse and for this very reason, grains and nuts can be used as an alternative for peanut butter. Using bacon would also help attract the mouse to the trap.

If you have used a snap trap or rat poison or anything that has killed the mouse, make sure that you bury it as the dead body of the mouse is as hazardous as the living mouse itself. If you happen to catch it alive, release it away from you home. These tips on how to catch a mouse are very helpful and more than likely to give a positive result.

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Mouse Problems

March 19th, 2012

Every household encounters mouse problems one time or another. The problems rise especially during the cold winter season when all the rodents target your cozy home to save themselves from the cold outside. These small creatures thrive on the food and other eatable stuff in your house and are a source of constant irritation when seen. These elusive creatures make the cupboards of your kitchen and the basement of your house as their home and reproduce. Within days, the number of mice increases from a few to a whole army due to their extraordinary ability to give birth to 10-12 pups at a single time. They can be seen playing around the house in the night and catching them requires quite an effort. You have to set up mouse traps or use rat poison all over the house.

mouse problems

They might not be seen visible during the day but the scratching and scurrying sound they make and the odor they emit are intolerable. They leave their droppings everywhere in the house. The droppings can be identified as black grains of the size of rice. Imagine, you wake up one day and go your kitchen and find out mice droppings everywhere in the kitchen. How irritating would that be? Mice scavenge in the garbage and then the eatables in your house. If you ever find a plastic bag or any boxes that contain eatables to be touched by mice, dispose it immediately as it might be intoxicated by various diseases the mice carry. They are the carriers of life threatening diseases like plague and typhoid. The health hazards due to presence of mice in the house are numerous.

Eradicating the mouse from your house is not a very big problem. Mouse traps are the most common way to oust them. A lot of patience is required to completely remove the mouse menace from your house. Using rat poison also helps but is not safe for households with infants and pets. Furthermore, you might have to make great efforts to retrieve the mutilated and stinking body of the mice. Keeping a pet like a Cat or a Dog may also help as animals have advanced hearing abilities than humans. Identify the places which the mice take to enter your house. Those cracks and holes should be cemented up to restrict their entrance into the house. Professional can also be taken to get rid of the mice from the house. When encountered, mouse problems should be tackled immediately.

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Facts About Mice

March 9th, 2012

Before trying to catch mice, you should be aware of some very interesting facts about mice. Mice are not known for anything beneficial to humans apart being the favorite for laboratory tests. They are disease carriers and cause a lot of damage to your house and its articles. All the house mice are unhealthy. They carry very serious diseases like plague, Trichinosis, Salmonella, Hantavirus, Leptospirosis, and Endemic Typhus among others. They also carry several parasites with them. They contaminate any food articles they touch by their mouth or feet. Mice are herbivores but research shows that they also consume non-vegetarian food. Any leftover food should be properly stored or disposed to prevent mice from touching it. All food articles must be kept away from the reaches of mice in non-chewable containers. A mouse bite can prove fatal for humans if not treated properly and in time owing to the places mice come from.

facts about mice

A female mouse has a gestation cycle of about 20 days. They start breeding at an age of 50 days and give birth to about 10-12 pups in a litter 6-10 times a year. The new born pups weigh around 1-1.5 grams and are red in color. Imagine their quantity after a year if your house has only two mice at the beginning of the year, and left to flourish. Female mice are known to care for babies not their own.  They make their nest near food sources and eat around 15-20 times a day. They sometimes eat their own droppings to acquire nutrients. No wonder why mouse traps and rat poison is so effective.

Mice are known to be similar to humans in behavior. The male mouse collects the food while the female mouse collects articles that are necessary for building a nest. They also share the same nest with their relatives. Much like the humans, mice also produce Vitamin-C in their body. The average age of mice is about 5 months but they can live up to an age of 2 years in laboratories. Their limited age outside is due to the presence of predators.

Mice are great listeners just like Cats and Dogs. They can hear ultrasonic frequencies too. That’s the reason they run away at the slightest sound. They are attracted towards sugar rich content like peanut butter and nuts. Mice are also worshipped in several cultures. One of the most important facts about mice is that their name comes from ‘mus’ which means a thief in Sanskrit.

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How To Catch A Mouse

February 26th, 2012

When you finally decide to get rid of mouse infestation from your house, the question that arises is how to catch a mouse. The famous snap trap or glue trap is the most famous of the methods to do it. But people lately have been using more humane ways to exterminate mice from their houses. These include catching the mouse and disposing them far away from the house. Rat poison also works but poses a security risk. An added hassle by using rat poison is the disposal of the body of your victim. It gets all smelly and mutilated. A Cat is also a very good option but it would not be very pleasant to see your cat devouring a mouse on your sofa when you come back from work. Whatever method you use, the most important aspect of it is placing your trap.

how to catch a mouse

Observe the behaviour of the mouse first. Try to find out where its nest is. You can do it by listening to the scratching and scurrying sounds they make while walking. Place the trap neat the nest or the place they use to enter or exit your house so that it may be easily accessible to the mice. Don’t seal off the entrance as soon as you find it as it may trap a mouse inside your house. Mice eat around 15-20 times a day. It is highly likely that will fall for the trap. Also, place the traps near the edges of walls as mice like to travel along the edges; it gives them a sense of security. Place mouse traps near their food sources like the kitchen and the garbage bin.

After deciding where to position your trap, decide on the bait that you intend to use. Cheese, as shown in Tom & Jerry, is not the best bait. Use something which does not melt away like peanut butter. An even better option is bacon covered in peanut butter. When the mouse is done licking the peanut butter, it will try to bite on and pull the bacon hence activating the trap. Mice like to munch on sugar rich food like grains and nuts. Using these will give you a higher rate of success.

After catching the mice, make sure you bury it if it’s dead. A dead mouse would give rise to a number of other untold problems. If you happen to catch it alive, release it as far as you can so that it never comes back. The above steps on how to catch a mouse if followed correctly will surely result in mouse extermination from your house.

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How To Prevent Mouse Problems

February 14th, 2012

Many people have mouse problems. There are higher chances of having rodent infestations in rural areas where there are fields and wooded areas nearby, as mice live there and then get into houses when it gets cold, or when they get hungry. Even if you live in the city, you can still get mice in your house, which can cause a lot of damage, so it’s important that you take preventative measures to keep them out.

mouse problems

The most common mouse that infests homes in the United States is known as the field mouse. They are only about 3 inches (7.5 cm) long, and come in various shades of brown, though they can appear grey or black. They have white bellies, and large eyes and ears that are well adapted to looking and listening for danger. The field mouse can run straight up most walls as fast as it can run across a straight floor, and they can jumper over 1 foot (30 cm) straight up. They can also squeeze into a hole about the size of a dime.

To make your house mouse-proof, you will need to seal up every space that they could possibly get through. You can hire professionals to help you with this. If you have an attached garage, it is important to check carefully along those walls that are next to your house. If you have an attic, it is also important to seal that off from the outside, even if it is sealed off from the house, because mice can get in and do damage to insulation, and could even begin to chew through your walls.

The most infested area of the house is the kitchen and pantry, because that’s what a mouse is really after. All of your food that is not in the fridge needs to be in air-tight plastic containers. Be sure the plastic is high quality, as thin plastic such as butter containers can easily be chewed through by a mouse. Keep your kitchen and other food areas clean and free of crumbs. On a weekly basis, you should pull out your appliances and wash thoroughly behind them to get anything that daily cleaning may miss.

There are also some types of repellent that you can use. Having a cat can often help, even if the cat is not good at catching mice. Many times, just the smell of a cat or even a dog will be enough to scare mice away, unless the mouse is particularly bold or very young. You can also find electronic devices and other sprays available to help you prevent mouse problems from occurring in your house.

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Interesting Facts About Mice

February 10th, 2012

facts about mice can be very interesting, and can also help you understand them if they have infested your house. They are actually quite impressive in what they are capable of, and how they work.

facts about mice

Baby mice are completely helpless when they are born. They can’t see, they can’t hear, and they have no fur. When they are less than 3 days old, their skin is so thin you can actually see their mother’s milk in their stomachs after they’ve nursed. Most wild mice will have a litter of 5 to 10 kits, though domesticated mice can sometimes have 15, or more. A mouse can begin reproducing at just two months old, and will go back into heat right after birth. With a gestation and nursing period of three weeks, a female mouse can continuously have a new litter of kits.

The average life span of a mouse is two years, though many wild mice will live much shorter and some domestic mice can live longer. They are very resilient, and can even survive falls of at least 12 feet (3.6 meters). They can climb almost as quickly as they can run, and rely heavily on their tail to help climb and to balance. Their tails will grow to be as long as their bodies.

Whiskers are essential to a mouse’s survival, more so than we realize. They are extremely sensitive and allow them to feel things like changes in temperature, the proximity of things, and how rough or sooth a surface is. Their eyesight is not great, so they rely on hearing and their whiskers more than sight. For this reason, they prefer less light, which allows their other senses to become heightened.

Mice have front teeth called incisors, which grow continuously throughout the life of the mouse. In just one year, their teeth will grow 5 inches (13 cm). That is the reason that mice do so much chewing. Chewing things like wood, cardboard, and wires help wear down their teeth, and keep them from becoming overgrown. Domestic mice can easily be taken to a veterinarian if that happens, but the wild mouse has to just keep chewing. If their incisors did get to long, they would not be able to eat, and would actually starve to death before very long.

Knowing these facts about mice can be helpful in understanding their behavior, and can help you get them out of your house if they have decided to come in during the winter because of the heat and availability of food.

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How To Catch A Mouse Easily

February 6th, 2012

Learning how to catch a mouse is important when trying to get mice out of your house. Trapping one can be difficult because they are good at fitting through small holes and are very fast.

how to catch a mouse

You will need a good trap. There are several different types of humane traps available today. The most humane is the live trap, which traps the mouse inside alive, and then you can release it far from your home. No cleaning up dead mice or feeling guilty! If you don’t want to clean up dead mice but have no problem killing them, you can buy an electric trap, which traps the mouse inside and administers a deadly shock. It is designed to then allow you to empty it without having to handle the dead mouse. The most popular trap is the snap trap which has the metal bar that snaps down on the mouse. These are cheaper than the other kinds, but they can be messy and will involve some close contact.

Baiting your trap correctly is as important as the trap you choose. You need to use food that will attract mice, that will stay on the trap, and that is small enough that the mouse has to go all the way onto the trap in order to get it. If the bait is too large, the mouse could grab it quickly from the side, and wouldn’t even step onto the trap. If the bait is too unstable, it could fall off of the mechanism on its own, which would trigger it without a mouse even being nearby. Mice are not picky, which means you can put nearly any type of food on the trap in order to attract them. The best kinds of foods, however, are sweet things, and peanut butter is often used because it has a strong scent, and is easy to apply.

Once the trap is baited, you can set it and place it. Where you place it is also important. If you put a trap in the middle of your living room floor, you are not very likely to catch a mouse, as they usually keep close to the walls, and don’t generally venture more than 10 feet for food. In order to feel safe enough to sit down for a meal, the mouse needs a place that is quiet and hidden from view. You can know how to catch a mouse, but if you don’t have the trap somewhere that the mouse is going to get caught, it’s not going to work.

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Preventing And Solving Mouse Problems

February 2nd, 2012

If you have mouse problems as many people do, you need to know how to solve them quickly and easily. Mice can cause damage to furniture, carpeting, wires, and even the walls of your house. Their droppings can contaminate food, bedding, and wooden items. The best way to solve a mouse problem is to prevent one from occurring.

mouse problems

To mouse proof your house, you may need to hire a professional. Mice can squeeze through spaces the size of a dime and can easily scale walls. They can also jump over a foot straight up. Eliminate any possible space that a mouse could use to get into your house. In older houses, unused air ducts and coal shoots that are forgotten about are highways for mice to infest your home. All of your food containers must be properly sealed, and you must keep your house clean. Leaving bits of food crumbs in the hidden places behind your appliances are an open invitation for a mouse.

Even if you are aware of a mouse in the house, you should perform the above procedures to be sure that they cannot bring more mice in, and that they will not do more damage than they already have. Mice have a distinct “musty” smell that you may smell, and their droppings are tiny black pellets, about half the size of the tip of a pencil. You will usually find them along walls or where they’ve been eating. You can also find evidence of mice in your food. Boxes and bags will often have holes chewed in them, and there will be small pieces of them scattered nearby.

With a small infestation of only a couple of mice, you may only need one or two traps, placed in prime locations. Be sure that you are using safe and humane traps, and that you are baiting them correctly. These are best placed in areas where you know mice to have been. Place them in dark or covered areas so the mouse will feel safe eating there, but where you can easily reach them for disposal.

If you do have a severe mouse infestation, you may consider calling a professional exterminator, who will be able to use more advanced methods to seek out and destroy your mouse population. When contacting a professional for your mouse problems, make sure he does not use any poisons that could harm your children, your pets, or get out into the environment and cause harm to wild animals.

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