Mice and rats are very gross. It’s terrible to have them in your home or your restaurant. It’s important that you keep them away because they can be not only very unsanitary, but they can spread disease and other things of that nature.
If you think you might have a problem with them, then it’s important that you contact your Tulsa exterminator right away so that you can get them taken care of and out of your house. So let’s talk a little bit about mice and rats.
Usually mice and rats make their way into your house through the front garage door. This large door is hard to seal off completely, and even if you do seal it completely, the rubber seal at the bottom can be pushed out of the way by small mice, and they can work their way in if they really want to.
Usually what pushes these animals in is the cold. These extreme environmental factors will push them inside your house. Once they get into your garage, there are usually lots of places to hide. Most of us have plenty of clutter and other things in our garage that they can hide behind, under, and around.
Often in Oklahoma, we find that the garage also houses a closet that has the hot water heater. This is a nice, warm hot water heater that will attract them to it. And there’s a chimney that usually will go all the way to the attic space.
Mice will follow this chimney all the way up and get into the attic space, where it’s also quite warm and there is lots of soft insulation material. This insulation material is great for creating nests for them and keeps their young warm.
Often we see that once they have set up shop in your attic and started to reproduce, they need to feed their babies. They will come down inside of the walls and then start scratching at the drywall. Many people hear this because it gets very loud, as that small gap between the walls is an echo chamber, making any kind of scratching much louder than it is.
Once they break through that drywall, then they’re inside your house and will get into your pantry and kitchen areas. Usually you will notice droppings first, and they will also start to chew holes in bags of food, especially bread and cereals. They will eat this and take it back to the young and feed it.
If you’re having any of these signs, it’s important that you contact your Tulsa exterminator as soon as you can because we can take care of this problem quickly and effectively.
Many people think that the best solution is to get some traps and put them in their attic. Not a bad idea, but unfortunately, traps kill these rodents very slowly, one at a time. And often you’re going to have to go and clean those traps, or else you’re going to have a bad smell and the trap is ineffective when it’s full.
Live traps are a terrible idea. The reason is because when mice find themselves trapped in an enclosed space, especially with another one, they will go through a kind of psychosis in which they will kill another rodent near them. Usually, this is a very messy and disturbing process. It’s important that we humanely dispose of these rodents without allowing them to suffer.
In the end, bait is the best solution because you can kill many more mice with it than you can with a single trap.
Over-the-counter baits can pose a risk of secondary poisoning. This is where a mouse eats the bait, dies, and another animal comes along and eats the carcass, potentially exposing that animal to the rodenticide.
Professional pest control gives us more options for proper bait selection, secure placement, and monitoring. Any rodenticide can pose risks to pets or wildlife if misused. So we focus on correct placement, follow-ups, and removing carcasses when possible to minimize secondary exposure.
That’s why it’s so important that you contact a Tulsa exterminator if you think you’ve got a problem. TermMax Pest Control is the best when it comes to dealing with rodents. Call us because we can help you quickly, effectively, and in the most economical way. Call us today.
