What You Need To Know To Prevent Mice and Rats Getting Into Your Home
What you can do outside your home:
- Use a thick plastic or metal garbage can with a tight lid. Make sure there are no holes in the garbage can.
- Clean up trash, brush, and weeds around your home.
- Check the outside of your house for gaps and holes. Seal them with cement, lath metal, hardware cloth or sheet metal.
- Put away pet food after use.
- Keep grains and animal feed in thick plastic or metal containers with tight lids.
- Keep grass and shrubbery within 100 feet of the home well trimmed.
- Move woodpiles 100 feet or more from the house. Raise the wood at least 1 foot off of the ground.
- Use traps in areas outside your home where you think mice and rats may live.
Where to look for gaps and holes outside your home:
- In the roof among the rafters, gables, and eaves
- Around windows
- A round doors
- Between the foundation of your house and the ground
- At tic vents and crawl space vents.
- Under door
How to seal gaps and holes inside and outside your house:
- Fill small holes with steel wool. Put caulk around steel wool to keep it in place.
- Use lath screen or lath metal, cement, hardware cloth or metal sheeting to fix large holes. Lath screen can be folded and pushed into holes. It can also be cut to fit around pipes. This material can be found in the masonry or building materials section at a hardware store.
Once mice become a problem they can be extremely hard to get rid of. If in a home for a good period of time, a large amount of mice may be living in your attic, foundation or walls without home owners being aware of their presents or damage that is being done. Also, as said earlier they can live off almost nothing! Not only will A Minnesota Animal Control eliminate your mice problem in your home, they will also ensure they will not come back through proper sealing and guarding of entry points.
