how to deal with mice or other rodents in your home

Being in the pest control business in the Albany area, we hear of stories, all the time, of families with some amazing stories of rodents or bugs invading their homes.  

Pests are any unwanted creatures - animals, insects, or any other organism or even plant that make life difficult by damaging property, destroying food crops or by biting and sometimes giving an infection. The method of reducing or completely eliminating these unwanted guests/ pests is called pest control. Pest control depends on the type of pest and its habits and number of pests present. Pest control can be done anywhere, in farms, houses, or any other place like office or public building. Pest control is done with the use of insecticides/pesticides. It involves removing the present pests and ceiling the entry points, so that they don’t enter again.

Mice and rats are the most common rodents, who can damage anything and everything. They can enter the place from the smallest hole, even as small as a cent. They do so for food and shelter. Before trying to act against these rodents, it’s essential to find out if there is a single mouse or rat or a whole group or infestation. This can be easily done by their droppings and by the strong smell of their urine.

Some DIY methods to eliminate these rodents would be:

1. Block their entry points- one can do this by filling cement in the open holes or m-seal. Though this is a very lengthy process, requires a lot of time, it is the most essential one.
2. No food source available- covers trashcans, keep food in air tight containers or in the refrigerator. Once there is no food available, some rodents may leave by themselves and it will be easier to catch the remaining few.
3. Use peppermint oil- though this is a very temporary solution, placing cotton balls soaked in peppermint oil creates a smell which is too strong for the rodents, but this may also be harmful to pets and children. Do keep this in mind.
4. Use traps- There are a number of traps available in the market and also one can make a trap at home, plenty of helpful videos are available online for the same. There are two types of traps- snap trap that kills the rodent or physically harms it or the humane one which only catches them. But one will require different traps for mice and rats because of their different size and also it catches only one at a time.  

If after all this effort, if you still have rodents, then the best thing to do would be to hire a professional pest control company.  This will be much easier because they are experts in the field and in most cases it turns out to be cheaper as well. Professional pest controllers/exterminators examine the entire place, their entry points, their droppings, etc and then suggest the method for their removal.

They do the complete work, from examination to removal, by using traps, sprays, etc, seal the entry point and also do follow up visits.

Rodents are very risky, as they bring with them a number of other parasites and diseases and also damage the place completely; hence it is very essential to get rid of them as soon as possible.