For city dwellers, the appearance of a mouse in an apartment sometimes causes a real shock. However, this is not as unique a situation as it seems. Nimble, agile rodents are very mobile and often migrate over fairly long distances.
The article about mice in the apartment is divided into chapters:
- Signs of mice appearing in an apartment
- Why do mice appear?
- How to get rid of mice?
- Mechanical methods of destruction
- Chemical methods of controlling mice
As a means of communication, they were provided with a whole network of underground communications that enveloped our cities. Through basements, sewer and water supply systems, they penetrate into the most seemingly inaccessible and well-guarded apartments of people. They are attracted by warmth, curiosity, and most importantly, the smell of food. Small, crafty bodies, sharp teeth and claws help them overcome, often not the most reliable barriers erected by builders.
Signs of mice appearing in an apartment
Identifying unwanted guests in the form of rodents at an early stage of their move-in will help get rid of serious problems in the future.
Loopholes found and blocked in time will prevent large-scale measures to remove the overgrown population. And it’s best to contact the pest control service without delay. In an untreated case, disposal and barrier protection services will cost less. SES specialists will even undertake to identify the source of infection if this cannot be done on their own. Usually, the appearance of pests can be detected first by sounds coming from under the floors, from behind the walls and structures of the premises. This is a quiet, periodic grinding noise, especially noticeable at night. Not only against the backdrop of general silence, but also because of the predominantly nocturnal lifestyle of these animals. There are voids under the wooden floors in some apartments - a favorite place for mice to move. By tapping lightly on the floorboards, you can hear a commotion underneath.
Gnawed packages with food or their remains, in general, are characteristic damage to things related to food, not to mention the food products themselves of any kind - a clear sign of a parasite. A gnawed bag with cereal spilling out of a hole is a vivid example. In this case, you should carefully examine the floors and walls, especially in the area of the baseboards, for the presence of holes. They differ from the arched passages familiar from cartoons primarily in size. Sometimes it’s surprising how anyone bigger than a cockroach can get in there. Moreover, you need to be especially careful when examining.
The fact of the presence of rodents will, of course, be their waste in the form of grayish grains emitting a specific odor.
So, the main symptoms of mice appearing in an apartment:
- slight rustling and grinding at night;
- fussing under the floorboards and in the voids of the walls;
- teeth marks on packaging and food products;
- holes in the floor, corners, baseboards;
- mouse excrement;
- direct visual contact.
Having established the fact of infestation with parasites, you must not hesitate. The incredible fertility of mice does not allow time for much thought.
Harm and danger to humans
- Food spoilage. If traces of spoilage by mice are detected, food should be disposed of.
- Damage to electrical wiring, which causes short circuits and even fires.
- Damage to sound and heat insulation, utilities.
- Damage to furniture, clothing, bedding.
- The likelihood of contracting serious diseases (food poisoning, typhoid, tularemia, plague, hemorrhagic fever, salmonellosis). The saliva and feces of rodents contain pathogenic bacteria and viruses, and the animals themselves are carriers of fleas.
- Smell. When there is a large concentration of mice in your home, a heavy, unbearable, specific smell of all rodent waste products appears. It is quite difficult to get rid of it.
Why do mice appear?
There are many reasons for the unexpected appearance of mice, but they all have two factors in common:
- Stimulus
- Opportunity
The motivation may be a lack of territory, and, accordingly, lack of food for a proliferating colony nearby, for example, in the basement of a house. The search for warm places with the onset of cold weather forces mice, despite genetic fear, to settle closer to human habitation. But how can you not succumb to temptation if you dig a small hole and you will have access to the bins of careless owners. Mice have an excellent sense of smell, and they can smell potential food from a great distance. In addition, they instinctively understand where a person is - there is food and warmth.
And their extraordinary agility, small size and flexibility of body, sharp claws and teeth help them get to apartments. If the apartment has the slightest flaws in the design, the smallest gaps in the ceilings and support systems (pipes, ventilation, electrical wiring), this gives a chance. No worse than moles, they dig holes and widen cracks to get to food. This is what mice live for, and this is what they devote almost all their time to.
A cluttered room, the smell of food and waste is an extraordinary incentive to take a risk. A clean apartment, where there is nothing to profit from at night from the table or from the trash can, is not of particular interest to mice, especially if getting there will cost incredible efforts. Rational thinking will tell the animal to look for places that are more nourishing and more accessible.
So, what attracts rodents:
- food;
- warm;
- availability.
You can minimize the risk of uninvited guests appearing in your apartment by keeping your home clean and careful in storing food. High-quality, reliable finishing of the apartment, excluding cracks and cracks, will be an obstacle to pests.
How many repellers are needed for one room?
The first thing you should keep in mind is that ultrasound is not able to pass through dense objects (walls, etc.). The ideal option would be to install a repeller in every room. However, there are situations when one appliance is enough for the whole house, if it is not large.
If a rodent repeller is placed in one room, but the door to the next one is constantly open, then, obviously, there will be no rodents in the next room.
If this room is filled with various objects, for example a warehouse (racks, boxes, boxes...), then it is better to increase the density of repellers per square meter. meter of room compared to the effective area of the repeller.
How to get rid of mice?
When this does happen, it is urgent to choose a method of getting rid of parasites that is most appropriate to the characteristics of the room and the degree of infestation. The safety of all residents and pets must also be taken into account.
You need to start with a general cleaning of the entire home:
- get rid of garbage, old trash;
- remove carpets and clean;
- carry out wet cleaning using products containing disinfectants, especially carefully rinsing hard-to-reach places.
Check the premises for the presence of burrows, and you need to closely inspect:
- baseboards;
- wardrobes and chests of drawers;
- under the bath;
- under the sink and washbasin;
- behind the toilet.
Fill all discovered holes and cracks with polyurethane foam or seal with mortar. Now you can start getting rid of mice using the chosen method.
Mechanical methods of killing mice
If this is a mousetrap, then its location and the attractiveness of the bait will play a decisive role. It is better to use several devices, placing them in areas where mice are likely to visit food at night and near suspected burrows.
The bait may be the simplest, but fragrant. Cheese or sausage will do, but the goal is not to feed something tasty, but to catch it. Moreover, mice have slightly different tastes. They love seeds - you can soak a piece of bread in sunflower (unrefined) oil.
The disadvantages of such mousetraps are their one-time use. After each, even successful operation, you will have to charge again. In addition, this is a rather cruel method of murder, and burdensome with the need to get rid of the corpse. Nowadays, electric mousetraps are gaining popularity, killing rodents with an electric discharge and automatically storing them in a special closed compartment. All that remains is to take it out and shake it out like the dust collector of a vacuum cleaner. Adhesive tapes and adhesives are a more humane method, but do not exclude contact with a live rodent. Any animal stuck to tape or cardboard coated with glue must be disposed of somehow.
Remember:
Despite their size, mice can be very aggressive in a desperate situation, not afraid to attack larger animals.
Chemical methods of controlling mice
These are classic poisons that abound in the retail chain. They are produced in ready-made briquettes, and in powders, solutions, granules, which can be mixed with bait or water. Fast-acting poisons kill mice within a few hours. Special mummifying additives get rid of the smell of decomposition, drying out the corpse if the dead animal is not discovered in time.
There are a lot of devices and means for repelling rodents, such as ultrasonic repellers or concentrates of odorous plants. But if there are mice in the house, there is no more reliable method than professional pest control.
How to eliminate pests indoors using traditional methods?
If you are interested in how to find out if there are voles in a building, you should pay attention to rustling and extraneous sounds in your home at night. These animals are nocturnal, so they often deprive homeowners of normal sleep.
Also, if you find at least one individual in your home, you should know that, as a rule, they do not live alone. In such a situation, it is necessary to immediately begin the fight, since mice in residential areas can cause a large number of problems.
Before calling SES representatives, it is worth trying several time-tested folk methods. The fact is that sprayed chemicals by representatives of special services can cause poor health of apartment owners or their pets after the treatment. Effective methods are:
- Use of ash.
- Using lard-fried cork.
- Institution in the cat's house.
If you are interested in how to drive pests out of your home, you should use ordinary ash. It causes severe allergies on the pads of voles' paws, which forces the animal to refuse to walk around your house. You can also fry the cork in lard and place such a repeller in the habitats of the animals.
Moreover, the instincts of cats are aimed at catching these particular rodents, so your pet will be able to please you not only with affection, but will also save you from having to think about where pests are in your home.
Physical means
Electric Trap Rat Killer
Conventionally, they are divided into exterminators and repellents. The former are needed to destroy rodents, the latter - to scare away. Conventionally, exterminators are divided into traps and traps. In the first case, the destruction of the rodent occurs at the moment it touches the bait, in the second - after capture. Sometimes traps are intended only to catch a rodent, and the owner will decide for himself what to do with it next.
Traps
Traps
A standard mousetrap can be made in different ways. The basis of the mechanism is a spring kept in a cocked state. When the rodent takes the bait, the spring straightens and the impact mechanism is activated.
The impact mechanism is not necessarily made of metal. It only takes a little force to kill a mouse, which is why plastic traps have become popular lately. After removing the rodent's corpse, the trap can be cocked again and repeated many times.
This is a simple, convenient and very effective tool. The intelligence of mice does not allow them to understand the danger of such structures, so the use of such mousetraps is very effective.
The disadvantage of such designs is that you will have to deal with numerous corpses of mice, some of which (if the staple successfully hits the rodent’s head) will have a very unattractive appearance.
Traps
Electronic mousetrap Victor
Universal Rat Zapper Trap by Victor
Traps
Traps come in a variety of types, from homemade structures made from plastic bottles to small electronic chambers or holes that electrocute rodents. This group also includes sticky traps coated with especially adhesive compounds, both containing poison and not containing it.
Recently, devices from Victor, which are boxes with a high-voltage source powered by ordinary batteries, have gained great popularity. The mouse is attracted by the smell of the bait, crawls inside and receives an electric shock.
At the same time, unlike traps, there is no mechanical damage to the mouse’s body and there is no need to wipe the floor stained with entrails: the corpses of mice are removed from the trap without physical contact with them. The power of traps can be very different, and they exist in various modifications: not only for mice, but also for rats.
Rodent traps
The most common way is to set a mousetrap. You can prepare food for mice from flour and alabaster. The mixture is rolled into balls and scattered around the house. There are electrical traps and homemade devices. You can make a rodent net. It must certainly be small. Devices with ultrasound and chemical poisons help drive away mice. The latter must be used extremely carefully.
Extermination of rodents is a mandatory method. They are very dangerous for humans. If there are a lot of mice, and it is extremely difficult to drive them away, it is recommended to call pest control specialists.
