If you don't know what to do about mice in your home, you're not alone. Mice infest millions of homes across the nation every year. While you can try setting out mouse traps with peanut butter baiting them, your best bet is going to be calling in a professional Los Angeles pest control company, such as Kat's Pest Solutions.
Identifying a Mouse Problem In Your House
If you've got mice in your Los Angeles home, there will be some tell-tale signs. The first is that you'll see mouse droppings on your floors and countertops. Mouse droppings are about ¼ inch long, rod-shaped, and pointed on each end. You may also see oily-looking yellowish puddles – that's mouse urine. If you see droppings or urine, make sure you clean them up wearing protective gloves and using paper towels so you don't contaminate your regularly-used sponges or wash rags.
The Many Dangers Of Having Mice In Your Home
There are several diseases mice carry, which can infect you if you breathe in dust from dried droppings or urine.
These diseases include:
- Hantavirus
- Leptospirosis
- Tularemia
- Salmonellosis
- Adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
- Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM)
Diseases aren't the only danger posed by having mice in your home. Mice can cause considerable property damage. They constantly need to gnaw to keep their front teeth at a manageable length. Otherwise, the teeth will grow more than four inches per year.
They're completely indiscriminate in their gnawing; furniture, cabinets, doors, door jambs, floors, walls, pipes, and electrical wires are all fair game. If they gnaw through the wrong pipes, they could cause extensive water damage inside your walls. Chewing through electrical wires causes a major fire hazard. They also soil their nesting areas which can be difficult to address, especially in hard to reach places such as wall voids.
Why It Is So Hard To Get Rid Of Mice On Your Own
To know how to get rid of mice by yourself, you first need to understand that you can't get to everywhere they're hiding. For example, mice can live in your wall voids, the areas between the studs in your walls. You don't want to knock a bunch of holes in your walls to try to figure out where the mice are, then apply a product that will drive them out before killing them – because while you don't want live mice in your house, you definitely don't want a bunch of dead mice in your home, either!
Another reason it's so difficult to get rid of these Los Angeles pests on your own is that they breed so quickly. For example, a female house mouse can give birth to a litter of six or more babies every three weeks, up to 35 per year. Also, mice can start breeding when they're six to eight weeks old. If you start with just a few female mice in your house in autumn, by spring, you could have hundreds.
One more problem with eliminating mice on your own – once they're in, they're in to stay. Unless you know where and how to apply products to run them out of your house, they're not leaving their safe, warm shelter with room to grow and plenty of food and water. You can try using some natural mouse deterrent, but again, you have to be able to get to the mice to apply it.
The Most Effective Way To Get Rid Of Mice In Your Home
By far, the fastest way to get rid of mice is to call in a professional Los Angeles rodent control exterminator, such as Kat's Pest Solutions. Our Pest Wranglers are highly trained in rodent control, and they can get to mouse colonies you didn't even know were there to drive them out. They can then help you exclude mice from your property, so they won't come back into your home. At Kat's Pest Solutions, we believe that there's no pest too big, no job too small; we control it all. Call us today for your free inspection and to learn more about our residential and commercial pest control services in Los Angeles.