The house mouse is considered the most detrimental and common house pest in the United States. They have essentially fully adapted to living with people. They are small rodents with brown or gray fur, large ears, and small eyes. House mice will climb, jump, and swim in order to get to their favorite foods, which are often found in houses, farms, open fields, and commercial buildings. They are curious creatures that will chew through walls, electrical cables, and storage containers to get the food they want. Mice have poor eyesight, but they make up for it with their other senses and their memory. They continually explore their environments in order to memorize the locations of food sources, hazards, safe hideaways, and escape routes. What makes house mice so common and detrimental is that they reproduce at a remarkable rate.
Mice typically enter homes in the fall and winter in search of food and shelter. Because they are so small, they are able to squeeze through tiny holes and cracks to enter homes. Mice are the most troublesome and economically important pest, contaminating untold millions of dollars worth of food, damaging possessions, and causing electrical fires with their constant gnawing. It’s suggested that house mice contaminate 10 times more food than they consume. They taste everything they come across. While foraging for food, mice will defecate, urinate, and shed hair, which contaminates food, making its consumption dangerous for humans or other animals. House mice will also chew through electrical wiring, which can cause power shorts and outages, destroy appliances, and even lead to electrical fires. On top of these physical concerns, house mice are also disease carriers. They can carry salmonellosis, rickettsial pox, dermatitis, Weil’s disease, and meningitis, which can all be dangerous for humans.
Because mice are small and dexterous, and because they reproduce incredibly quickly year-round, mouse proofing homes can be extremely difficult. The best way to prevent mice from entering is to secure food in rodent-proof containers, seal up obvious gaps and cracks along building exteriors, and maintain a sanitary household or business area. To ensure you’re dealing with a mice infestation, place mouse traps in your attic and look for mouse droppings.
If you find yourself with a mice infestation, please call us at 248-255-8999. We will quickly locate and remove the mice until the nuisance is taken care of. We will then work to seal the entry points to your home and repair any damage the mice caused.