There's an old saying in business. "Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door." While this adage holds true when it comes to products and services that the public wants to buy, it doesn't necessarily mean that we need better mouse traps for trapping real mice, because the secret isn't so much in the trap you use as in the techniques employed. Beyond that, traps are not the whole answer. There are other measures you can take to keep your place mouse free.
Mouse Habits and Life Cycle
Control begins with understanding your target species. The common House Mouse, Mus, musculus, infests homes and businesses throughout North America, causing millions of dollars in damage annually. This species thrives in human occupied structures where food, water, shelter and nesting materials are readily available. Mice prefer to remain and forage within 10 feet of their nests (up to 30 feet when necessary) and their movements are not just horizontal. They will travel vertically as well. They can infest any part of a home or commercial structure. Mice defecate and urinate wherever they go. Their droppings can contain several disease organisms, including bacteria that cause Salmonella. (And in the case of the Deer Mouse, Hanta Virus, but this is for another article.) For this reason they are a public and individual health concern.
Description
The adult house mouse is gray or brown, with small eyes and relatively large ears, weighing roughly ½ to 1 ounce. Its over-all length, including its 3-4 inch tail, is 5.5 to 7.5 inches. In any given year the female will have five to ten litters, each consisting of five to six young. Gestation is 19 to 21 days, with the young maturing in 6 to 10 weeks. The typical house mouse will live 9 to 12 months. Under ideal conditions, unchecked by predators, disease and deaths caused by other factors, one pair, has the potential of giving rise to a population of approximately 1 million individuals, in only 12 months! If you don't believe it, do the math yourself.
Prevention
Prevention falls into three categories: Exclusion, elimination of food sources and removal of harborage.
Exclusion:
Any time of year, but especially in the fall, as temperatures begin to drop, mice will try to gain entry into homes and other buildings. Building owners should thoroughly inspect structures to ensure that there are no openings of ¼ inch or larger as these are easy entry points for these rodents. Check doors and windows. Be sure they seal tightly. Replace defective thresholds and sweeps. Check walls where wires or pipes enter the structure, calk and seal gaps. Inspect all attic, crawl space and garage vent screens to ensure that they are tight and have no holes larger than ¼ inch. Also check crawl space doors for a tight seal. Have a look at the areas where perpendicular roofs come together. There are often gaps in these areas that will need to be closed. Be sure that all rooftop vents are properly screened.
Elimination of Food Sources:
Be sure that potential outdoor food sources are eliminated or cleaned up. Pet food should never be left out over night. Fallen tree fruits should be cleaned up daily. Keep garbage receptacles tightly closed. Indoors, be sure that food, including pet food, is properly stored in tightly fitting containers or in a refrigerator or freezer. Food should never be left out over night and food residues should be cleaned from all surfaces. It is best to have a metal indoor trash container, with a tightly fitting lid.
Removal of Harborage:
Harborage removal is a critical step in reducing the potential for mouse invasion into any structure. Construction debris, piles of brush and anything else that provides cover or shelter for mice must all be removed. Trim vines and thick ground cover back away from the building.
Baiting With Toxic Baits
The general rule is to bait outdoor and trap indoors. With indoor baiting the animals are likely to die in hidden and inaccessible areas of the structure and create an unpleasant odor. If you must use baits inside, make sure they are placed in locations that children and pets cannot get to them. There are mouse bait stations on the market that hold baits inside them, but just to be safe it is still recommend that you place these out of reach of children and pets.
If you have a large population of mice outdoors and wish to reduce the chances of the entering your home or business, you may wish to use baits to lower their numbers. In this situation most pest control experts very strongly recommend using tamper-resistant rodent bait stations that can be anchored down, with solid block baits fixed on spindles or bars, firmly locked into the station, so pets and children can't pick them up and shake to bait out. To be safe, it is placing the stations in areas where children and pets won't get to them, but the mice will is recommended. Place the stations in such a way that the entry holes are closest to a hard surface where mice are likely to feel their way around.
Trapping (The Preferred Method of Mouse Control)
The preferred method of controlling mouse populations is trapping. This is true for a couple of reasons. One is that you know immediately what your success rate is. The other is that the dead are easily found and removed, before any odor can develop.
There are a lot of traps on the market these days but the old fashioned, snap trap is still the simplest and best. And mass trapping is the best technique, especially with heavy to severe infestations.
The rule of thumb for how many traps you use is generally twice as many traps as you think there are mice. Don't be stingy. The more traps, the more chances you have for success.
Use the most traps in the areas of highest activity. These areas can be identified by the large numbers of droppings. They are usually near regular nesting and feeding sites. Traps should also be placed in the active run areas where mice regularly travel.
Mice have poor vision and use surfaces, such as walls, to find their way around their environment. Place traps perpendicular to these surfaces. Orient them so that the bait pedestal is nearest to the wall, since this is most likely where the mouse will be travelling and be most apt to find the bait. It also takes advantage of the mouse being in the target area as the bail snaps (toward the surface). Place 3 or more traps next to one another so mice can't just jump
over them.
Mice are generally curious about changes in their environments and will investigate them almost immediately. This gives you the advantage when you first place the traps and gives you additional advantages when you move them around. Most experts recommend varying the placement of traps at weekly intervals, within the active areas, to keep the mice interested. You may also wish to leave the traps unbaited and unset for a few days after a week or two, then begin using them again. This can be helpful if the mice have narrowly escaped being caught and have become trap shy.
Contrary to the popular notion, mice aren't really very fond of cheese. They do like dried fruits, nuts and will, sometimes, go for meat. Raisins and Craisins are a good choice, because they are attractive to mice and are easy to skewer with the bait holder. They hold pretty firmly to the pedestal, making them more difficult to remove, thus increasing the chances that the trap will be triggered. It is sometimes helpful to smear a little peanut butter on the bait to increase its attractiveness. Mice are also attracted to nesting materials so cotton balls or fabrics may also work as bait. Don't be afraid to mix and match all of these baits to see what works best in your situation.
If, after following these steps, you still have a problem with mice try calling a professional to assist in locating additional access points, identifying more areas of activity and conducting a professional trapping program. The technician will have more knowledge, a wide range of experience and be better equipped to accomplish the task successfully.
www.pestcontrolcenter.com
As a pest control professional I get frequent calls about houseflies, gnats, mosquitoes, fruit flies and unidentified, flying & swarming insects. Concerned customers and prospective customers want our technicians to go to their homes or business and "exterminate them all." They want an insect free environment. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to flying insects. There is no magic spray that we can use to erase their problems and there is no such thing as an insect free environment, nor should that be the goal. Sure, flying insects that are present at the time of a treatment can be killed with a quick knockdown material, but others will take their place in short order. The problem is that they, well...fly! In the case of crawling pests, a residual barrier can be placed around a home or other building and the pests crawling across the material will be killed. In the case of flying insects there is no contact with the material and they are unaffected. Having said all of this, I don't want to leave my readers feeling defenseless. There are some practical steps you can take to significantly reduce populations of some of the more important flying insect pests.
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