Mice
What can I do against mice
Prevent mice from entering your home and make your home as mouse-unfriendly as possible. That way you can address the problem before real mouse control is needed. Mice are good at climbing and crawling through very small holes. A hole half an inch wide is enough. They descend on food.
With the following measures, you can already make life very difficult for mice.
- Close cracks and crevices. Do provide adequate ventilation. Place a grate in front of vents.
- Repair holes in drains and walls.
- Install a fly screen in windows and doors that you open.
- Make sure your home is clean and tidy. Dispose of trash immediately.
- Store food in boxes made of metal or hard plastic, or in jars with tight-fitting lids.
- Feed pets in the morning and don’t give them too much. Then when the mice go looking for food in the evening, most of it will be gone.
How to recognize a nesting/pest
Think you are suffering from mice? Recognize them by the following signs:
- Mice make gnawing sounds that you hear especially early in the morning and in the evening.
- In mice’s constant search for food, food packages do not get in their way; they make holes in them to get to the desired food.
- When you suffer from mice, the droppings are scattered everywhere because mice eat in different places. The droppings are 3 to 8 millimeters in size and dark in color.
- The urine of mice produces a strong pungent odor, a combination of ammonia and musk, which becomes stronger as the mouse infestation approaches.
- To ensure their teeth stay sharp and short, mice gnaw constantly on wood, plastic and electrical wiring. The damage to these can even cause fires or short circuits. It is therefore important to control mice or rats quickly.
- Check out our other tips on recognizing pests.
What is the difference between a mouse and a rat
You can tell whether you are suffering from mice or rats by the droppings. Do you find pointed, loose droppings smaller than half a centimeter? Then you are suffering from mice. Rat droppings are often stuck together in piles and are larger, up to 2 centimeters long. In places where they walk a lot, they leave a greasy layer called belly grease.
Tips for fighting mice yourself
- mouse poison
- a clamp
- an electrical trap
- an adhesive plate
- an animal-friendly trap to catch mice alive
- repel with ultrasonic sounds
- dispel with a smell
Home remedies. There are scents that mice do not like. For example, peppermint, chamomile, lavender, cloves and chili pepper. If these scents are effective, it is only in concentrated form, such as essential oil.
- Plug all holes and cracks with anti-mouse sealant. Go around your house very carefully. Where can the mice get in anywhere? Plug all these holes. Use special anti-mouse sealant from Mouseshield or Mousestop. With repellent mesh, you close off vents to mice but preserve ventilation. This is because the ventilation opening is the way for a mouse to enter your house through the cavity.
- Store your own food properly in sealable containers. Also make sure all pet food is in tightly sealed containers.
- Locate where the mice are in the house. Look carefully to see if you find mouse droppings in other rooms as well.
- In these rooms, look for the smallest holes and plug them well. Also consider cable ducts, heating pipes and so on. Now no new mice can come in and you can get started.
- Put poison in those places where you have mice nuisance. Make sure no children or pets can get to them!
- Make sure the mice can always keep eating the poison. So keep refilling until they stop eating it and the mice stay away. This can take several weeks. If this does not help, then professional mouse control is needed.
- Do the mice continue to eat the poison and the nuisance does not diminish? Then the mice may be resistant to this type of mouse poison. A product with a different active ingredient can offer a solution. A good alternative is the Muskil paste. It contains 2 active ingredients.
- For those who don’t want to get started with poison, there is the old-fashioned mouse trap. Success guaranteed! Additional advantage: you see results immediately. The dead mice do not remain lying around, but are cleaned up immediately.
- A quick and deadly mousetrap is the electric mousetrap. This trap runs on batteries and gives the mouse an electric shock after it is lured inside. You then hygienically dispose of the mouse without touching the critter.
- If you still have questions, you can also contact us anytime. We can then also see together if mouse control is necessary.
