I saw a mouse, what now?
Mice may seem small and harmless, but they can do a lot of damage to your home. They sneak into your homes primarily looking for shelter, warmth, and food. Once they’re in and admiring the decor, they begin to reproduce and before you know it, you have a full-blown infestation. They’re like the uninvited guest who overstays their welcome and eats all your food, except these ‘guests’ urinate and defecate in and on your counters, shelves, dishes, and closet up to 75 times a day!
Signs you may have mice in your home…
Making a bad situation worse, mice can avoid detection hidden for a long time. Most commonly, the first signs are scratching sounds or a weird ammonia-like smell. You may also find droppings, but often, these are initially dismissed as something else.
Mice are nocturnal animals, which means they’re primarily active at night, meaning it is possible that you may not see a mouse until they have spread throughout your house. These small rodents have the habit of constantly gnawing, which can cause significant damage to your property. Occasionally, they’ll chew napkins or paper products, but in some cases, they will actually chew the wooden structural products used in the framing of your home and, scariest of all, they will often chew wires, causing a fire hazard. It is estimated that rodents cause up to 20% of the undetermined fires in the US each year.
How often do they reproduce?
Simply put, mice are breeding machines. Let’s do some simple math. Mice have a gestation period of 19-21 days. A female mouse can get pregnant 5-10 times a year, giving birth to a litter of 6-8 pups. Those females reach sexual maturity at 6-8 weeks. Mothers can mate immediately after birth, so there is often only 3 or 4 weeks between litters. Those two mice that snuck into your home could give birth to ~60 pups in a year. Of those, let’s say half (30) are females that are capable of having babies in ~6 weeks. If each of those continue to breed at that rate, you’re looking at >5,000 mice in a year. Now, obviously you’re not going to have 5,000 mice in your home, but it’s pretty easy to see how quickly you could end up with a pretty sizable (20-30 mice) infestation.
What do I do if I think I’ve got mice?
If you see the initial signs of an infestation and are not sure what it is, do not leave it to chance, schedule a rodent inspection from the experts at Preferred Pest Solutions immediately. We have the proper training and experience to find the signs and suggest the right course of action for you.
