5 Poison-Free Ways to Rodent-Proof Your Home

Rodents are a nuisance and if you think you have them in your home you should contact your local pest control expert as soon as possible.

Consider this, seeing one mouse in your home is usually a sign that there are many more already present. As they don’t like bright lights you’ll only usually see them when they are hunting for food, often overnight or in the dark edges of the room. The average pregnancy of a mouse is 3 weeks and they’ll give birth to an average of 8 babies.

That means you’ll have 10 mice running around within 3 weeks of the first couple arriving. Each female mouse can have as many as 10 litters a year, that’s how a nest can grow so large and yet, thanks to the fact it’s out of sight, remain hidden.

Don’t forget that mice and other rodents carry diseases, some of which are particularly nasty. That’s why you should get professional help from your local pest control firm as soon as you realize there are rodents within your home.

You can also take steps to rodent-proof your home, to prevent it from happening again.

1. Close The Entry Points

Mice can fit through surprisingly small gaps, as can rats. The first thing you need to do is walk around the exterior of your home looking for any gaps, cracks, and other potential entry points for these rodents.

Pay particular attention to gaps around doors and windows. When you find one, seal it up straight away.

2. Consider Your Bird Feeding Habits

Feeding the birds attracts them to your garden and allows you to help them survive, especially through a tough winter. But, the grains you feed the birds also attract squirrels and rodents. Any grain on the floor around your birdfeeder is considered fair game for rodents and it’s a tasty treat.

Bird feeders should be placed as far away from the house as possible.

3. Clean Up

Rodents are attracted to food and water. If you don’t clean your surfaces properly or put food away after you’ve prepared it then the rodents will find it and enjoy a feast.

You need to store all open food packets in sealed containers and wipe the countertops and floors regularly with a disinfectant spray. This will stop the rodents from being attracted to your home.

4. Traps

There are plenty of humane traps that will allow you to capture rodents without killing them. You can then release them into the wild a good distance from your home.

Of course, you can use standard traps that kill the rodents, the best bait to use is actually peanut butter!

A trap does more than help eliminate an issue, it also highlights that the rodents are already inside your home.

5. Planting

Rodents scurry around looking for ways to stay hidden as they search for food. Plants against the side of your home make it easier for them to hide and find a way into your home. If you remove the plants and just have a strip of concrete around your home, preferably at least one foot wide, many rodents will be deterred as the crossing is too risky.

As always vigilance is the key to spotting potential entry points and eliminating issues before they become serious.