How To Get Rid Of Mice In Your Jacksonville Home And Keep Them Out

Are you having trouble with mice? They can be a pain to get out of your home. One reason why they're so hard to control is that most people don't truly understand them. Mice are well-known animals and common pests, but there are still many misconceptions about how mice behave and what they do inside homes. Join us as we take a look at a few key facts about mice in Jacksonville, what works to get rid of mice, and how to prevent future infestations once mice are gone. As always, we want to remind you that you don't have to read an article about mouse control to fix a mouse problem. You can jump to our contact page and we'll send someone over to help you with your rodent control problem. Lindsey Pest Services offers industry-leading rodent pest control in Jacksonville. We know what works to get rid of those tiny rodents. If you're here because you want to know more about how mice behave, what kind of sneaky things they do in your home, or how to naturally prevent a mouse infestation with pest maintenance, read on and enjoy.  

How To Tell If It's Mice Infesting Your Home

Detecting mice is the first, middle, and last step in effective mouse control. Everyone should know a little bit about how to do this because, as surprising as it may be, mice noises in walls are not common. Mice don't generally make any noises that humans can detect. Your dog or cat may detect them though. If you notice your pets acting funny, that could be your first clue that you have a mouse infestation. Here are a few more signs to look for:

• Droppings. Mice leave their droppings in secluded spaces, dark voids, behind appliances, on attic insulation, and in other places. These droppings are hard to miss.
• Holes. Mice create holes to go from wall voids to common areas. Examine baseboards. As you look for these holes, keep in mind that a mouse only needs a hole the size of a dime.
• The scent of urine. Mice mark their areas with droplets of urine. The more mice you have, the more noticeable the smell of urine is likely to be.
• Rub marks. When mice run along baseboards, they tend to leave grease marks. Darker marks mean frequent trips or numerous mice or both.
• Nests. If you have a mouse infestation, the mice may hide in your attic. Use a flashlight to check cracks, crevices, and hiding places in your attic for mouse nests.

When you find evidence of mice in your home, the next step is to evaluate the potential threat. Let's look at a few quick facts about mice and human health.

You Don't Have To Touch Mice For Them To Make You Sick

There are many ways a mouse can make you sick without it touching you, and without you touching it. Here are just a few of them.

• When mice get into food packages, climb over cutting boards, explore dish and silverware cabinets, and generally crawl around on surfaces in your kitchen, they can make you sick by leaving invisible microorganisms in their wake. These organisms can cause stomach illness.
• When mice and rats leave droppings in your home, the droppings can dry, crumble, and become airborne. Some mice spread hantavirus this way.
• When mice explore your home, they drop fleas and ticks. These parasites have their own lists of diseases, some of which have lifelong health implications.
• When mice get into wall voids and attic spaces, they can chew on wiring and cause a fire. We don't need to tell you how bad that can be. Experts believe that 20 to 25 percent of fires started by unknown sources are likely rodent-related.

It is best to keep mice, rats, and other rodents out of your home. Let's take a look at how effective rodent control works. 

The Best Way To Get Rid Of A Mouse Infestation In Your Home

It is best to contact a professional for rodent control. We recommend selecting a company that provides comprehensive services such as inspections, trapping, rodent monitoring, exclusion work, odor services, and clean-up of infested areas. Let's take a look at how each of these work.

• Effective rodent control begins with an inspection. Your technician will look for rodents, potential routes and entry points, warning signs of rodent activity, conducive conditions, and other essential factors. A professional inspection is the first and last step in making sure your home is rodent-free.
• The best way to remove mice is by putting down traps, but mice don't make it easy for you to catch them. Technicians are trained in field-tested protocols that work to outsmart mice and achieve good results.
• During your service visits, your technician should check monitoring stations around your home. These stations help to evaluate the success of the control program and steer your technician toward a successful resolution to your rodent control issue.
• Traps aren't enough on their own. They only provide a partial solution. Your technician will use other products and methods to get control of your rodent problem. One essential step is to apply exclusions. Your technician may seal gaps and cracks, cover vents, and protect your crawl space. If your home has a lot of damage, a contractor is the best solution for repairs. Pest control technicians only do minor exclusion work that doesn't require construction.
• When rodents get into your home and die, they can create a powerful and unpleasant odor. The odor can last a long time. Odor-removal services address this problem with specially formulated odor-fighting enzymes.
• Rodent droppings are a hazard to your health. You may need a specialized treatment service to address viruses, bacteria, and other secondary issues created by unsanitary areas of rodent infestation.

If you're in Jacksonville, reach out to Lindsey Pest Services for rodent control. We offer all of these comprehensive rodent control solutions and more. We can get you on track to a solution that will get the job done. Once those rodents are out of your home, here are five practical tips to help keep them out.     

Five Practical Tips To Prevent Future Mouse Problems In Your Home

When you have Linsey Pest Services handle your rodent control, most of the work of preventing future mouse infestations is done. But there are a few ways you can help to make sure mice stay outside where they belong. Here are five of our best suggestions.

1. Remove yard clutter. Mice have poor vision and must use their other senses to navigate. One of the senses they use most is touch. A mouse will feel objects around them by using their whiskers, much in the same way a blind man uses a cane. A yard that is free of clutter provides a barrier against mice. A mouse that explores the edge of your property doesn't know that the exterior of your home has food, water, and hiding places that are desirable. That's how you want it to stay. Remove anything from your yard that doesn't need to be out there, particularly organic materials, such as scrap wood, brush piles, leaf piles, etc.
2. Remove bird feeders or move them away from your exterior. While it is certainly nice to have birds visiting your property, those feeders will also attract rodents. Seeds are the primary dietary staple for mice. They love seeds so much, they'll even scale walls to get to feeders. If they can't get up to your feeders, they'll settle for eating the seeds that fall to the ground. It is best to not have bird feeders near your home if you hope to keep mice out of your home.
3. Clean up nuts. Do you have nut-producing trees? If so, you're going to attract mice. Nuts are another dietary staple for mice. We recommend raking and bagging the nuts and storing the bags in a bin away from your home. It also helps to have a cover on your bin. If you have mice climbing and jumping around your bins, they won't find their way inside.
4. Clean your trash receptacles. A trash receptacle can start to stink when trash doesn't get to the curb on time. While you find that smell unpleasant, mice don't. The scent of a dirty trash receptacle can bring a mouse into your yard in hopes of finding food. It can also lure a mouse from the edge of your property to your exterior walls, where it may find a way into your home.
5. Block access to voids underneath structures. A common way mice get into Jacksonville homes is that they get underneath decks or patios, or a crawl space under a home. Once inside the protection of a void beneath structures or a crawl space, mice can gnaw on wood and find a way to interior structural voids. Use fencing material to keep mice out of these vulnerable zones.

As you work to prevent future mouse infestations, remember that you're not alone. Lindsey Pest Services provides ongoing pest control service in Jacksonville. Contact us and ask us about Better or Best pest control for your home. Both of these service plans come with coverage for rodents. We'll monitor your rodent pressures and apply appropriate products to stop mice from getting inside. There is no easier way to prevent mice infestations—and also keep more than thirty common Florida pests out.