Tips on Home Improvement

Mice Extermination: When Should You Call the Pros?

So apparently Stuart Little is not an accurate portrayal of a mouse.  Did you know that almost no mice wear little jeans and sweaters?  And even fewer of them are voiced by Michael J. Fox?  In fact, most mice just bogart your food, have babies, and give you and your pets diseases.  It's practically like living with a junkie.  Remember that Stuart Little book, Stuart Little Gives the Family Tapeworms?  Probably not because the 'Stuart Little' people don't want you to know the truth about mice!  I'm here to set the record straight!

What is it?

Mice are defined as rodents, and can generally be differentiated from rats because they're usually much smaller (they weigh somewhere between 11 and 22 grams).  They are more times than not, a grayish-brown and one of the most common house pests in the United States.  They often enter homes through cracks in walls and floors, though they're known to also gain access to your home through drainage pipes, oven gas lines, and windows (especially if, you know, they're open).  It's important to try and eliminate mice before they reproduce and make your problem a full-on infestation (female mice have litters of five to six babies every couple of months).

Therefore, hiring an exterminator may very well be the best solution in the end, especially if you suspect there is more than one mouse rummaging through your snack drawer.  Also, many mice exterminators will charge you depending on how many mice are inhabiting your place.  Therefore, if you call an exterminator immediately following a mouse sighting, he can get rid of the mice/mouse for a much lower cost (assuming there are fewer of them) and most likely, give you tips on how to better prevent infestation (though this may also mean them trying to sell you Mouseblocker 3000 or some other extraneous products).

Though let's face it, it's the recession and we're not all going to want to pay top dollar for exterminators.  Therefore, there are several available mouse traps on the market that one can buy.  Instead of trying to exterminate mice with guns or just plain old threats, you may want to try snap-traps, the old stand-by.  If the trap is triggered, the spring bar will usually kill the mouse instantly.  However, the trick for bait is to bypass the standard hunk of cheese for something stickier, like peanut butter, as they can't simply carry it away, but have to lick it off the trap.


Perhaps you find the guillotine-like quickness of the snap trap too humane for your tastes.  In this case, you may want to shoot for a glue trap, which doesn't kill the mouse, but keeps it in place via a sticky adhesive until it eventually starves or dies of dehydration.  So if you have deep-rooted family issues, this could be a way to get your sick and twisted ya-ya's out.  Although, be aware, some mice can actually free themselves by gnawing off their own extremities (kind of like a Stuart Little meets The Saw kind of deal).

Probably the most expensive trap available is the electronic mouse trap, which, when triggered, electrocutes mice on the spot.  Cool technology, but it can only be used once and is not cheap.

Who needs it?

If you spot a mouse in your house, you need to exterminate it in one way or the other.  While it may all seem like fun and games at first, mice will slowly but surely lower your spirits until you're aimlessly walking down the street, weeping, and mumbling curses on Stuart Little.  Even if you're a big animal rights supporter, you need to handle a mice infestation properly because they can carry a variety of different diseases such as salmonella, leptospirosis, tapeworms, ringworms, and Mousebite fever.  Luckily, there are live traps, which capture mice by luring them with bait, except when the trap is triggered, a spring door snaps shut and successfully traps the mouse inside the contraption.  It is then up to you to release it, ideally somewhere far away from your home, and maybe somewhere resembling their natural habitat (Disney World?).

Benefits


Hiring professional mice exterminators will provide the most beneficial results, seeing as how you don't have to clean up any dead mice and they already have the necessary tools (like repellants, poisons, and infrared cameras).  They will also be more successful at locating mice in hard-to-reach areas such as crawlspaces and in between walls.  And since they are professionals, they won't leave behind any potentially harmful traces of dead mice, as they capture them and then dispose of them afterward (my guess would be that they drive them deep into the woods and then shoot them in the back of the head with a really tiny gun).

Risks

There are several risks involved with DIY mouse extermination.  If you do decide to buy a trap, make sure you dispose of the dead mouse as soon as possible and with extreme caution considering that they can carry harmful diseases.  You're most likely going to need a disinfectant of bleach and water, as well as sturdy gloves and maybe even a face mask.

Also, it is not recommended that you use poison to kill mice because more times than not they will wander back to their nest (inside your walls for instance) and die.  This will most likely result in horrible smells.  Also, if you have a cat or dog, poisoning a mouse could essentially mean poisoning your pet.  In short, only professionals should use poison.

The bottom line

If you're feeling adventurous (or feel the mouse has made things 'personal'), then go ahead and buy a trap, as they will be much cheaper than hiring an exterminator.  Just know, if there's more than one mouse (and many times there is), hiring an exterminator will probably be inevitable, and possibly the only way you can ensure the elimination of infestation.