GardenDesk

How To Tell If Mice are in Your House (Guest Post)

 

Mouse Droppings Mean Uninvited Guests In Your Home

Even the best-kept homes can contain tiny, furry creatures. Mice often sneak inside our homes in search of food and shelter. Witnessing a mouse scurrying across our kitchen floor is definitely unpleasant. As a result, check your home often for mouse droppings, the telltale signs of invasion. In a short time, a small number of mice can produce thousands of mouse droppings. Mice love certain areas in your home, including under water heaters, in crawlspaces, dark corners, storage boxes, beneath cabinets and especially your kitchen. Mouse droppings are often found under the stove, refrigerator and dishwasher.

 

Identifying Mouse Droppings

Mouse droppings are small, about a quarter inch long, and are usually pointed at one or both ends. When fresh, they are dark and soft. Mouse droppings lose their color and harden after three days. By examining the age of the mouse droppings, you can ascertain whether your rodent problem is current. If you have many mice, you will have a significant amount of mouse droppings, and drastic measures may be necessary.

 

Where There Are Mouse Droppings, There Are…

If you hear scuffling sounds in your walls and the scurry of little feet, you will inevitably have mouse droppings. Mice have been known to cause electrical fires by chewing on electrical cords. In general, mice love to wreak havoc in our homes, gnawing on cardboard, creating nests of shredded paper, and causing damage to personal items stored in garages, attics and basements.

Mice can also carry diseases, such as Hantavirus. You risk becoming infected if you inhale dirt and dust contaminated with mice feces. In rare cases, death can result. Take precautions when cleaning up mouse droppings. Open windows and ventilate 60 minutes prior to cleaning. Spray mouse droppings with a combination of water and bleach to avoid stirring up dust and breathing it into your lungs. Remember that the best form of protection is prevention, so you should keep the mice out of your home, or kill them before a dangerous situation can occur.

 

Combating Mouse Droppings

If you want to decrease the mouse population in your home, you need a well-planned strategy. Research has shown that the first night you set traps is the most important window of time for battling a mouse problem. As a result, you should invest in a powerful trap that gets the job done. Also, the more traps you set the better. The new electronic mouse traps can kill up to 10 mice without resetting. You’ll be amazed at how many mice you can catch with these traps. They kill mice instantly and without any mess. This is a welcome alternative to standard spring release traps and catch and release traps, which have been known to kill slowly and require lots of mouse handling. As an added benefit, electronic mouse traps come with a built-in safety switch that turns off when the door opens, making them fully automated, simple to empty and poison free. Combating mouse droppings has never been easier.

 

Other Steps to Stop Mouse Droppings

You can protect your family from the diseases that mouse droppings may cause. What’s the secret? Mainly it involves good sanitation efforts inside and outside your home, as well as exclusion tactics. A mouse can enter your home through a quarter inch of space. That’s why you should pay special attention to areas where mice can gain access, such as dryer vents, garage doors, crawl space vent covers, chimneys, exterior lines into your home, windows and doors. Make sure there are no gaps in your window and door screens. Your garage door should close completely, so mice can’t squeeze in through the cracks. The exterior lines leading into your home should be sealed off, chimneys should be capped and vents sealed with metal screening.

Many consumers love ultrasonic rodent repellents. These devices emit a high frequency sound wave that only mice can hear, deterring rodents from entering your home. These sound waves have no effect on your non-rodent pets. If you want to prevent the problems before they start, this no mess solution could be the answer.

 

Tips For Inside Your Home

Don’t want to see icky mouse droppings in your home? Combined within electronic mousetrap, rodent-proofing the inside of your home can be highly effective approach.

1. Store food properly, so mice can’t access it. Metal canisters, glass jars, and tightly sealed containers can protect food from furry bandits. The more mice eat, the more mouse droppings you need to clean up. Seal up pet food, birdseed, and dry food, because these are mice favorites.
2. Clean counters and floors regularly and keep these surfaces free of food. Uninvited guests love crumbs, so keep the areas under your refrigerator, stove and dishwasher clean.
3. Store food and supplies off of the floor.
4. Seal up areas that tend to be neglected.

 

Tips For Outside Your Home

1. Keep firewood and lumber away from your home. Also, elevate it by at least 15 inches.
2. Properly maintain your landscaping. You will often find mouse droppings in overgrown areas.
3. Remove construction materials, abandoned vehicles, junk piles or anything else that mice might call their home.
4. Secure your unsealed garbage containers.

Mice love to multiply. Removing these temptations can keep mice from settling into your yard and, shortly thereafter, into your home.

Sponsored Guest Post Provided by Victor®

Mosquito Zappers… Good Mosquito Control For Your Garden?

 

Why The Mosquito Zapper Is Popular

Mosquitoes are the bugs that best symbolizes the clash of nature and humans. Their incessant buzzing and painful bites send people running indoors.

Not only are mosquitoes annoying, but they can be extremely dangerous. Lately, West Nile Virus has been covered extensively in the news. But this is not the only mosquito-borne disease humans can contract. Throughout the U.S., people, especially those with impaired immune systems, children and senior citizens, have suffered from a variety of illnesses caused by mosquito bites. The effects of these illnesses can be mild,
from annoying headaches and flu-like symptoms, to extreme effects requiring hospitalization.

People have been trying to get rid of mosquitoes for hundreds of years, and fortunes have been made on the never-ending quest for good mosquito control. Some solutions have proven to be highly effective. Others, like the mosquito zapper, have turned out to be a fluke. (Mosquito Control)

 

Mosquito Zapper Evolution

Popular Mechanics featured a model insect trap in their 1911 issue that mirrors today’s modern mosquito zapper, complete with an electric light and electrified cage. Two unnamed Denver men designed this first mosquito zapper, but ultimately concluded it would be too expensive for widespread use.

Through the years, the original mosquito zapper has evolved and found its way into the backyards of homes across America. The zap, crack, and pop of the mosquito zapper has become a part of summer evening soundtracks.

The zap, crack, and pop is actually the sound of an insect being heated to a temperature high enough to explode its body. Using a light source, often a fluorescent lamp, the mosquito zapper emits violet and ultraviolet light to attract insects. Surrounding the light is a pair of interleaved bare wire grids or spirals. The mosquito zapper also has a high-voltage power supply that generates enough electricity to conduct through the insect’s body, which bridges the two grids, but not high enough to spark across the air gap. This key amount of electricity in a mosquito zapper, and the cage surrounding the electrical current, are what protect animals and humans from receiving a shock. (Bug Zapper)

 

Mosquito Zappers Miss the Mark

The mosquito zapper simply doesn’t attract mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are drawn to carbon dioxide, heat and moisture, which are all missing in the mosquito zapper. Ultraviolet light merely piques their curiosity. As they enter your yard after detecting the mosquito zapper, they will quickly change course and head straight for you.

Scientific studies have shown a mosquito zapper is not effective at killing biting insects. However, it is very effective at attracting and killing harmless and beneficial bugs. A study conducted over a period of one summer found a mosquito zapper killed close to 14,000 insects, but only 30 of those were mosquitoes.

Not only is a mosquito zapper ineffective at controlling mosquitoes, it can actually cause harm to both the environment and those humans it claims to protect.

Non-biting insects have proven to beneficial to the environment. From pollination to a food source of animals and birds, non-biting insects, those that a mosquito zapper kills, are important to the earth.

Another major drawback of the mosquito zapper is called scatter. As insects explode from the electricity of the mosquito zapper, they spread a mist. The mist caused by a mosquito zapper contains insect parts plus bacteria and viruses. Research has shown the mist surrounding the mosquito zapper can reach up to 7 feet. Inhaling or consuming this mist can be dangerous. The FDA advises a mosquito zapper should not be placed near food preparation areas for this reason. (Mosquito Facts)

 

Mosquito Zapper Alternatives

The mosquito zapper simply does not kill mosquitoes. However, there are solutions available today that do exactly what the mosquito zapper claims it can do… kills mosquitoes, interrupts their breeding cycle, and ultimately controls their population.

The best mosquito zapper alternative is the mosquito trap. The most effective mosquito traps emit a precise and steady stream of carbon dioxide, heat and moisture. While the mosquito zapper can’t attract mosquitoes, the trap is highly successful at luring these biting insects.

Once they reach the trap, they are
vacuumed into the device and captured into a net where they dehydrate and die. Whereas the mosquito zapper unsafely explodes bugs, sending parts, along with bacteria and viruses, flying into the air, the mosquito trap contains the insects within.

Since a mosquito zapper doesn’t actually kill mosquitoes, it can’t have any affect on the mosquito population. A mosquito trap, on the other hand, kills mosquitoes in large quantities, affects their breeding cycle, which can drastically reduce the population.

To get the most out of a mosquito trap, it should be placed properly. Close to mosquito breeding spots and far away from people areas, the mosquito trap will effectively lure and kill mosquitoes, accomplishing exactly what the mosquito zapper cannot. (Trap Placement)

 

Works Cited

Mosquito Control. 28 January 2011

Bug Zapper. 16 February 2011

Mosquito Facts. University of Florida News.

Trap Placement. Mosquito Magnet

 

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