We all understand the incentive of convenience. Pizza delivery is a cornerstone of college life for many, and 24-hour gas stations are essential to certain locations and lifestyles. Well, some pests value convenience as well, and one of the most common and indeed the most dangerous pests to take advantage of the convenience that our homes offer are mice. Mice survive perfectly well in the wild, living off plants and bugs, and multiplying fast enough to keep up with being prey for other creatures. Even so, mice love the convenience that human dwellings offer, and they will make full use of it if we're not careful.
The main draw for mice when they enter our homes is food. Humans are the masters at food storage, and the wealth of edible things we keep in the house is a bounty worth a mouse risking exposure to access. Mice often eat 15-20 times a day, and so it's no wonder they would prefer human-sized amounts of food. Mice can also often find sources of water in or around our houses. Leaks or pipes covered in condensation provide constant sources, and sheltered access to water is always preferred. Finally, that shelter is often ideal for building a home. What better material to insulate a nest with than insulation? Humans possess a variety of materials found nowhere else, and the many small nooks in basements, attics, crawlspaces, and in-between spaces are a haven for mice wanting to get comfy and start a family.
All this convenience for mice means big problems for us. Mice survive so well in the wild mainly because they reproduce so quickly. An average female mouse can have over 60 babies a year, and those babies are ready to reproduce in roughly six weeks. The work that goes into all that fast growth is messy and often damaging. Mice make almost 9000 pellets a year, an astounding mess for so small a creature, and their nests and frequented spaces will often start to stink from this filth. Mice are also constantly chewing on things to file their teeth down, and a mouse chewing on your wiring can cause serious, even deadly problems. Beyond this, the diseases that mice are capable of carrying can be very dangerous to humans, and some have been known to be transmitted simply by breathing them in.
Mice, it turns out, are a pest headache far worse than their furry little faces would lead us to believe. Prevention for mice is all about cutting them off from the three things that they most desire from us: food, water, and shelter. Shutting off access to food, ensuring that there are no wet spaces or leaks in our houses, and closing off cracks (no matter how small) that mice may try to enter through. If we can remove the convenience of these things, the mice will be less likely to stick their noses where they don't belong. Unfortunately, if the mice are already in your house, it's likely they have made themselves comfortable, and even keeping food and water inaccessible may not be enough to make them leave. Do-it-yourself traps or poisons may or may not help, and sometimes do just enough damage to a mouse to leave it dying inside your walls, rather than where it was supposed to be stopped. Calling in Big Blue Bug Solutions is your ticket to a pest-free home and peace of mind for the future. Our residential service covers not only mice but a host of other pests that can cause various issues in and around the house. Big Blue Bug Solutions provides full inspections to identify any pests you may be dealing with and has proven methods for eliminating or solving pest problems such as mice so that your house can provide convenience to you and not to the wildlife.