How to get that mouse out of the house

By Stacy Downs
Knight Ridder Newspapers

No, that’s not Jack Frost nipping on the wires in the basement. It’s the time of year when furry critters sneak inside homes. They’re seeking food, water and shelter from the cold.

A few winters ago, a squirrel made its way through the roof into Kirby Upjohn’s Kansas City home. Sure, the fuzzy-tailed animals seemed cute outdoors, but Upjohn was “creeped out majorly” when one was rooting through her attic.

“It sounded loud, like it was having a big party,” she said. “It was running, flopping and jumping all over the place.”

Upjohn called Critter Control of Kansas City to drive out the squirrel. The company uses Jack Russell and Patterdale terriers to detect and chase out pests. The squirrel ran out the same hole it had entered.

Bats and raccoons also can make their way through small roof openings. (Wood-shake shingles are especially susceptible.) Rats can squeeze through gaps the size of a quarter. Mice, the most frequent winter pest, require holes only the size of a dime.

In addition to being contortionists, mice are like circus performers in other ways. They can climb rough surfaces such as a home’s exterior or vertical pipes. They can balance on thin wires. They can jump more than a foot vertically. They can swim.

Mice make their homes in insulation, paper and furniture stuffing, said Judy Loven, Indiana director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service at Purdue University. They make their presence known by their dark-colored droppings that resemble broken bits of wild rice. Rat feces look similar but are larger, like grains of rice.

Other signs of rodents include gnawed food boxes, oily grayish-black marks along walls, stray pieces of food, patches of fur and slight sounds of movement in pantries, ceilings and walls. Sprinkling flour on a surface and checking for footprints later is another way to detect a mouse.

“It’s important to address a potential rodent problem as quickly as possible,” Loven said, “because they reproduce rapidly.”

Not only do they spread disease, they damage property. They tear up insulation and gnaw door frames and furniture. They also can chew through electrical wires, causing fires.

Mice don’t discriminate between new and old homes, said Chuck Dockery, general manager of Terminix in Kansas City. And cats and dogs don’t prevent or deter rodents. “They alert people that they’re there,” he said.

Pest-control professionals usually inspect homes for free. But yearlong treatment, including exclusion efforts, trapping and cleanup, costs about $400, Dockery said.

The average home invasion is one to 10 mice, said Jeff Archer, owner of Critter Control in Kansas City. When it comes to mice (not other rodents), it’s fine for homeowners to fix the problem themselves, he said, “if they do it right.”

Bait for traps should be textured. Chunky peanut butter works, Archer said. “A lot of people put too much on so the traps won’t trigger,” he said. And cheese tends to dry out too fast, and the mice will lose interest.

More people are starting to use traps that let mice live, which is the method the Humane Society of the United States recommends. The mice should be released in an area with old outbuildings and barns.

It’s best to get the permission of the property owner, according to Laura Simon, field director for the society’s urban wildlife program, based in New Haven, Conn.

“You don’t want to move them to somebody else’s yard,” Simon said. “Then they become somebody else’s problem.”

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