By :
Fran Phalin
While the winter season may bring cold weather that will encourage you and your family to keep warm inside your home, it also encourages the same of outsiders who may be drawn to the comfort and confines of your home. These unwanted visitors can overstay their welcome more than your in-laws can during the winter holidays. You are busy enough maintaining your household and getting things ready for the end of the year. These annoying critters can also cause damage to your home and contribute to an unsanitary situation. Learn to prevent and control rodents before they ruin your holiday season.
Types of Rodents
The many kinds of rodents which can enter your home include rats, mice, raccoons, and opossums. Regardless of which rodent has made a home out of your attic, you will need to take the same measures to control and get them out of your house quickly and painlessly. Rodents will be attracted to any food item you have in your pantry, especially high-quality food products such as meat and fresh grain. If you have pets, be extra cautious about foods being left out, because rodents can smell and detect dog food and leftovers that are sitting out. They have extremely sharp senses of hearing, and smell. Once they are aware of what is within their reach and given their keen senses, rodents will do anything they can to get to food or shelter.
Raccoons and opossums normally choose attics, crawlspaces, sheds, and other hiding places as their home. Because these types of rodents can have large litters, they like environments which are enclosed, dark, damp, and warm. Outside of your home, raccoons and opossums can destroy your yard and turn your garbage container inside out.
Rodent Prevention
Preventing rodents doesn't need to be elaborate or time consuming. The simple tips below will show you that rodent prevention can become a part of you daily routine, maintaining cleanliness in your home and taking extra-cautionary steps with food, among other things:
- Store all your accessible food in rodent-proof containers such as glass or metal
- Place your trash in tightly covered metal cans to prevent smells from escaping or potential rodent entry.
- Check your faucets to make sure they are functioning properly and to fix leaks as they occur, since gaps or holes around pipes can serve as easy entry points for rodents.
- Seal up any unnecessary openings with concrete or sheet metal. For other access points, a 1/4 inch hardware cloth or copper wool should do the trick.
- For pet owners, put any uneaten pet food away before you go to bed, as any pet food left out is subject to rodent consumption! You may want to consider feeding your pets in the morning and cleaning up leftovers then. Empty water bowls at night or put them away.
- Wipe your floors often! Any bits of food left on your floor may be game for mice.
- Spray a non-chemical solution over outside areas where raccoons and opossums are prone to dig or consume food. This will leave a bad taste in their mouths and will discourage it from going to the same place to cause trouble.
Keep in mind the main points of rodent prevention to steer you and your family clear of them: 1.) remove food supply, 2.) remove water supply, and 3.) change your environment.
Rodent Control
If you know that you have rodents inhabiting your home or are highly suspicious of rodent activity occurring in your home, you can employ several different trapping methods, which can include an effective bait. However, you should only handle rodents, especially the larger ones such as raccoons and opossums, if you are an experienced handler. If you are not sure how to trap a rodent or what to do, the best idea is to call an animal removal service.
Author Resource:-
Fran Phalin is a freelance editor and writer specializing in home improvement topics. She is based in Austin, TX.
For pest control services on any rodent, whether you need assistance in preventing them or need a pest control professional to control and trap rodents for you, please contact ABC Pest and Lawn. Visit them at www.abcpest.com. ABC covers ALL crawling pests!
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