Apr 14, 2012 – ABC’s on Mice

QUESTION:

I am new to the pest control business and have been teaching myself and learning from other friendly pest control business owners about common household pest control (ants, roaches, etc.). I just got a call from a potential customer having mice problems. Since I don't know much at all about mice (and can't seem to find a master tech class about them online to help further) I decided to ask if you could provide some good starting tips for mouse control. I have yet to look at the house yet but they live out in an area with lots of open desert all around them. They claim to have lots of mice in and around their home. They claim a few other pest companies have provided no results. Any help would be highly appreciated, and thank you!

ANSWER:

We do have Course #17 - It Was The Night Before Christmas - that covers The House Mouse, its biology and control, so this would be one good starting point. You also can take course 20 on Urban Rats, and much of the information on rat control will also pertain to mice. I also suggest you obtain a copy of the excellent book by Dr. Robert Corrigan - "Rodent Control - A Practical Guide for Pest Management Professionals", as this is without a doubt the best and most thorough and most recent book on this topic for our industry, and it will give you tremendous insights to rat and mouse control. You should also consider subscribing to one or both of our major industry trade magazines, as these monthly journals will nearly always offer some new information on rodent management. 

It's hard to summarize a topic as broad as rodent control, but let me give some highlights at least. Most important may be to begin with those IPM steps of habitat modification and exclusion. It is possible to completely prevent mice from entering residential structures by identifying and permanently closing all possible entry points, keeping in mind that a gap of only 1/4 inch could be enough to allow a mouse to squeeze through. It probably is NOT possible to completely exclude mice from entering the exterior property, so your efforts there should be to remove all the attractions that bring them onto that property. These are going to be, most importantly, food and harborage. Mice can live without a drink of water, but they must eat and they must hide all day, so eliminating these possibilities as much as possible will dramatically reduce the number of mice living around the outside of the structure. 

On the interior it is best to avoid the use of toxic bait if possible. Baiting indoors always increases the chance that a child or pet could access the bait, even if you believe it is placed in inaccessible places or in tamper resistant stations. Trapping and immediate removal of trapped rodents is preferable if you have normal infestations, and using LOTS of trap placements if needed. On the interior you also need to focus on removal of food resources as well as disruption of normal harborage the mice are using. When you disturb the normal routine of rats and mice you make them uncomfortable, and when the rodent is now looking for new food and harborage resources it means they are moving around more, investigating your traps or bait more, and you are more likely to capture them. 

Identify where they are hiding and where their travel routes are, based on signs such as feces, urine, damage, etc., and place your traps and stations directly along these pathways. Place traps and stations directly against the vertical surfaces to take advantage of the rodents' instinct to stay against walls and other vertical surfaces. Check traps each day if at all possible to remove trapped rodents or reset triggered traps. Mice are curious, and they may quickly investigate the things you put down there for them, so you want to remove them before flies find them or they begin to decay and create foul odors. These are two of the reasons for avoiding baiting indoors, which could lead to dead rodents where you cannot remove them. 

Find out what the expectations are of these customers. It could be that they believe they should have zero mice on their property, and this may be unrealistic. Find out what level of cooperation they gave those previous companies in removing pet foods and other food resources outdoors, or in doing exclusion if they said they would take care of that part, or in eliminating piles of brush and other materials laying on the ground. You should start with a fresh slate on each of these accounts, and with a WRITTEN inspection form evaluate the property inside and out, noting all of the Contributing Conditions that need to be corrected, assigning those to specific people with a specific timetable for getting them done, and check on this on each visit. 


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