How are Mice Getting into My Home?

As excellent swimmers, climbers, and the ability to jump almost a foot into the air, mice are well-equipped to get into your home.

Kevin Sagers

Updated

March 23, 2023

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As excellent swimmers, climbers, and with the ability to jump almost a foot into the air, mice are well-equipped to get into your home even through openings as small as a dime.

You and your kids might be thrilled with the idea of having the old Mickey Mouse from Disney World visiting you. However, things can quickly turn sour if Mickey’s real-life cousins infest in your home. Whether you scream and faint at the sight of real-life mice or find them loveable, you certainly do not want them sharing your home with you. Well, they can contaminate your food and other surfaces with salmonella, which may put you at risk. They can also bring various parasites such as ticks and fleas into your home.

As we’re at the height of the winter season, it’s very cold out there and mice could be moving into your cozy home to stay warm, safe, and find food. A major part of keeping these annoying rodents away from your home is finding out how they are getting into your home in the first place. It may come as a surprise to you to learn the many crafty ways that mice are using to find their way into your home.

How exactly are mice getting into your home? Mice can enter your home through cracks and holes in your wall. They can also scale walls, climb ladders, swim through sewers, and walk across wires. They’re very adaptable and persistent, especially when looking for food, shelter, and warmth. These needs are always more acute in fall and winter and your home could be their perfect refuge.

So if you’ve been wondering how mice are entering your home, you’ve come to the right place.

Table of Contents

How Mice Enter Homes

Given their resourceful nature, mice always seek the easiest entry points within your home. In most cases, they’ll find these entry points through their sense of sight and touch. That’s not all; mice can feel even the slightest of warmth, which may guide them in identifying potential weaknesses in your home.

You should also remember that mice are excellent wall climbers. For this reason, they don’t need a tree branch to access your window ledge. They can also fit through unbelievably small openings within your walls. An opening of about half an inch would be more than enough for a rat to find its way in.

Some typical mice entry points include:

· Fence railings

· Electrical wires

· Gaps between materials

· Eaves

· Tree branches

· Sills and ledges

· Water conduits

· Weep vents

· Chimneys

· Gutters and Downspouts

· Plumbing

· Cracks in foundations

· Air conditioning and heating units

· Roof vents, and many more.

How to Fix These Entry Points

Needless to say, fixing these entry points is the first step towards eradicating rat infestation. You should, therefore, fix all the gaps, holes, and cracks within your home. You can use a caulking gun to fill those openings. It’s important to make sure that the caulking gets into the hole as deep as possible. You should also make sure that any damaged part of your home such as broken window panes are repaired or equipped. This is vital not only in keeping the rats away but also in ensuring that other pests do not have easy access to your home.

Prevent Mice Getting Into My Home | Pest Control Kings

What are other Preventive Measures?

Making your home less appealing to rodents as well as other uninvited pests should be a priority. You should ensure that your compound is free of weeds and is well-trimmed. Mice generally take advantage of long grass and weed to camouflage as they make their way into your home. Make sure that there are no leaf piles, yard clutter or any type of waste lying around. Rodents also love woodpiles and construction materials. You should, therefore, make sure that such things are as far from your home as possible. You should also trim vegetation that seems to hug your house.

Removing any source of water or food is another ingenious way of keeping rodents away from your home. Mice are attracted to water sources and various types of food that are left lying around. It’s essential to remove these things from your compound and make sure that the garbage area is inaccessible to pests. A proper solution is using garbage cans with tightly-fitting lids.

To ensure that your home is ultimately rodent-proof, you can put an ultrasonic pest control unit in their crawl spaces. This unit can produce mice-distressing sounds at varying frequencies and volumes. These sounds are often undetectable to humans but the poor mice will run for their lives. You can also use other deterrents such as having a cat around. Cats are mice’s natural predators and can help you control a mice infestation. You can also employ mice repellants such as mint plants and bay leaves. Setting a rat trap can also be another efficient way of dealing with mice infestation.

What about the Ones Inside?

Now that you’ve sealed your home from a further rat infestation, it’s crucial to turn your attention to the ones inside your home. The most effective way of getting rid of them is by trapping them. Given their strong sense of smell, you can bait them with delicious morsels like oats, butter, dried fruits, and peanuts. You can then direct them to the bait and trap them. This is perhaps the most effective way to deal with the rats inside your home.

With that in mind, you should avoid using mouse-killing poisons, especially if you have rat-eating pets such as cats. Another major shortcoming of these poisons is that they always do not kill the rats instantly. As such, the mice might still walk back to their nest and die there. And because mice nests are tiny holes that are hard to access, the smell of dead mice is something that we bet you don’t want in your home.

Conclusion

Mice infestation in your home is, without a doubt, a major health concern that you do not want to deal with. In addition to carrying foodborne diseases such as salmonella, they can trigger asthma and spread hantavirus, which is fatal. This is exactly why you shouldn’t let mice enter your home in the first place. There are a host of places that mice can use to access your home. From cracks, holes, wires to trees, chimneys, and roof vents, these entry points are countless. Discarding these entry points is the first crucial step in preventing your home from mice infestation.