People say that when you see one mouse, there are many more in the shadows. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a mouse infestation. But in my 17 years of being a licensed animal control specialist, I can confirm that this saying is true. Many people don’t understand that mice breed rapidly, The average female can give birth to about 10 litters per year (each litter contains 6-8 babies) and now imagine that inside your home. Hundreds of little mice scampering under your floors, between your bedrooms, darting across your kitchen floor. It’s because of this reason that it is so vital to contact an exterminator or animal control specialist as soon as possible.
Mice can do all sorts of damage to your home, things you wouldn’t typically think of. Because mice live in nests, they will chew and rip up anything that could be used to build their home within your home. Anything from wood, installation, and even electrical wiring. Mice have no respect for your belongings, they will chew through furniture, appliances, walls and anything in between. Structural issues become a very real problem if a mouse infestation gets advanced enough. The material items are the least of your worries.
On top of being incredibly destructive, mice are known for carrying all sorts of diseases and germs. Sure, from a distance mice are super cute and fluffy. With their small plush bodies, and their small eyes and adorable ears. But if you look at them from a biological standpoint, they are the ultimate breeding ground for bacterial and viral infections. From rat-bite fever, to the plague, even Leptospirosis. These dangerous and even deadly diseases transfer even faster if the mice get into your food and you living areas. This is why it’s so important to contact a proper specialist so they can make sure to sanitize and clean properly. So please, keep yourself and your families safe from these hidden figures
Tag Archives: get rid of mice
Living with a Litterbug
I’ve got a major mouse problem, it’s not an Australia in the summer kind of major, but for a small 3 bedroom townhouse – it’s major. I have never had a problem with mice before, I mean yeah one here and there over my entire lifetime, but never 5 in one week. I’m trying to get rid of them on my own but every time I set a trap I catch a new one, and then when I turn around another is running across the floor into the wall. I think my house might be infested and I can’t deal with that alone! I need help from someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t cry every time they have to pick them up. I’m a vegetarian, so killing animals is not my thing, but I have to do what I have to do I guess.
I wish I could say that I had no clue why this was happening, but I know EXACTLY who to blame for this disaster that I’m currently living in. I’m a junior in college and I rent this townhouse with two other girls – actually, it’s currently just one other girl. The girl that USED to sleep in the room next to mine was evicted two weeks ago because she was practically a hoarder and was destroying the room. The owners told me and my roommate that if we’d be willing to clean up what she left behind and get the room back in order, we could have a month or two rent free – depending on the size of the mess. Well, guess where we found the mouse problem. DING DING DING! There are four holes in the walls in the room, and that’s where we are catching every single mouse.
So far, we haven’t seen any outside of the one bedroom, but with the crazy amount that we’ve been catching, I’m afraid our mouse problem is getting out of hand. Everyone is collectively trying to get rid of these things and looking for help. I’m not going to lie, having someone else kill the mice for me isn’t my only motive in looking for a professional (though it is a big one). I’m also hoping that maybe, I can get another month off of rent if I can solve this problem for good. And I mean, obviously I can’t keep living in a house with a mouse infestation, so I’m hoping that they’ll clear out so I can keep living here. Finding good housing in college is hard enough.
Mice in the Pantry
Quitting my diet cola drink is hard enough. The headaches, mood swings and general feelings of “unwell” are evidence that those little cocktails of carbonated water, caffeine and chemicals are not exactly healthy for the human body. When I’m going through diet soda withdrawals, normal life is difficult enough, and then today I discovered mice in the pantry.
Life’s been full of big changes for me lately. I just graduated from a masters program in business administration, I just got laid off from my job, my boyfriend and I just got engaged, and I’m putting my townhome on the market while looking for a house with my fiancé. So, of course, I think it’s a great idea to quit drinking diet soda and start an exercise routine so I can look and feel my very best on my wedding day. I’m stressed, on edge, even though most of my life changes are mostly for the good. Well, except for the job loss, of course. That’s a special kind of stress.
After a frustrating wedding planning session with my mother, I decided to clean out my kitchen in preparation for the upcoming move. I’ll admit, I haven’t been in that pantry for a good, long while, subsisting through the last few months of the masters program on take-out and vending machine food. I had no idea there were mice in the pantry until today.
I pulled items out, wondering what those little black things were on the shelves and the tops of the cans. I finally realized those little black things were mice poop around and on top of my food when I saw little holes chewed into pasta and cereal boxes. That’s really put me over the top today. Mice in the pantry! Right when I’m trying to sell the place. Crap.
I easily got the pantry emptied out by throwing everything away. I called Allstate Animal Control to get rid of the mice from the pantry. And, I am now enjoying a heavily caffeinated diet soda. Fine. I can quit some other day.
Mice in the House
It was hard enough to throw a big multi-family Thanksgiving this year, and then the uninvited guests showed up. One week before Thanksgiving, I discovered we have mice in the house.
Thanksgiving dinner had usually been a difficult juggle between my husband’s family and my own family. We tried attending two dinners in one day, and that turned out to be a disaster, with siblings and aunts feeling slighted that we didn’t eat as much the second dinner that day. Then, we tried alternating years for a few years. That also was difficult, because each family had some special “reason” we had to throw off that schedule and attend their dinner each particular year. Finally, I said enough was enough. I informed everyone we would not be attending anyone else’s parties this year, because I wanted to cook a special dinner for my own family. My statement got misinterpreted by both families. They figured if I was going to cook on Thanksgiving, then everyone would just come to my house. Instead of a quiet special day enjoying my own husband and children, I found myself stressing for an entire month. That was even before we discovered mice in the house.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)
I assigned my husband certain jobs – he was to make the yard look nice and neat, put up the Christmas lights, and re-stain the banisters. My children were all given serious talks about getting their rooms neat and clean and keeping the rest of the house pristine. I flew into full-on cleaning mode. Carpets were cleaned, I deep-cleaned the stove, the kitchen, the front room, and the living room and put locks on all the doors for rooms guests would not be allowed to see.
I designed the menu, and redid it many times, remembering a certain niece’s allergies, my mother-in-law’s aversion to vegetables, and my sister’s vegetarian preferences.
Then, one week before Thanksgiving, right when I was heading out to purchase a new tablecloth and an extra table or two, I saw a mouse run across my kitchen floor and disappear under the kitchen sink. I ran to the kitchen sink and threw open the cabinet door, surprising two more mice rummaging around in the garbage can. Nothing could be worse for me at this moment in time than mice in the house.
I panicked. I admit it. I called my husband at work, in full-on tears. Everything was ruined, what could we possibly do, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Bless him, he listened to me, quietly calmed me down and reminded me there are great services out there that get rid of mice. I should just call Allstate Animal Removal and schedule mouse removal service.
He was right, and Allstate was great, saving my Thanksgiving. The day came and went, and it took me another week to do the post-party clean up and regain my sanity. I wish I could say no to family, but I’m afraid next year, we’ll probably just agree to show up and then have to bag out at the last minute because “someone got sick.” Then, my family will just go see a movie
Mice in the House
Decorating for the holidays is not one of my favorite things to do, especially when you make the discovery you have mice in the house at the same time.
I wish I was one of those women who look forward to the holidays, who has the house perfectly decorated by the night of Thanksgiving, who constantly boils apple juice and cinnamon sticks and cloves just to make the house smell nice, who passes out all the Christmas goodies to her neighbors by the first weekend of December, and who has all the Christmas gifts purchased and wrapped by the end of October. I’m just not that kind of woman.
I’m more the type of person who gets annoyed at all the unnecessary parties I have to plan or attend, and at the loss of every single weekend in December. I have an Oh-Crap moment about the second week of December and pull out the dusty holiday decoration boxes that are completely disorganized after last year’s desperate holiday clean up attempt in the middle of January. I have a second Oh-Crap moment about the third week of December when I have to finally finish all my holiday shopping, and end up getting gift cards for more than half the people on my list.
So, when I pulled out the box containing the pre-lit Christmas tree, I sighed for about the hundredth time that day. I would have to rearrange the furniture in the front room so I could somehow fit this tree in there. I would have to assemble the tree and make sure all the lights still worked. I’d have to fluff out the branches in a sad attempt to make it look like a real tree, while trying to avoid scratching my arms too badly. I’d have to sort through my tree decorations, toss the ones that broke during last year’s packing, and make it look festive enough. I did this so my kids could enjoy Christmas. I did not personally enjoy it. So, I did the basic decorating while the kids were at school so they wouldn’t see my “Bah Humbug” attitude.
I reached in the box to pull out the first part of the tree, and gasped when my hand touched something soft that moved. Then I had one of those delay-screams. You know, when you scream after you realize what exactly happened, and then you have to wait until you have enough breath to get the scream out. I’d touched a mouse. Matter of fact, I’d touched several mice. There was a nest in my Christmas tree box!
The mice were just as terrified and surprised as I was, because they jumped out of the box and scattered. I now had mice in my house. I continued screeching as I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Plunging my hand into water as hot as I could stand, I realized my cell phone was in the other room. I’d have to brave the mice just to call for help. Hopefully, I could get someone to my house before the kids came home so we could get rid of the mice before they had to know about it.
Merry Christmas.
I’m not decorating next year.
Get Rid of Mouse
I thought I knew how to get rid of a mouse. As a high school junior, I have no problems being in charge when both my parents have to go out of town on business trips. I’ve been watching my younger brother and sister for years whenever both Mom and Dad are gone. It’s been great, too. I get paid for doing what I normally do at home, and all I have to do is make sure they both get their homework done, they’re ready for school in the morning, and make dinner at night. The rest of the time, I can have my friends over, watch TV, do my homework, text my friends, and just do what I usually do. Easy, right?
Sure, it’s easy. Until something weird happens. Like the time my little brother had one of his friends over, and his friend got really hurt while they were jumping on our trampoline. But, I’m a great babysitter. I helped calm my brother’s friend down, called his mom to pick him up, and made up new rules about the trampoline. It’s never happened again.
Or, like the time my little sister stuck a bead up her nose while she was playing in the toy room. I have no idea where she got the bead. But, she stuck it up there pretty far. I managed to help her get it out, though. I just plugged up the other nostril and had her blow. After like two tries, that little sucker shot right out of her nose, all gooey and sticky. See? Problem solved.
So, last night I saw a mouse in the house. It ran right across the floor in front of us while we were watching TV before bed, and ran under the couch where I was sitting. My brother screamed, and my little sister tried to chase it. It was so gross, but I’m pretty sure I know how to get rid of a mouse. I got my brother and sister out of the room and ready for bed. After they were in their bedrooms, I marched back down to the living room and looked under the couch. Yep, it was still there. I have no idea what it was doing, or why it was just sitting there, but there it was. I could get rid of a mouse, one stupid little mouse.
I grabbed up our cat, Deacon, tossed him in the room with the TV and the mouse, and closed the door. Done. Deacon would get rid of the mouse by the morning.
This morning, I opened up the door to the TV room right before school. Deacon ran out and headed outside. Then, the mouse came tearing across the room and disappeared under the TV console. Great. Just great. Guess I don’t know how to get rid of a mouse.
So, I texted Mom, and she told me to just call Allstate Animal Control. They’d know how to get rid of a mouse. Guess I don’t know everything, but I’m still a great babysitter.
Mouse in the House
I rely on my two cats to tell me anytime there’s the faintest chance of a mouse in the house. After the experience I had two winters ago, I still hate to put my hand into any container that has food in it, without inspecting it first. Two years ago, I was storing a fifty-pound bag of potatoes in the garage. We’d found a great deal on potatoes, but I had nowhere to store it in the house, so we kept it in the cold garage. I figured that was the best place for something like that anyway. Didn’t they used to store potatoes in cold cellars in the old days?
I was going to make mashed potatoes for dinner that night, so I padded out into the garage, reached my hand into the large bag and groped around, and was shocked beyond belief when my hand closed on a stiff, furry object instead of the smooth surface of a potato. Turns out it was a mouse that had crawled into the bag and died.
Now, we own two cats, and guess where they sleep at night? In our garage. I don’t want another mouse in the house, garage, or anywhere else in my home, for that matter. We haven’t had an incident ever since we got the cats.
But now, I have the worst suspicion that those mouse-free days may be over. For the last week, every time I let the cats into the garage for the night, they immediately crouch down and peer under our tool cabinet. Occasionally, they’ll swipe a paw around down there. I’m convinced that we may have a mouse in the house, or maybe even a mouse nest. As the days have passed this week, I was certain that our two cats would eventually take care of the problem. After all, whenever I let them outside, they always return with a “present” for me. Of course, I am probably less enthusiastic about the dead mice gifts than my cats are, but that’s beside the point. I know they’re good mousers. So, why do we have a mouse in the house?
Surely these cats will take care of the problem without any further action on my part. I can’t stand the idea of “padding” out into the garage in my bare feet, just to walk over mouse droppings, or have a startled creature scamper across my toes. Worst, my hand still spasms involuntarily whenever I think about what I pulled out of that potato bag.
But, as the days have gone on, the cats still stalk the tool cabinet, but they have nothing to present to me. Why would a mouse stay in a house with two cats, unless they have an alternate and safe way to get in and out?
So, instead of relying on pets to take care of the mouse problem for me, I’m calling Allstate Animal Control. I’d be a lot happier knowing they’ve gotten rid of all the mice for me, and my cats can go back to just sleeping in the garage.
Mouse Removal
Some people just aren’t satisfied with television, music, internet or books – they have to turn to mouse removal tricks for their entertainment.
I’m an excellent babysitter, and there are several families in my neighborhood who consider me the best. I know I’m bragging, but I’m really proud of the way their kids get excited when I come over to babysit them. And, the parents know they can count on me to enforce their rules and help their kids have a good time while they’re out.
It’s safe to say I have a pretty great relationship with these families. So, it was no big surprise when Mrs. Devreaux wanted me to look at some video that she took when I arrived a few minutes early to watch her two cute kids for the evening. I obliged and followed her to the laptop in the kitchen. I have to say, I was a little shocked when I saw the video was of her attempts at mouse removal. I had no idea she had mice in her house, and now I was pretty creeped out at the thought of staying there for the next several hours, especially when she told me she’d been unsuccessful.
I watched the video, biting my tongue to keep from screeching. She’d set up pieces of cheese and muffins on empty tissue boxes right next to the couch I usually slept on after the kids had gone to bed. A little mouse popped out from under the couch, sniffing around the feast she’d offered it, and then helped itself. After it had gorged on the easy pickings, it sniffed around the pieces of cheese tied up in twine, attached to the tissue boxes. It was completely unaware of the fact that Mrs. Devreaux had meant it to be a mouse trap, her effort at mouse removal.
I watched, horrified, as the mouse pulled on the twine, eating the cheese, and tissue box after tissue box fell on top of it. Each time, the mouse escaped, easily avoiding the empty cardboard boxes. It polished off the meal and disappeared back under the couch.
Mrs. Devreaux stopped the video and looked up at me. “Isn’t it the cutest thing?” she asked.
My throat was dry as I tried to figure out what to say. “Did you ever catch it?”
“Oh, no! It’s still running around, cute as can be. It’s a smart little thing, too. Oh, it just loves my laundry room! I guess the dryer keeps it warm, and sometimes I think it sleeps in my dirty clothes. I found a little hole it chewed in my favorite jeans. I just don’t have the heart to get rid of the mouse.”
“Uh, huh,” I responded, just as the kids came running into the kitchen, grabbing onto my legs and yelling about what games they wanted to play with me. I determined right then and there that all our games would be outside until bedtime. I could only hope Mrs. Devreaux would come home soon after that. My ankles itched as I wondered if a mouse would jump out at me at all. I definitely would not be babysitting here again until Mrs. Devreaux got a mouse removal service out here to get rid of that thing properly!
Rodent Control
I began my career in rodent control as a 12-year old kid trying to make a few bucks to fix up my bike just the way I wanted. Mom and Dad believed if I wanted something really badly, I had to find a way to pay for it, and today I’m happy they taught me the importance of self-reliance. I’m not sure how happy Mom was that I chose to make that money through rodent control, though. She was more than concerned over my safety and health, but after Mom’s long lectures, Dad’s lessons in trapping rodents and exterminating rodents, and many promises and reassurances from me, I was finally able to start my business.
Mom had hoped that I would’ve earned money through babysitting and lawn mowing, but my friends and I saw a real need for rodent control that summer. For some reason, as the snows melted that spring, voles, mice, rats, gophers and moles were out in force. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was fighting off rodents. I’d heard Dad complaining about it loudly enough when he discovered trails of dead grass snaking through the yard. Our lawn looked like a roadmap of seemingly random vole trails. Mom and some of her friends were chatting over coffee one spring morning, alternating between horror stories of mice in the pantry or rats in the walls, and sharing ideas on how to get rid of mice and the best ways to exterminate rats. We lived in a nice enough neighborhood, so no one understood why we were under attack that year.
So, my friends and I walked around a few neighborhoods, offering rodent control. Our nose for business steered us right to easy money. Fifteen cents for each mouse or rat we caught, twenty cents for each vole, and a whopping thirty cents for catching gophers or moles. We experimented with all different kinds of bait, traps, techniques, and yes, rat poison. Mom put a stop to us using the poisons, though, until the following year when I could prove I was wise and mature enough to use it safely.
We went inside people’s homes, crawling around on the floor to find mouse holes or rat droppings. We’d set the traps, come back later to get rid of dead mice or dead rats, set more traps. When we stopped catching rodents from that hole, we’d block it up as best we could. If rodents came back, so would we.
The best part of the job, though, was rodent control out in the yards. My friends and I would scout through the lawn looking for vole holes or vole damage. Gopher holes and mole mounds were easy to spot. We got to spend our summer afternoons together outside, under the warm sun, joking and laughing and catching voles, trapping gophers or getting rid of moles. We’d earn a few cents each time and go home tired, happy and a little bit richer. By the end of the summer, I got my bike fixed up just the way I liked, and my friends and I were talking about how we could expand our business. We took care of my neighborhood’s rodent control for years after that, and I got a real sense on how to run a business and have fun at the same time.
Pest Removal
As a teenage girl, I loved my job at a cute clothing store in the mall, except for inventory and pest removal day. Sure, most of my paycheck ended up going towards clothes that we sold in the store, but that was completely worth it to me! I got a great employee discount, and my money would have been spent on clothes, anyway.
The very worst part of the job was inventory. Every few months, we had to go in extremely early on a Saturday morning so we could check off every item the store owned, clear out shelves to prepare them for the next line of clothes to arrive, and clean out the storage room. It was a long day, boring, and full of hard work. And the storage room was awful.
The room was windowless, lit with bluish fluorescent lights, and packed with boxes, unused hangers, clothing racks and dusty shelves. We called it the dungeon. Over the previous months, we used it as a dumping ground for whatever we didn’t want to take care of during our normal shifts, and inventory day was payback. We sorted, we cleaned, and we were always on the lookout for spiders, bugs, or worse, mice or rats. Pest Removal just wasn’t included on the job description when we’d applied as sales associates. But, there we were, mouse traps, rat poison, and fly swatters close by as we sorted, folded, and discarded everything that had been tossed into the dungeon. Once the place was cleaned up, we’d set out the rat poison near suspected rat holes and place a couple of mouse traps in the corners of the room, just to be on the safe side.
Of course, we always had to give the new girls a bad time. In the days leading up to inventory, we’d tell them horror stories of a mouse that ran over someone’s foot, or the biggest spider we’d ever seen. Inventory Day, we’d rig it up so plastic rats would be pulled across the floor with a string, or throw a toy spider into someone’s hair. Didn’t I mention that it was a long and boring day? We had to break it up somehow!
One Inventory Day, we all arrived, as usual, in our sweats and hair pulled back into ponytails, ready to get dusty, filthy and be bored to tears counting and sorting. We got our initial assignments from the store manager, and headed off to our respective jobs for the morning. I was unfortunate enough to get stuck in the storage room right away, bypassing the lesser evil of clearing off shelves in the front. I got ready to break down the empty boxes so I could stack them up and take them out to the dumpster, and grabbed a box from off the top of the pile. I pulled it towards me and pulled out the box cutter, just as I became aware of the awful rustling noise coming from inside the box. Startled, I dropped it on the floor, causing a couple of the flaps to fall up and out, giving me a great view of the box’s interior. To my disgust, it was filled with wriggling little pink bodies of mouse babies amongst shredded material and cardboard that served as their nest. My screams brought every girl into the back room, most of whom ran right back out as they realized what they were seeing. To this day, I can’t open an empty box without shuddering. Pest removal is something best left to the professionals, not a teenage girl working at a clothing shop.