Rats and mice are both unwanted at homes, but still, they are smart enough to make their way into our homes and cause enough problems for us. Rodents not only damage various items due to their habit of gnawing but pose considerable health hazards, which are enough reasons for homeowners to know how to get rid of rodents. Since rodents live everywhere, it is challenging to prevent them from entering our homes which are attractive for the pests because they find food, water, and shelter that make homes most attractive to them. Professional pest control treatments are effective in driving away rodents from home but can never prevent their return unless you take some measures on a regular basis. These measures should create such an unfavourable environment for rats and mice that the pests would just not try to get inside the house.
Seal the entry points
To stop rodent infestation at home, the first thing that you should do is to prevent its entry by sealing all possible points like holes and openings through which the creatures easily enter and exit the home. The task is not at all easy because mice can squeeze their body so much that an entry as small as a quarter of an inch is enough for the creature to wriggle through. Carry out a thorough inspection across the house for holes, cracks, and any other opening, and if you find that a pencil can easily pass through it, then a mouse too can go through it.
Seal cracks in the openings in the walls as well as the foundation as well as the junctions where utility pipes, vents, and chimneys occur. Use caulking and steel wool for sealing but avoid wood, plastic, or any other similar material that rodents can gnaw easily.
Use mouse traps
To check rodent infestation, placing mousetraps at strategic places can work well provided you do not underestimate the mouse population that can be much more than you think. Use as many mousetraps as possible, maybe a dozen or more that can take care of any population size of rodents that invade your house. Besides, the traditional wooden mouse trap use many different types of traps like glue traps, multiple captures live traps, and bait traps. It would expand the possibilities of capturing more rodents as some types may have an affinity for some kind of traps that are part of the assortment.
Choose the best bait
Any home food that attracts rodents can act as bait, but especially favorite is oatmeal, bacon, peanut butter, chocolate, hazelnut spread, or dried fruit. The manner of tying the bait has a lot to do with capturing rodents and for the best result, use dental floss or fishing line to tie the bait to the trigger. You can even secure the bait with a hot glue gun so that the mouse or rat cannot escape with it.
To make mousetraps work effectively, place them perpendicular to the walls so that the trigger section faces the baseboard. As rodents scurry along the walls, it would run directly into the bait and avoid premature triggering of the trap that can happen if it ran over the trap from another direction.
