Your home is your sanctuary, a safe and comfortable place to spend time with family and friends, or in solitude if you choose. Even if you’re unabashedly extroverted, the last thing you want is uninvited guests making themselves at home. That’s especially true if we’re talking about rodents like mice, which are considered nuisance wildlife.
The reality is that rodents can be sneaky and persistent, and if you happen to see one, it’s highly likely that you’ve got multiple. As a homeowner in Florida, what are your wildlife removal options?
In this blog, we’ll explain what you need to know about nuisance wildlife removal in Florida—specifically, what you can do to get (and keep) mice, rats, and similar critters away from your home.
Unfortunately, mice and rats don’t really care if you make a conscious effort to keep your home tidy or what kind of inconvenience their presence might cause. While less clean houses tend to attract more mice, that is not the only factor. And mice and rats are not overly complicated creatures.
In fact, they are attracted to your home for two reasons: food and shelter. That’s why the first two things you should do to protect your home from rodents are to remove any accessible food sources (like unattended pet food) and seal off any entry points in your home’s walls or foundation.
Mice and other rodents don’t tend to travel solo, so if you see a single mouse or rat, it’s safe to estimate that you have multiple—5 or 6, or more. And that’s not even accounting for the fact that they are rather prolific from a reproduction standpoint. A female mouse can have between 5 and 10 litters per year (peaking in fall and winter), with each litter typically consisting of 2 to 4 (in some cases as many as 12) mouse pups each.
Like anything else, if you search for home remedies online you’re likely to find a mixture of helpful and unhelpful information. Some of the suggestions you’ll find range from the peculiar (killing mice with toothpaste) to the flat-out dangerous (homemade mouse poison with bleach or seeking out human drugs that kill rats, etc.). Chances are, if you have rodents in your home, you’re not going to want to experiment with a bunch of questionable methods—you want them gone, now. That being said, there are a few low-cost repellents that there’s no harm in trying.
One of the most common home remedy recommendations is to appeal to the critters’ sense of smell. What smell will keep mice away? For starters, mice hate smells like peppermint oil, cayenne pepper, and cloves, so you may have success with any of those. Consider soaking cotton balls with one of these scents and leave them somewhere the mice are likely to discover them. Rather than experimenting with these remedies, if you want the problem fully assessed and addressed, it’s best to call in a professional. What many people don’t realize is how difficult it really is to solve pest control problems completely, but professional pest control services will offer comprehensive solutions tailored to your unique situation.
While mothballs do contain a potential deterrent (in the form of naphthalene), it only tends to work in relatively huge quantities (which is also toxic for humans), making them an impractical and ineffective method. It is illegal to use mothballs outside of their prescribed purpose.
In other words, the idea that mothballs keep mice away is a misconception or myth. It should also be noted that mothballs cannot be placed outside of your home or used in any other way that is not specifically outlined on the label.
The reasoning here is that since mice and other rodents prefer to stay hidden in dark spaces, bright light must keep them away. This, too, is largely a misconception. Yes, it’s true that mice aren’t likely to spend extended periods of time in brightly-lit areas; however, they’d still have plenty of refuge in other areas like attics, crawlspaces, and walls.
Because of its pungent smell, apple cider vinegar can be used as a safe, low-cost, somewhat effective repellent. As with smells like peppermint oil, cayenne pepper, and cloves, simply soak some cotton balls in a vinegar solution and place them wherever you’ve seen mice—or, more likely, their droppings. This will not prevent them from scurrying away to other areas of your home, but it might help in the areas with the deterrents.
Mice in the walls is a tricky problem for homeowners to deal with, but their incessant scratching is not easy to ignore. So, what can you do to get them out, and keep them out?
It’s not easy, but there are some steps you can attempt if you’re feeling especially brave. One essential step is to assess the extent of the problem. You’ll need to figure out where/how they’re entering your home (look for cracks/openings in your walls and foundation), and you’ll need to determine how many you have (via visual inspection or assessing the number of droppings they’re leaving behind). Of course, these tasks are not for the squeamish. Working with a professional pest control service helps to ensure that your rodent problem is quickly addressed and fully mitigated.
What Keeps Mice Away Permanently?For virtually any sort of nuisance wildlife, the closest you can really come to keeping rodents away permanently is to create, and stick to, a comprehensive pest control plan. This is where professional pest control and nuisance wildlife removal services become essential. Turner Pest Control offers complete residential rodent control solutions that take a four-pillared approach:
Ultimately, we can help ensure the two key things you’ll need for peace of mind, which requires knowing that:
At Turner Pest Control, we offer a wide range of nuisance wildlife removal services and have been in business for over 50 years. You can learn more about our full service offerings here, or fill out this form to schedule a free inspection today.
Contact us today to learn more about our pest control services for residential, rental, and commercial properties.
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