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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today we’re gonna talk about the house mouse or otherwise known as the common house mouse. We have some pretty cool video today, we’re going to show you a little bit later. But I just wanted to go into detail on kind of the what to look for signs of infestation, how quickly they mate, and just their habits alone and of course, controlling them. So Travis, take it away.
Travis McGowin
So the house mouse was originally thought to have come from Asia, but it’s completely widespread, not just in the United States, now. It’s in Canada it’s in, it’s pretty much in every country, and every on every continent, around the world is just a very, very survival adapted creature, well, we’ll put it that way. You know, it can survive and really warm temperatures, it could survive and really cool temperatures. But they’re typically, you know, not really big, definitely not large in comparison to let’s say, a rat, or something of that nature. Their colors rains, typically from you know, a lightest gray, maybe even a little bit of brown on the top of their bodies, and typically a lighter, almost white underbelly on the mouse. If you’re looking at tracks, there’s four toes on the front feet, there’s five toes on the back feet, they’ve got a pointed snout, or appointed nose, and really, really tiny eyes, and air and ears that stick up with minimal hair on them too. And their tails really don’t have a lot of hair either, mostly kind of scaly. So like I said, they’re very small, which allows them to get into places that they shouldn’t get into, we always tell our customers, you know, a hole the size of a dime. But you know, according to research that we’ve done, the average size hole on the small end is about a quarter of an inch, if it’s a quarter of an inch, they can fit through it, and they can get into some very, very tight places.
Michael Wienecke
Well, and if they can fit their head through, they can start nylon and shoe and working that around and making that hole bigger. So it’s funny how you said, thought to come from Asia. I don’t think we know where they came from, honestly, because I mean, with shipping routes and all that they’ve come in trucks that come in boats, all over the place, I find that interesting that they think that it come came from Asia
Travis McGowin
well in shipping, you know, the primary, the primary way that they enter most of your commercial facilities, when you talk about warehouses, you talk about restaurants, you talk about places like that, is through shipping, you know, they may hide inside of a pallet that is, you know, trucked across, you know, from one state to another to be delivered. And then, of course, you know, coming in from the outside, open doors, or from around H back entries, or electrical or other utility entries, plumbing injuries, you know, they’re very, very good at finding, you know, a place to enter into these buildings. And like you said, like what you said, so if the hole isn’t big enough, they may decide to just know, at larger two, they can get in and I actually do have a picture. So I was called out this week to a local childcare facility. And they actually physically saw mice running through the building, which was kind of comical because the kids got to see the mice to which I do have a little video footage of that, that we’ll share here in a minute.
Michael Wienecke
The right place at the right time.
Travis McGowin
Exactly. But I do have this photo here to show you what I found in one of the closets in a multipurpose room. So check this out. So this closet backs right up to another closet that opens door to the outside of the building. It’s like a utility room where they have water heaters and outside objects for play and keeping just different outside toys for the kids. And the door doesn’t always shut all the way very well. So you have to really really force it close. I think sometimes it gets flipped open. But it appears that those mice came through that closet and then with there being no baseboards in that other outside outdoor closet. It’s like they just came right up underneath the sheet rock or right through where some of the plumbing went through the wall and then just chewed open the hole wider so they could get through and you mean you see these vinyl baseboards that they’ve stuck up on the wall? I mean, they’re really no match for a rodent?
Michael Wienecke
Not at all. That’s a that’s like a few seconds for them to get through. And that’s for that’d be in mice you know that. Typically when you see that you’d say that’s a rat hole right out right off the bat but that that’s they did some work to get into that.
Travis McGowin
They did you know in rodents always constantly have to know and chew on things. Their teeth are constantly growing. They have to keep them filed down to a manageable level. But there were we’ve called so far a total of three mice throughout the building. There’s very comical. I arrived that morning after they saw the mouse run through the bill. Holding the video footage that we’re going to show was just not long before I got there, it was taken not long before I got there. And we actually ended up hitting up one of the mice in a storage closet and kind of blocking it off in there. And I put traps in there. And then that evening, I went back and we’d actually caught the mouse. But yet the what’s the big problem, though? So obviously, nobody wants to read it. And you know, they’re there. A lot of people, some people think they’re cute, some people think they’re ugly, a lot of people just don’t want to see them. But what’s the bigger picture? Why do we not want rodents inside of our facilities and our houses and our commercial buildings and those places.
Michael Wienecke
So I mean, the biggest thing is going to be just disease. You know, they’re filthy, the biggest problem they cause they get into your food. They, you know, I’ve seen them wreak havoc in someone’s, you know, worst case scenario, a wrapping paper closet where somebody was doing all their Christmas wrapping paper, and they just shredded it. I mean, it was just so it’s covered in poop, pee, paper, baby rodents, just all that remnants of all that. So and then of course, like said with the food, they’re going to spread salmonella. That’s one of the biggest the biggest issues with with those rodents. So
Travis McGowin
yeah, among among other things, salmonella is probably the the main and primary culprit that is spread by rodents. They usually defecate or pee on everything that they they touch. And then the rodents are very territorial, too. So they go out and patrol their territory, leaving, you know, urine to mark that territory along the way, every single day. And so it just builds up. And I mean, you’re talking about one single rodent can cause a mess. But I mean, most of the time, there’s more than one. So you’re talking about an exponential miss. And it can just cycle out of control quicker than people realize.
Michael Wienecke
Well, it it’s amazing how quickly they can turn from, you know, babies to being able to have babies, I mean, you’re talking about, I mean being weaned off, what, 19 days, 21 days, and then average about 30 to 35 days, they’re ready to start making babies and then they’re gonna have eight, eight litres per year, around 40 to 50 Babies per year.
Travis McGowin
Yeah, the average litter size of a house mouse is about six, six offspring give or take. So on average, ideally, in nice conditions, these mice can have 4850 plus babies per year. Now, in a cooler climate, their breeding may be a little more seasonal, and they may kind of take time off from that until it warms up again. So there might be some slower months. But in an average climate, you know, much like ours, I would say that we’re probably having to deal with inbreeding year round.
Michael Wienecke
Well, not only that, you know, especially here in Alabama, you know, they they’re their commensal rodents, so they may live in the attic, or the crawlspace. And typically, we don’t get that phone call until they have that that major problem, you know, it’s not one or two rodents that they just didn’t see. It’s now five 612. You know, we’ve seen 48 before.
Travis McGowin
So a lot of times, attics are just kind of the perfect place. They’re dark, they’re usually undisturbed. If they’ve got especially blow in insulation, these rodents can kind of burrow out in this insulation, and make their homes inside of that, because it’s just nice, warm and comfortable material for them. The good thing about rodents, though, is a lot of times, I mean, and they may travel a little further for food, but a lot of times their territory is not more than you know, kind of 20 foot in every direction from around where their bedding is. So, you know as a homeowner, if you’ve got some signs of mice, you know, some telltale signs to look for the obvious things. You know, rodent poop, shredded, like you said in that closet with wrapping paper, shredded bedding material, that sort of thing. So if you haven’t caught a mouse with your own efforts by putting traps out and whatnot, if you haven’t caught a mouse within two, three days than the mice, that’s not the mouse his territory, you need to you need to start looking for another place to put a trap.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I mean, that’s the same with bait. So if you’re gonna put your own bait out or something like that, if they’re not eating that bait within that, you know, one to three days, it’s time to move it around the building outside inside, and just kind of see where your activity is. The best way to know Hey, where they’re they’re eating, where they’re sleeping, all that is gonna be droppings, if you’re seeing a ton of droppings behind the fridge. More than likely that’s where they’re going to be at.
Travis McGowin
Yeah, and if you’re, you know, if you move a shelf and there’s 234 droppings just here or there, then there’s a high likelihood that that is that is I mean They may travel through there occasionally, because they usually like sit, they poop and pee wherever they go. But the vast majority of time, that’s not gonna be in their territory necessarily. So you might want to look elsewhere in terms of your effectiveness, and also some other good things to do to, you want to always, of course, put traps around along rodent runways, the rodents run a lot of the same path, they also explore their territory. So another good place to put it, unless it’s, you know, it’s not on that runway is in a corner. So rodents typically slowed down in the corners. And then the other recommendations we have is, let’s just say they’re in a storage closet, and you’ve got a lot of different, you know, let’s say jugs of cleaning supplies or things like that, when you go to place those traps, relocate some of those cleaning supplies, move them around a little bit, this forces that rodent to not just take the same path, but to explore their territory as their territory has changed. And you can just lead to you having a more successful time and trapping those mice.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that was them off makes them you know, start kind of rearranging their territory, and they’re easier to trap. Another thing I’ll say, too, about trapping is that if you’re having an issue where you just can’t catch a mouse, bait that trap and don’t set the trap for a couple days, just let it let them eat on that trap, get comfortable that trap and kind of, you know, add that to their, to their runway to their territory where they’re, you know, happy with it being there. And then set it the next couple days. And you’ll you’ll catch them note no problem.
Travis McGowin
Oh, yeah. Well, to kind of round us off, I did, I promise some some footage. So I’m going to show it real quick. Yeah. Now keep in mind, it’s not the best footage, it was taken by a cellular phone, videoing the footage from a CCTV camera system on a computer screen, so it’s not the best. But I’ll start off with this one. So this is an actual, excuse me video of that rodent that was crawling around inside of their multipurpose room. So I’m gonna show that real quick. And you’ll see he’s kind of blurry, but you can tell what he is. So here it is. And you see him right down there on the bottom of the screen. He’s a little dark blob moving around, looks very confused. And he just is exploring that multipurpose room that’s got a bunch of different storage supplies and things in it. Alright, so the morning that I got the call about the rodent running through the hallway. A little girl in the program was at the right place at the right time when the rodent darted from one room to another across the hallway. So this is kind of comical in terms of her reaction. So we got this from two different angles, but I’ll show it to you. And we tried to highlight where the rodent was. It’s very difficult to see. So just keep your eyes peeled. Look the doorways right there.
Michael Wienecke
You can see when she runs
Travis McGowin
Yes, yeah. She turned around and sprinted. She screamed, and she you know, she sprinted. And then that same moment called from the other direction, you can see for a split second the mouse. I mean, it’s just a blur, because it ran through so fast. But she turned around and ran, she was not having anything to do with that rodents. So
Michael Wienecke
And to, I’ll say about this, this facility that had that road. And if they would have, you know, not called us out to come out there and trap and find where those rodents were getting into a couple of months down the road. You’re talking about a major major infestation of mice.
Travis McGowin
Oh, exactly. Like, like we said before, this can balloon into just a huge problem before you know it. My survey, crafty, they’re very good at hiding, they’re mostly nocturnal. So a lot of times you’re just not going to see them unless you know you happen to disturb them or something like that during the daytime and you know, you go into their territory, or where they’re nesting and disturb them and kind of flush them out. You’re not going to see them. So you know, a building like this shuts down at six o’clock the lights turn off and everyone’s gone. And then the mice are left to their own devices for hours all night long. And of course would it be in a child care facility? There’s food there snacks, there’s candy there’s there’s those things are at this facility and not always stored in tubs or or in, you know, storage containers that close that keep things like mice and rats out. So it would have just been a very big problem or much larger problem had they not discovered the mice before that.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah. So let’s dive into control a little bit. I know we talked about snap traps bait all that the biggest thing too is getting rid of the harbor areas sanitation, you know we see a lot of issues where somebody will have firewood stacked up against the side of their house. That’s a huge habitat area for for mice for rats, you know, all that kind of stuff?
Travis McGowin
Yeah, sanitation is a huge one. Mice, you know, they, they may feed on different things in, you know, in their wild environment outside, they’re going to, you know, usually feed on insects, they’re going to feed on different types of fruits from trees, nuts, that kind of thing that fall from trees. So when they get, you know, lucky and find a location that they can enter, such as a school, a childcare facility, your home, a restaurant, and they get in these places they can adapt their their food consumption. So cleanliness is huge in the case of a restaurant, if you’re not getting all that excess food that either falls underneath the tables from customers or falls up and gets raked up underneath the the stoves, the ovens, the cooking surfaces in the kitchen, you have all these things that are just going to build up over time, and they will swap their feeding preferences based upon what’s available at the time.
Michael Wienecke
Well, not only that, that’s going to attract them to the building. So they’re going to start snooping around the building, they’re going to find that crack crevice, get inside and then you know, once again, they’re gonna start pooping and peeing and telling those other rodents, Hey, come on in here and join the party.
Travis McGowin
Well, and what other people too don’t realize is that rodents can follow warm wind drafts, and they can follow odors. So you talk about a building that’s not sealed up well, whether it’s H HVAC, plumbing, electrical coming out of the building, whether it’s doors, whether it’s Windows, mice, they’re not they’re not really good as far as their vision they can’t see very far. And their vision is also they’re colorblind, so they can’t see really well, but they can smell very, very good and compensation for that lack of vision. So you have a building that’s not sealed up, and it’s cooler outside, well, they’re gonna go want one where it’s warm, and to where they can smell something that they may want to consume
Michael Wienecke
Well, and they can jump so they can jump a foot at a time. So you know, if you’ve got a ledge, whether it’s a it’s a foot off the ground that can jump off that and then if you got a windowsill or something like that, that’s open, they can jump into that and then they’re in your home. Same with your pantry. So it’s really not a problem for them getting into places.
Travis McGowin
Oh, definitely. I mean, if you’ve ever caught a mouse on the run or surprised a mouse somewhere, and they took off running, I mean, it’s impressive how quickly they can scale things. They can climb textured walls, they can climb shelves and other objects in your home at lightning speed. You know, a lot of times people don’t realize they have a mouse and then they see something that they thought was a mouse just because they were so fast and so quick to get away just look like a blur like in that video that I showed. I mean, even the CCTV camera CCTV cameras just looks like a blur. So, not realizing that you have the problem for extended amount of time can lead to a very large problem.
