Reason #1: Poor Rodent Control Recommendations Online

Who Came Up With These Suggestions?

Once I had a marketing agency write me a similar article. It was filled with everything that I tell people not to do when trying to control mice themselves. They wrote that you should keep dirty pans of cat litter to keep mice out. I am sorry, but that is gross. Some of their advice sounded dangerous. Homeowners do not need to be messing around with ammonia for their mouse infestation. So, I rewrote their article. Click here to read “What are the Best Home Remedies for Mice“.

Spreading cow dung as a recommendation for mouse home remedies.

This was found on a top ranking website for “Home Remedies For Mice”. Placing cow feces in and around your home is unsanitary and can attract more pests than it repels. This is a great example of the bad information you can find on the first page of Google.

Government and University Websites

You will find all sorts of DIY mouse extermination advice online. I am here to tell you not to listen to it. Do not listen to your friends and family. Avoid self-proclaimed mouse experts on your Facebook community page. Only look up DIY mouse control information from university or government websites. That way you know they are legit. Or you can read our blog. We will not tell you to do something that wastes your time and money. Whatever you do, do not look online for “home remedies for mice”. This is how people end up poisoning themselves with mothballs! Home remedies are stuff people did in the pioneer days. We have better options at this point.

Keep in mind professional pest control services do things correctly. Hire a mouse exterminator at the first sign of a mouse infestation. Above everything, this is our best advice to you.

Reason #2: Wasting Time and Money on DIY Mouse Control Products

The biggest thing I notice when exterminating mice, is what customers did before my arrival. You will see mint oil on cotton swabs or the sachets of rodent repellant. Some people buy big spray jugs of repellant. You will find it stored under the sink- next to a bunch of mouse feces!

Mint Oil

Essential oils are generally considered safe. Yet, it can cause allergic reactions with some people. I used an essential oil bug spray inside my house and it caused breathing issues with my family members. Once, I sprayed it outside performing pest control services. The customer started sneezing when she opened the door.

I feel mint oil is pest control’s version of snake oil. Once I was inspecting a house for entry points. I found a hole that mice were accessing along the front porch. I brushed back the vegetation around the hole and found mouse poop all in it. That vegetation was a cluster of mint plants.

My conclusion with mint oil is: Would a bad smell stop you from gaining shelter from the elements? Would you pass through a gross odor to fill your empty belly? Darned right you would. And mint doesn’t even smell bad. Yet for some reason, everyone thinks this will work.

There could be some truth to mice avoiding mint. But you are not going to be able to place mint and keep them out of your kitchen. They might avoid the minty corners but not the entire kitchen.

Ultrasonic Rodent Repellents

The same goes for the Ultrasonic Rodent Repeller. Yes, rodents communicate at the ultrasonic level. Yet, we have no clue how to decode their language. You don’t know if these ultrasonic devices are telling the mice “to take a hike”, or “stay a while”.

Furthermore, these ultrasonic rodent-repellent devices do not travel well around objects. So, if you plug it in along your countertop, it will not affect them being under your fridge. Again, there is some truth to these sound waves deterring rodents. But the application is wishy-washy when used in your home.

Just because you can’t hear it, does it mean it is safe? It is like having a dog whistle constantly blowing. That has to disrupt something in your brain.

Home Remedies

After these two bogus DIY mouse extermination tactics, you go into the home remedy forum. Here you will: dryer sheets mouse home remedy.

Dump cinnamon and cayenne pepper on your counters.
Use noxious gasses such as ammonia, and mothballs.
You might find yourself jamming steel wool into every crevice. Not realizing mice can walk up your basement stairs.
If that doesn’t do it, bust out the dryer sheets. For some reason, the internet thinks pests are scared of dryer sheets. This is not the case.

All in all, people miss the mark on their DIY mouse exterminating efforts. Mice will contaminate your home, the longer you dabble in DIY pest control. Mice will chew wires, poop and pee in hard-to-reach areas and ruin your insulation. People think: Why pay someone to set mouse traps when I can do it myself?

Reason #3: It Is Not As Easy As Setting Traps In Your Kitchen

The key to any pest control endeavor is to reduce the population. And you do that by manipulating the things that pests need to survive. These things are air, food, water, and shelter.

Gassing mice is not practical. So you can’t control them with air. And mice do not drink much water. They get their water from the food they eat. So there are only two ways to control a mouse population. You have to mess with their food and shelter.

Manipulating Mouse Food Sources

Most people recognize that they must remove food debris when dealing with mice. So, I will not harp on that.

I will mention:

They are attracted to areas that smell like food. So, watch out for the bottom drawer of your stove and utensil drawers.
Be sure to clean the grease on your stove. You do not need them weaving in and out of your burners all night licking and peeing on your stove.
And pet food. Do not leave pet food out when mice are around. Otherwise, you will find a pile of it in one of your shoes.

Traps And Bait

The way you want to manipulate their food source is by setting out food on traps. Or by giving them delicious poison by using bait stations.

Have you ever caught your finger on a trap? Has your pet ever stuck it’s paw on a glue trap? They sell traps that will not cause injuries. But they do not work very well. Our trap boxes provide safety with effectiveness.
Rodenticides are potentially dangerous too. You can harm off-target organisms. They sell them in bait stations. That way only mice can access the poison. But, they also sell them loose. This allows other animals to access the bait. Let’s face it, homeowners are not always smart. Many place rodenticides in the reach of children and pets. Exterminators have to place mouse poison in tamper-resistant bait stations. Otherwise, we place them in areas kids, pets and other animals cannot access.

Trap Placement

The main difference between DIY and a professional is trap placement. With our mouse control service, we track the mice as far back to their nest as possible. Then we apply control products at these locations. Traps are also set along their pathways.

We use key identifiers to track them inside. We also locate the entry points outside. Then control products are set in the adjacent locations inside. By doing so you are controlling them before they reach your kitchen. You get a big difference in results. And it lessens the contamination strewn throughout your home.

Reason #4 Do You Have Any Clue How to Locate Their Entry Points?

Manipulating Shelter

mouse proofing- DIY mouse exterminating. So, the other way to control a mouse population is through their shelter. It is hard to manually remove a mouse nest. You can’t just come up and grab them. Most of the time they are in inaccessible areas. So, you must stop the mice from coming inside to nest. This includes making repairs on the outside of your home. Then you must trap and remove the mice that are already inside. That is the goal of our professional mouse exterminating service. Not so much with other pest control companies. Many only give you repair recommendations and sell you repeat trapping services. Most homeowners concentrate on sealing holes in the living space. Blocking the hole under your sink will not do anything. They will just go somewhere else.

Old Homes And Mice

The idea that you have an old house and will have mice is nonsense. It comes from people who do not know how to rodent-proof homes. There are plenty of 100-year-old homes without mice. And there are tons of new homes with mice. Wildlife will exploit the construction flaws of your home. To eradicate mice long-term, you need someone who specializes in repairs. Lakewood Exterminating is one of those people.

Find a Good Mouse-Proofer

Many pest control companies are not skilled in mouse-proofing homes. Their untrained technicians might stuff a few holes outside. But that is about it. So, you end up paying someone to set bait stations. They continuously poison mice as new ones enter holes that they failed to identify. No wonder people try to do it themselves!

Some dangers come with rodent exclusion:

Working on a ladder is a potential danger. Even if you have mice in the basement, you will want to make roofline repairs.
Spray foam is the biggest hazard. Wear a respirator when applying the Great Stuff. Or have a professional do it. Spray foam is good for filling larger crevices. But you should still top off those repairs with exclusion fabric or sealant.
The easiest way to trash your house is by misapplying spray foam. There is an art to doing it. Most people over-apply it. Then the foam expands out of the hole. The look is horrendous.
Spray foam is messy and hard to clean up. Get a dab of it on your clothes and they are ruined. Trust me, I know!
A lot of time spray foam causes more damage to homes than it does good. Although it may say sealant on the can, it is not. Spray foam is porous. These pores make good homes for bacteria and germs. You do not want to use spray foam in your kitchen. It creates unsanitary conditions and can be dangerous to food safety.
Steel wool rusts quickly when exposed to moisture. Instead, use stainless steel or copper mesh.

Steel wool is another one. Have you ever kept an SOS pad for too long in your sink? It gets all rusty. Steel wool is the same way. Sure, you can stuff a hole under your sink with it. If it doesn’t get wet, it will do the trick. The problem is that many people use it to plug holes outside. The danger in this is that it will quickly rust and corrode. The rust will seep down and stain your home. Then it will crumble and no longer plug the hole.

These are the common materials people use to mouse-proof. What you need is an expert that is trained in wildlife control. It is a worthy investment not to have mice living in your walls and behind the insulation.

Reason #5 Mouse Poop Carries Disease Pathogens

I won’t bore you with the numerous diseases that mice can spread. Most diseases caught from animals appear with flu-like symptoms. The main concern with mice is allergies and food poisoning. Allergies are caused by accumulations of urine over time. Mice are a main cause of food poisoning.

Cleaning mouse poop is dangerous. If you want to clean up mouse poop yourself look up the Centers For Disease Control website.

You will want to make sure the contaminants do not go airborne. Droppings can contain pathogens that you should not breathe in. Depending on the complexity of the cleanup, you will need different safety equipment.

Some people ask if we can clean up some of the mouse poop in their house. Thinking that it is a small task. At a minimum, we would use a self-contained HEPA vacuum. The cartridges cost 50$. An organic respirator cartridge costs around 20$. A TYVEK suit costs around 15$. Throw in disinfectant and labor and we price ourselves out of performing that small task.

You do not want to be shop vacuuming mouse contamination yourself. The contamination can go airborne and spread throughout your home. If it is a little bit of mouse droppings, wipe it with disinfectant wipes. There is danger in cleaning large amounts of rodent contamination yourself. For your health and others, hire a company that specializes in biohazard cleanups.

Conclusion: DIY Mouse Extermination Is Dangerous. Leave it to the Experts!

From start to finish, there are dangers in DIY mouse extermination. Trying a bunch of stuff yourself delays removing mice from your home. By the time people call our mouse exterminators, damage has been done. Then they have to pay for mouse removal and figure out how to clean up the mess. You really cannot undue the contamination.

Most of the time we can solve a mouse problem in 45 minutes. Average cost is just over 200$. Yet some people wait 20 years to call us. Most people have around 5 mice inside their home. A mouse poops 40-100 times per day. For every month of having mice, 6,000-15,000 droppings can accumulate. How much is it worth for that not to happen?

If you have mice, call us right away. Our office phone is (216)466-2486. DIY mouse extermination is dangerous in so many ways! It is truly best left to the experts. You can also send us a message by clicking here!