Opening a drawer or cupboard and spotting mice is quite alarming. Mice pose safety and health risks, so you want to prevent them from infesting your kitchen. Thankfully, a Portland pest control company can help you eliminate mice from your home and prevent them from coming back. Read on to learn more about ways to keep your kitchen free of mice:
How Mice End Up in Your Kitchen
Typically, mice get into cabinets in the kitchen through carpentry holes, crevices, and cracks. They can fit through tiny holes, so they do not need to struggle to get inside. If these rodents have access to water and food, they will nest in your cabinetry or elsewhere. After they establish themselves in your kitchen, they can quickly grow in numbers. One female mouse can more than fifty pups into the world every year.
Should You Be Worried About Mice?
Mice are carriers of germs that can lead to diseases in people. You can contact bacteria and viruses from them through direct contact or contact with their saliva, urine, or feces. A rodent infestation in the kitchen puts you at risk of food contamination.
As with other rodents, mice tend to chew constantly to prevent their teeth from growing. They have powerful jaws that can gnaw through electrical wiring in your walls, floor, or ceiling. The damage that mice cause could lead to electrical shocks or fires, which makes them a safety hazard.
Signs of a Mouse Infestation
Mice tend to run rapidly and will quickly disappear from your sight once they detect your presence. Because of this, a mouse infestation could be ongoing in your kitchen without being noticed. However, these rodents leave behind clues about their presence. If you have an active infestation, you may find brown or black mice droppings, chewed cabinets, food packaging, shelf paper, scattered nesting material, scratching or squeaking sounds at night, and a pungent ammonia odor.
Eliminating Mice from Kitchen Cabinets
To eliminate mice from your kitchen cabinets, get rid of everything and wipe out their exteriors with disinfecting water. Utensils, glassware, and dishes inside the cabinets must be washed.
Moreover, you should clean up kitchen spills quickly to prevent mice from detecting their scent. Get rid of shelf paper and do not use it in the future, sweep or vacuum your kitchen floor regularly, and wipe off the stove, countertops, and kitchen table every day. Kitchen leaks should be fixed to avoid giving mice a water source. Keep your food in airtight containers and contact a pest control company to help you handle a serious mouse infestation.
While you can take steps to handle a mouse infestation, it can be hard to know if it has been addressed completely. Pest control experts have the knowledge, experience, and tools necessary to handle an infestation safely and effectively. They can locate entry and nesting sites and use the right treatments to get positive results. Also, they can share tips on how to prevent mice from getting into cabinets and drawers according to your kitchen’s unique characteristics.
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