How To Keep Mice Out Of Your Kitchen

A mouse in your kitchen can be dangerous and uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it can also be quite common. Don’t wait until you notice mouse droppings or see a rodent scurry through your house, but follow these steps for professional mice removal services in Okanagan.

Seal Entry Points

A mouse can fit into a surprisingly small hole. All it takes is a hole approximately 5 millimeters wide to allow a young mouse to squeeze in. These small holes are often found in your basement or around doors, windows or pipes. Once inside your home, mice typically hide out in your attic, walls or basement and come out to find food in your kitchen. You can attempt to fill these holes with repaired trim or caulk. However, it typically takes a professional eye to spot every area around your home that may be used as an entrypoint. Work with an experienced wildlife removal expert to learn more about efficient ways to seal up your home.

Clean up Crumbs and Spills

You may not feel like cleaning up after dinner or a late-night snack, but this is a major invitation for mice to come into your home. These resourceful rodents look for warm, dark places to hide that are near a reliable food source. Crumbs on your counter can be a welcoming sight for a hungry mouse. Cleaning up crumbs can be a preventative step, but it may not rid your home of mice who are already present. Once these scampering tenants set up a nest in your house, they’re unlikely to be easily removed. If you notice mouse droppings around crumbs or leftover food, then you need to be extremely cautious during cleanup. Mouse droppings, fur, saliva and urine can all spread diseases and are surprisingly difficult to thoroughly clean. Ask a professional in your area about effective cleaning techniques to restore your sanitary kitchen.

Seal Food Containers

Small pieces of food left on your floor or countertops may be the easiest source of food for rodents, but they can usually find their way into your cupboards as well. Try to keep foods in sealed containers to prevent mice from sampling your stored food. Start by checking your cabinets themselves. New cabinets should be fully sealed, but you may have a small hole in the back or side you don’t realize. Find some time to clean out your cabinets to remove any crumbs and check for mouse entry points.

Don’t Rely on Mouse Traps or Poison

The most common DIY mouse control solutions are traps and poison. Both of these solutions don’t prevent mice from entering your home or deal with the issue in a humane way. Because traps and poison only remove mice, you’ll still need to work with a professional to prevent them from entering again as part of your plan for wildlife control in Okanagan. Poison baits and traps can inhumanely kill mice and require you to come in contact with them to remove them from your property. This increases your risk of being exposed to salmonella, hantavirus or other mouse-borne diseases. If you don’t place traps in the right spot, they may not even be effective at removing rodents. Mice are crafty intruders, so they may avoid a new trap. Even if you trap one or two mice, there’s likely to be more hiding in your house.

Turn To Skedaddle for Wildlife Control in Okanagan

Leave wildlife control to the experts at Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control. Contact us to see how we can evict those unwanted rodents without resorting to harmful methods. Keep your kitchen free from mice, droppings and other unpleasant carriers of disease with our proven prevention and cleaning methods.