How To Get Rid Of Mice
Mice contaminate our crops and spread various diseases by biting us and leaving urine and feces on surfaces. They can also introduce fleas, carry ticks infected with Lyme Disease and carry an assortment of mites. Mice also carry Hantavirus, which causes severe respiratory infections in humans. Mice love to gnaw and often spend time chewing on electrical wires, books, clothing, and cause extensive damage when they are able to get into vehicles and RVâs. Mice urinate and defecate constantly on everything they walk on (cans, utensils, plates, countertops, etc.). One female mouse can produce 40 to 60 young per year and the young can start breeding in as little as 4 weeks. Mice can squeeze into holes as small as a pencil and will use existing gaps in bulkheads and garage doors for quick entry. If an existing gap is not available, they are more than happy to chew a brand-new hole to enter a structure.
Jump to
Eeek! Get Rid of Mice in Your Rentals
Many times a homeowner will use over-the-counter mouse poisons and find the rodents are removing the poison and storing it around the home (usually attics or basements). The formulations of baits our technicians use are in a style that rodents are forced to eat and not store. Our technicians will also use snap traps for a quick knockdown of the rodent population. Are you being bugged? Contact us at FORDSHOMETOWN.COM
Questions and Answers for October 2016: Mice
Adapted from our Message Boards, where members can ask questions and get answers. Practicing landlords and service providers answer questions, and we combine the best answers into one here.
Q: Mice!!! Iâve been setting out bait blocks in the kitchen. Is that enough? Theyâre multiplying!
Be careful! It seems to be consensus that landlords are not allowed to set out exposed bait blocks in rented premises (weâre pretty sure, but we canât find a link to the law or regulation; if you know, please send us a link at info@masslandlords.net).
Exposed bait blocks pose a hazard to children and pets. You should hire a professional, licensed exterminator. When you hire an exterminator, they will set the bait blocks in stations that cannot be opened without a special exterminatorâs key.
Bait stations must be placed very frequently, at least one for every room, in every apartment, and many more must be placed in the basement and attic. You must also
interrupt chaseways and mouse holes by stopping them up with steel wool and foam. Pay special attention to the areas around heating pipes and wires.
The cost to have an exterminator do this is very affordable, at roughly $100/unit, depending on how many units you have and who you hire. There may be minimums or higher costs if this is the first time the property is being treated for mice.
Whoever you hire, donât wait! Mice multiply like all rodents: very quickly. And there may be ten mice behind the walls for every one you catch.
Should I Hire a Mice Exterminator or Get Rid of Mice Myself?
This stone foundations is vulnerable to mice infestation. All stones must be perfectly repointed outside and in.
Before trying to get rid of mice on your own, consider what a mice exterminator can do.
A mouse in the house can create a mix of fear, disgust, and filth, and left unchecked, will quickly turn into dozens or hundreds of mice. It is possible to get rid of mice yourself as a DIY owner/manager, but there are definite advantages to hiring a mice exterminator as well. This article reviews the basics.
Know Thy Enemy
According to Wikipedia, mice are -- along with humans -- one of the most successful groups of mammals on the planet. They are remarkably adaptable to varying food sources and environments. They reproduce quickly and in large numbers.
In the wild, mice eat fruits and grains from plants. In manmade settings, they will eat anything, including pet food, chocolate, peanut butter, and meat scraps.
On a per-weight basis, mice eat ten times more food than people. NPR reported that the average American eats close to 2,000 pounds a year, and the CDC reported an average body weight (men and women) of 182 pounds, which equates to eating 1.5% of our body weight each day. A mouse eats 15% of its bodyweight each day.
Mice are fertile when theyâre about 50 days old. Gestation of a new litter takes 20 days, and under optimal conditions, produces 10 to 12 pups. Weaning takes three weeks, and then two to five days later the female can conceive again.
Well cared-for pet mice can live for approximately two years (the record is four years, see the rodent link below). This means a single breeding pair could theoretically produce approximately 150 offspring. This figure is highly dependent on temperature and food availability.
Mice teeth (like the teeth of other rodents) have evolved to grow continuously so they can continually be filed down and sharpened. This is partly why mice can destroy moldings, casings, walls, and electrical wiring.
Get Rid of Mice Yourself
Mice are inside to look for nesting material in the early fall and food sources throughout the winter. As an owner, there are many things you can do to get rid of mice yourself.
First, eliminate access to loose fluff, fiberglass insulation, blow-in insulation, old carpet, and other nesting materials.
Second, close off interior chaseways like holes for electrical wires and pipes. If  you have forced hot water heating, pay special attention to the holes around those pipes. They should be blocked with a copper wool mesh and black PUR foam. If you seal up all the chaseways in all your units, it will take an hour or two per unit. You will want knee pads, a flashlight, a butter knife or dowel, more copper wool than you think you need, tin snips, a trash bag, and PUR foam gun with a can or two of foam.
To close a chaseway, use the tin snips to cut off an appropriately sized piece of copper wool. Do this over your open trash bag to catch metal shards. Shape the copper into a donut, place it around the pipe and against the hole, and use the butter knife to jab the copper wool firmly into place. Squirt black foam around it. Donât use âgreat stuff,â which is easier to chew through, and donât do this when the heat is actively working , which can cause the foam to run. Repeat for every hole, no matter how small.
Third, close off exterior access. Pay attention to the lower corners of exterior doors, stone foundations riddled with holes, and the sills between the foundation and the frame. These must all be sealed perfectly to prevent rodent access.
Fourth, seal the interior foundation. Mice can burrow, so sealing the foundation above ground-level is not adequate. Seal the wall from inside the basement down to the basement floor. If you have a dirt floor, it is hopeless; put in a slab.
Fifth, once the place is sealed up, place traps and check them regularly. A mouse that is alive in a trap should be killed immediately for humane reasons. Place your thumb and index finger behind its skull. With your other hand, grab its tail and draw sharply back, holding the head in place. You will feel the spine snap and the mouse will be put to rest.
These forced hot water pipes are inadequately sealed against mice. They need copper wool, more of it than the steel wool pictured, and an application of PUR foam.
Hire a Mice Exterminator
Exterminators are licensed and trained to use lethal rodenticides in a safe way. For instance, under 333 CMR 13.08(1), rodenticides must be placed in tamper-resistant bait stations and secured so as not to be lifted. The bait station must also be labeled to identify the person or company who placed it there, the date it was placed, the EPA registration of the product inside, and the active ingredients of the product.
Applicators are also required to keep logs of where they applied baits, and share those logs with any person upon reasonable request.
As an owner/manager in a litigious age, hiring a licensed exterminator solves several problems beyond mice.
First, there is no question in a courtâs eyes that you have taken appropriate action to address a vermin infestation. If it takes a long time to get rid of all the vermin, you wonât have liability the way you might if you were doing it yourself.
Second, you cannot be liable for improper or unlicensed application of a pesticide or rodenticide.
Finally, thereâs a good chance that the mice exterminator knows more about mice than what can be learned in a newsletter article.
Whether you decide to hire a mice exterminator or get rid of mice on your own, donât wait. Mice are one problem that multiply.
Got rid of mice? Share your best tips to hello@masslandlords.net.
Eeek! Get Rid of Mice in Your Rentals
By Eric Weld, MassLandlords, Inc.
Itâs a rare property owner in Massachusetts who hasnât dealt with mice. But landlords who aim to get rid of mice in their rentals need to think long-term, and might consider hiring a mice exterminator on an annual basis.
Mice are creative and adept at finding places to nest. Tip: store bread in the refrigerator during winter months.
Massachusetts properties are fertile ground for the common house mouse (mus musculus or mus domesticus), an historically successful species that has adapted over millennia to survive and thrive in a huge range of circumstances, largely aided and abetted by humans. Some property owners in outlying or rural areas might also have field mice in their homes.
Rats, the larger cousins of mice, may be found more commonly in urban areas, where easy food sources are plentiful and natural predators less prevalent. Getting rid of rats in a home can be just as intractable as exterminating mice, and requires different strategies to account for ratsâ larger size, stronger teeth, and appetites and behaviors distinct from mice.
Mice and rats have been around at least as long as humans. The house mouse is found in every corner of the world and likely traveled to the United States hundreds of years ago from Central Asia, stowing away on ships and all forms of land transport. Mice are presumed to be the primary impetus for domesticating the pet house cat (perhaps still among the most effective anti-mouse weapons.)
The bad news is mice and rats are not going away. The good news is there is more information available than ever before about how to exclude mice from homes. More good news: rodent exterminators have also become savvier in their methods, and options for products and tools used to eradicate mice have increased and improved.
Keeping Mice Out
âWe are more educated now,â said Michael Cutler, owner of MC Pest Control in Fiskdale, MA. âAnd the products are just a lot better.â
Further, the focus for exterminators has shifted more to exclusion -- keeping mice out of the home rather than just treating those that get inside, said Cutler.
But while mice exterminators have refined their methods to get rid of mice in homes, it may be an ongoing process. Exterminating mice from many New England properties -- older homes in particular -- is often not a one-and-done treatment. The pesky rodents may be exterminated in December and steps taken to keep them out for the winter, but because they are so adaptable and prolific as breeders, and creative in finding ways to shelter, warmth and food, there is always the possibility that they will find paths back into your properties the following fall or winter.
âYou need to have a good, systematic, thorough experience to resolve a rodent problem,â said Brian White, owner of Pro-Tech Pest Control in Worcester, MA, who addressed the Worcester Property Owners Association in March 2015 about mice extermination. âItâs not just a mouse trap here and there. You can block some holes, but youâve got to find all of them if you can, get as many as you can.â
Copper Wool and PUR Black Foam
The best material for blocking holes is copper mesh, or copper wool, says White. Though copper wool can be expensive, it doesnât rust, so itâs the ideal material for stuffing gaps around and between pipes. Steel wool could be used as a less expensive substitute but it is vulnerable to rusting over time.
Fill every single hole the size of a dime or larger around the exterior of your rentals with copper and steel wool. Copper and steel wool are effective fillers because mice cannot chew through them. White recommends using a screwdriver to stuff and shape the mesh snugly and securely into holes.
Once holes are filled with copper or steel wool, cover the opening thoroughly with PUR Black, an expanding foam product made by Todol that creates an airtight seal that mice canât penetrate.
Repoint Stone and Brick Foundations
Stone and brick foundations with mortar bonding the pieces together are vulnerable to rodents. Mice -- and rats in particular with their hard, sharp teeth -- can gnaw on the mortar and make any holes or crumbling edges large enough to climb through.
The best way to maintain the integrity of stone and brick foundations is to make sure all corners and edges are repointed with fresh mortar. This maintenance will not only protect your buildings from moisture seeping between the bricks and stones, which can cause irreparable structural damage. It will also keep out mice and rats (and snakes for that matter), and may help reduce seepage of dangerous gases like radon.
Seal Sills
Rodents are masters at finding gaps and cracks in the foundations of buildings. The seam where the wall frame sill plate meets the foundation is a vulnerable place for deterioration, especially in older buildings, and mice can exploit crumbling gaps around the sill. Ideally, sills will be thoroughly sealed during frame construction. But even for existing structures built without modern sill-sealing, steps can be taken to seal sills and fortify aging seals.
There are many products available for sealing building sills. DAPâs DynaFlex 230 silicone sealant, for example, or sealing tape like SIGATapes Wigluv are both effective for interior sealing. Around the outside use a sealant like QUAD by OSI (also usable for window and door sills) or strips of backer rod to create a tight seal.
When possible, apply sealant around sills on both the interior and exterior.
Killing Mice Inside
Once youâve taken steps to disallow mice from entering your rentals, you can turn your attention to eradicating any who may already be inside.
Killing mice is gruesome work. But hopeful inaction is not a viable choice when mice are in the house. Mice can cost property owners thousands of dollars in damaged appliances, destroyed wiring and gnawed up personal belongings. They are a potential safety threat -- such as when they chew through insulation and expose high voltage wires, or start a fire, or when they carry diseases into the home, like Hantavirus (deer mice), leptospirosis, lymphocytic chorio-meningitis, salmonellosis, and others. And mice can multiply quickly over time.
There are sonic sound deterrents that aim to drive mice from a property. These are effective only in the short-term as a way to change behavior. Long-term, the mice either go deaf and are unaffected by the noise, or become accustomed to the sound and resume their habits.
Professionals may apply poison bait stations, which landlords are not allowed to do without licensing. There are mice poisons and rodenticides with brand names like d-Con, Tomcat and Havoc. These can be highly effective, but there can be a downside. Some quick acting poisons may cause mice to die out of sight but still inside the house, behind walls and under floors, where landlords cannot easily remove dead bodies. The carcasses will rot and may smell, stain or create further health risks.
A Range of Mouse Traps
The standard bar snap trap, still among the most effective mouse-killers, hasnât changed much.
Using traps with bait can be an effective step in exterminating mice. There are many traps available, each with its benefits and downsides, from the traditional bar snap trap to electric shock traps and glue traps. Live catch traps allow mice to live and potentially re-enter your house another day.
Fatal traps are usually called for, and with warning to squeamish readers, we now elucidate:
Snap traps aim to kill mice instantly by breaking their spines. These are highly effective but dangerous to landlordsâ fingers, and to children and pets if placed within reach. They are also noisy in the middle of the night. Snap traps sometimes miss, resulting in noise and labor without any progress toward removal of mice.
Glue traps are commonly distributed as a quiet alternative to snap traps. Although effective, they are inhumane. Mice will self-mutilate in an attempt to get free. They may linger on traps for days before dying of dehydration or self-inflicted wounds. If you elect to use glue traps, you should examine them at least once a day.
When you find a mouse stuck to the trap or wounded but not dead, do not attempt to bludgeon it to death. You will further extend its suffering and create a biohazard. Rather, the most humane way to kill a wounded mouse is by donning latex or vinyl gloves, placing the thumb and forefinger of one hand behind the skull to hold it steady, and with the other hand grabbing the tail and drawing it sharply back. This will sever the brain stem instantly, the same as a well aimed snap trap. May you never have to experience this.
Those who work with mice in laboratories have found the most humane way to kill a mouse is to place it in a sealed container and flood it with carbon dioxide or nitrogen gas. It is unlikely you will be able to find the equipment needed for this, but if you can it will be far better than manual termination.
Setting traps and capturing or killing mice is only part of the long-term solution. Exterior exclusion is by far the most important thing. And the interiors of your rentals also need to be optimized to deter mice from making their homes there.
Hide Nesting Materials
Mice are very creative when it comes to making nests in your homes and rentals. They will use any material available to craft a soft, comfortable haven for staying warm and building a family. String, paper, cardboard, mattress and pillow filling, plastic and foam, fiberglass insulation and much more can all be put to use by mice.
The best way to deter mice already inside the home from setting up residence and getting comfortable is to keep home interiors tidy, clean and free of clutter, especially in the late fall and winter. Any spare scraps of packaging, filling and insulation should be discarded. Items that you want to keep for possible use later should be stored in a plastic bin with a tightly fitting lid.
Eliminate Harborages
Mice can breed very quickly if left undisturbed. A family of six can become 50-60 within 90 days.
Basements are ideal places for mice and rats to nest, especially utility cellars that are used and visited by humans infrequently. Basements are out of the way, usually quiet, and too often home to forgotten discards like linens, blankets, furniture, camping equipment and the like -- in other words, a haven for rodents.
Home exteriors near the house can also offer harborages for mice in the form of abandoned cars, old furniture and appliances, tall weeds and filled garbage bags.
Eliminate rodent harborages by storing seasonal items in plastic containers with tight-fitting lids, sealing garbage bags in lidded bins, discarding all unwanted items, keeping grass trimmed and weeds cleared, and regularly checking around the inside and outside of your property to make sure they are clear of nests.
Tenantsâ Roles in Fighting Mice
Getting rid of mice is a battle necessarily waged inside and outside, on all floors of the building, basements and attics included, and in every room in every rental unit. And itâs a year round endeavor.
Landlords need to work with their tenants to make sure their units remain mice-averse.
Tenants should regularly remove trash bags, recycled materials and compost from areas around the house where they may be kept temporarily to avoid inviting mice toward the building. Also, renters might get in the habit of storing all plastic-packaged food in the refrigerator. Mice donât see well, but they have a very good sense of smell and are attracted to any food left where they can access it.
Finally tenants must know to contact their landlords the minute they see signs of mice so that action can be taken.
Outsourcing Mice Extermination
This never-ending game is one reason why business is booming for mice exterminators across the state, with annual spikes in the fall. Hiring a mice exterminator may be the most cost-effective solution for landlords with multi-unit properties or several rentals. Mice exterminators can address the problem comprehensively with the most efficacious products, and most provide a guarantee for at least a few months or through the winter season (i.e. they will come back and repeat their procedures if any mice are detected once theyâve treated your units). A single visit by a mice exterminator may cost between $100-$200 for rentals, and $300 for a home.
If left unattended, one mouse can too quickly become 30.
http://worcesterpoa.wistia.com/medias/wbwf3ytxha?embedType=async&seo=false&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640
Transcript
[Start 0:00:00]
Brian: Thank you, Rich, and thank you, Doug. Yeah, weâve been associated with this group for quite a while and I can remember going down to the Elks Club on Mill Street and talking to about maybe five or six people, and I can remember [MLK 0:00:25] Building. I can remember Christmas at Coral Seafood, and look at you now. Thereâs obviously par in numbers, and youâve got the message, and Iâm sure the people in Boston have got the message. The pest management industry does the same thing, so I want to congratulate you on the hard work that you put in. Itâs really starting to show, and this is a fantastic group for us, and we hope to continue that relationship moving forward.
My name is Brian White. This is 20th year in pest management, so it seems like forever but I know some people in the room have been landlords much longer than that. A little closer.
Okay so what I have tonight, Iâve got a PowerPoint presentation that Iâm going to kind of step through. I kind of scaled it back a little bit because mainly itâs for training technicians and workers and that type of thing, and we didnât want to put anybody into sleep after a nice hard day with the work and that wonderful meal, Iâd have you sleep in about half an hour.
Iâm going to breeze through it, then Iâll be wide open for any questions that you have, and I think it should go along pretty well. The first one is weâve got a little bit of a video. Just down here a little bit.
(video 0:01:34-0: 02:50)
This is to give you an idea of what weâre up against. Thank you. I like to start out with that. Well, it grosses people out initially, but then you kind of get the gist of it. I don't know if you saw through the beginning but the mouse actually stops and winks for you. If I could ever get the mouse to hit the golf ball for me, it would be great.
Here we are. Here are the mice weâre dealing with. Most people in the room, if youâre dealing with your three-family, youâre going to be dealing with this mouse over here thatâs a little darker in color. If you live out in Holden in the woods or Spencer â I heard someone say Spencer, Iâm from Spencer, too. Good luck with that. I had my days with town hall as well. Youâre dealing more with the field mouse thatâs a [storager 0:03:26] and a forager. But basically, they just want to be warm just like you. If you heard that commercials on the radio, âThey just want to get in. Theyâre just looking for shelter.â The problem is as they defecate and they urine and they chew through the walls and chew your wiring.
Youâll see through the slides that they actually cost you quite a bit of money. Itâs not paying us to solve the problem. Thatâs the expense. Having wiring replaced, having fires, having vehicles damaged, having your personal items damaged, thatâs where the true cost of having rodents in and around your home are. I donât have to lecture anybody on tenants who donât pay their rent when they have mice, or even when they have half a dropping, or they have droppings left over from the last tenant.
These guys can cost you a significant amount of money, and theyâre smarter than you think. For us, we kind of go to bear down and think like a mouse from time to time.
We have the public health importance of it. They do carry viral infections. They can cause meningitis and encephalitis. We can have pregnancy complications related to them, and again transmitted through mouse urine, saliva, and fecal droppings.
The economic damage rodents also cause damage to structures, their contents through gnawing, contamination of fecal droppings, and urine.
Then I don't know about you folks, but when I walk into a building or walk into an apartment, believe it or not, I can smell the mice. Itâs gotten to that point where I can actually smell them. At some point, if youâve been around them long enough, you will, too.
[0:05:05]
All right, why do they thrive? Why are they so popular? Why are they here? Basically, if you think about this, 6 mice can grow into 50, to 60 mice in about 90 days, 90 days. If a tenant calls up and says, âI saw a mouse.â Then you go over and throw some bait in the basement and hope that within a month or so thatâs going to help you out, you may realize that the mice in the basement, they were there about 3 months ago. Now theyâre in the first floor apartment, so you may already have 50, 60 mice by the time that that person calls you.
They are pretty good at hiding out. They like to keep quiet. They like to do their thing when youâre not around, and hereâs the funny one here: a mouse is sexually mature 3 weeks after birth.
Audience: Jeez [laughter]!
Brian: Three weeks, 3 weeks. When they get in and they get in and theyâve got food, theyâve got moisture, and theyâve got shelter, theyâre going to do real well with their maturity.
Common signs: weâve got droppings, urine, gnawing, rub marks. I don't know if any of you have ever seen when you have a little mouse hole and the mouse goes in and out of that hole for a while, you get these greasy, little black stain on there. That tells me that theyâve been there a while and thereâs quite a few. When I start seeing gray, greasy dark marks, theyâve been around for a while, and thatâs part of the smell, too. Just like us we sweat, mice will sweat, and thatâs what youâre getting on those holes that theyâre going in and out of is those grease marks. Thatâs what exactly what that is.
Why else do they do good? Because they depend on us. A lot of people depend on us for survival, and weâre perfect for them. We provide the food. We provide the shelter, the water that they require. Theyâre excellent parents, excellent parents. As youâll see in a few slides as we go through, the females take care of all of the babies. They actually take shifts in taking care of the young. It works as a colony, not just as a family, but as a colony. They live simple lives. They donât ask for much. They just want some food, some water, and some shelter, and thatâs going to be about it.
What day is trash day? Anybody have one of this?
Audience: Yeah.
Brian: Yes, you got a few of those? [unintelligible 0:07:32] Iâm obviously not going to tell you whose apartment that is, but thatâs an apartment in Worcester, and weâre actually successful in solving that problem after they cleaned it up, and that was quite a problem. Someone was actually living there in that apartment. I think that comes under hoarding. I donât think Iâm officially qualified to name that, but I think thatâs where that comes from.
This is kind of step back a little bit. We donât have as many foreclosures and abandoned properties as we used to in the last few years, but Iâm sure many of you have had an abandoned house next door, and that just doesnât do you any good at all. That just becomes a breeding ground for everything, especially rodents. An unkempt property, youâre certainly promoting rodent activity. Theyâll be there to visit you, thatâs for sure.
Fast learners, okay. They adapt pretty well. Mice for the most part have whatâs called [triggermatic 0:08:30] behavior. Whoa, big fancy word â [triggermatic 0:08:32] behavior. Basically what that means is they do the same thing every day, day in and day out.
Like I said, Iâve had the same job for 28 years, and Iâve been at that desk at 7:00 AM for 28 years, so needless to say, I wake up at 5:30 to go to work. On Saturday, I wake up at 5:30. On Sunday, I wake up at 5:30, and all my days off, I wake up at 5:30. Thatâs [triggermatic 0:08:55] behavior. If one day I woke up at 7:30, my total day would be in disarray.
Thatâs what we try to do with the mice is we try to break that [triggermatic 0:09:04] behavior, and Iâll show you some of the steps that we do to do that. However, they will adapt. They will become used to the environment. They will make changes to their patterns and they will use teamwork and communicate to do that.
Mother of the year? Thereâs a nice little litter for you. Usually itâs about six. I think that one has got maybe around 10 or 12. Thatâs an environment where theyâre really thriving and surviving. A female mouse again is back in heat 32 hours after giving birth. In the colony situation, as I said earlier, the female mice will work in shifts to feed the young, so theyâre really, really concerned about growth of their colony.
Think about that: you need to stay on it. You need to have a good systematic, thorough experience to resolve a rodent problem. Itâs not just a mousetrap here and there. You can block some holes, but youâve got to find all of them if you can, get as many as you can. Female mice will make and provide milk for babies and infants other than their own, even when itâs barren, the ultimate survivor in some cases.
[0:10:18]
Where are you going to find them? Well, youâre going to find them anywhere. In the left, youâll see an old hat that was in a garage. We found a nice little colony there. Any electricians in the room, electricians in the room? Breaker box. How would you like to walk into that one? Fix. Iâve got a wiring problem. Whatâs the problem here?
Audience: [unintelligible 0:10:37]
Brian: Little, yeah. Rat nest, itâs right. You think thatâs a fire hazard? Think your insurance company like to see that? Thatâs more common than you think. That box does give off a little bit of heat. We wonât feel it, but the rodents can feel it, and thatâs why theyâre there. That white stuff is just insulation that theyâve managed to pull apart and use as nesting material.
Here, youâve got an old box of records. You know you did your taxes last year or the year before, youâve got to save those records for 7 years. You throw them up in the attic and you donât worry about it. Then someday, you need it or youâre going to move. âOh, my goodness! Look what we got!â Maybe a plastic bin would be better.
Rotating those things. Donât leave a lot of things around the house just sitting there for years and years. You want to kind of move things around. Donât let them infest these things because there could be important records that you may need later on.
Other common areas: outdoor sheds, grass storage, birdseed, pool and patio furniture, indoor sheds. I know a lot of three-families have those sheds in the back halls there. A lot of folks throw a trash bag, two trash bags, four trash bags, 10 trash bags inside those back sheds. Really work with your tenants to keep those clean. Plastic barrels are great. Hopefully, they donât throw them away on you, but if you can get them a plastic barrel they can put that yellow bag in, it will certainly go a long way.
Theyâll get into old shoes, birdseed, plant seed, storage bins. Clothing is great nesting material, and I donât think we have too many barns around, but if youâve got a barn and youâre not paying attention to it, there could be some rodents in there. Hereâs a box in the attic.
Hereâs one, the top of car engine. I don't know what type of car that is, but thatâs right at the top that looks like the air filter mechanism right there. That car is not going to be running too well. I have one a couple of weeks ago down at Hopkinton. A guy had one of those fancy BMWs, 740 something. Anybody know about those cars? He said it was like $100,000 car.
He was getting lousy gas mileage and his garage smelt like gas all the time. The mice got up under the gas tank and chew through the rubber hoses, and he was leaking gas all over the place. Lousy gas mileage, smelt like gas, $100,000 car, brought it in for service. Thereâs no warranty for mice. He didnât tell me what the bill was, but he was happy to pay me, so Iâm sure it was more than us.
Thatâs a dryer cord, 220. What happens if you touch a 220?
Audience: [unintelligible 0:13:13].
Brian: Thatâs it. Youâre done. I don't know what happened to the rodent that ate that 220, but if youâre up there poking around and donât know what that wire is and step on it, youâre toast as well or one of your tenants. Thatâs real activity right there, chewing on that wire.
Alarm wires get this a lot, a lot. People are on vacation, alarm goes off, resets. People on vacation, alarm goes off. Police come, town of Spencer, $25 every time. Iâve been there. Chewing on the alarm wires, so your alarm is going off, telling the alarm company somebody is breaking in and youâre paying the police department $25 every time because Mickey Mouse is chewing on your alarm wires. They think itâs spaghetti.
Here, youâve got baseboard heater, an electric baseboard heater malfunctioning. Why isnât this thing working? We take it off, and what do we find? A nest behind there. You can see the burrows. They chewed right through.
Male Audience 1: Very often, theyâll chew the wiring [unintelligible 0:14:20].
Brian: More power to you, right [laughter]? Literally more power to you. Here weâve got a grass seed company. This is more a little out of the realm with you guys, but you can just imagine a grass seed company. This is high-end grass stuff they use on dumps and golf courses and that type of stuff, and this facility is a state-inspected facility, so when the mice get into the grass seed and gets contaminated, they make the company toss it. I can remember this company with forklift after forklift of high-quality expensive grass seed just going into a dumpster because the state inspector found some mouse droppings in it. The grass seed was everywhere.
[0:15:03]
Are they going to eat your poison? Probably not. Youâve got to block some holes. Youâve got to set some traps. Youâve got to try and find these guys. It took a while to solve that problem. There he is. Thatâs one of them in the grass seed company. Weâre trying to find this guy. We could see the rub marks on that pole. We had to get a little creative and hang a trap upside down. As you can see, he walked right into that. That was a relief to get that one.
Talk about expensive. That says HP LaserJet. When was the last time you bought a laser printer? It used to be pretty expensive. Thatâs the cartridge for it. Are you going to pull the mouse out or are you going to throw the cartridge away? Youâre going to throw that expensive cartridge away and youâre going to buy a new one.
Again, chewing up your money. Thatâs what they do.
Thereâs your mouse going through your small mouse hole. Now for us in this situation, we talked about the [triggermatic 0:15:59] behavior. That mouse goes into that hole at the same time every day. You want to really mess with his mind? Take some steel wool and plug that hole. At that point, heâs lost. He doesnât know what to do.
Eventually, heâll adapt to his new surroundings. However, as heâs in disarray, heâs going to run into a bait station. Heâs going to run into a trap, and weâre going to start to knock out that population because when you start doing exclusion work in blocking holes, youâre breaking up the [triggermatic 0:16:30] behavior of the mice. It makes it easier to catch them and to trap them. If you donât break up the [triggermatic 0:16:36] behavior, theyâll just walk around your equipment because they know where theyâre going.
As I said, they have simple means. Nice old bait station â an acorn and a piece of cheese and theyâre happy as heck in the wall void.
Now hereâs a good one, getting back to I mentioned you got a mouse. Someone saw a mouse in the first floor, or the second floor. You threw some bait in the cellar. Fantastic! However, in general a mouse doesnât travel more than 10 or 12 feet to get his food. If heâs running around in the second floor, what are you going to do baiting the cellar? Nothing!
You need to have a systematic series of traps and bait stations and exclusion work throughout the entire perimeter of every room and every apartment in the building. If you achieve that, you will catch, trap, and kill as many mice as humanly possible, and we can solve that problem and we guarantee it.
Mice also will prepare for emergencies â storage, hiding places. Theyâll have food hidden all around the apartment. Pet food, they love pet food! They can pick it up. They can move it. They can store it. Theyâve got their little hiding places.
The d-Con stuff. How many people like that d-Con? Anybody using the d-Con? Yeah, d-Con is great! They eat it up. You see the pellets. Theyâre gone. Theyâre gone, right? The pellets are gone! Theyâre eating it like crazy! Not eating it. They donât eat d-Con. They store d-Con.
Female Audience 1: They have also changed the formula of all the [unintelligible 0:18:12] mice as of last January because they thought it was protecting the environment to make it less likely to catch them because animals are eating it, and so â
Brian: They made it less of an acute bait?
Female Audience 1: Itâs nothing â yeah.
Brian: Itâs what they did.
Female Audience 1: Itâs not as effective as it was.
Brian: Believe it or not, d-Con is stronger than any bait thatâs in the back of any of my trucks. Itâs the strongest â well not anymore â but at one point, it was the strongest stuff going. But it doesnât matter how strong it is because they rarely eat it. They store it. Eventually, theyâll eat it, so youâre watching the d-Con pellets disappear and you think, âIâm killing mice!â Youâre not killing any mice. Eventually, theyâll die. The problem with that bait was itâs an acute poison. It worked too fast. When eventually they did get around to eating it, they died inside the walls where they stored it, and then the house kind of smelt a little funky, didnât it? Thatâs your thing on d-Con and the pellets and how they store food.
You may remember me mentioning in the beginning, theyâre foragers and [storagers 0:19:15]. Theyâre always preparing for later on. When we use our baits, weâre using a block bait, weâre using a jailbait, something that they are going to eat right away. Theyâre not going to pick it up and store it. Theyâre going to eat it when they come in contact with it.
They also like to avoid stress. Donât we all? We donât do a very good of it sometimes, but they do not like stress. They do not like noise. They do not like it when people are around. When youâre away, theyâre having their fun, and they will adapt to your schedule. If you work nights, theyâll run at night. If you work during the day, theyâll run during the day.
Steps towards prevention â pretty obvious â Michael Jackson â source and sanitation. If you can reduce or eliminate a food source and have proper sanitation, it is highly unlikely that youâre going to end up with a large mouse population. Theyâre still going to grow, but the better you feed them, the better theyâre going to grow just like our own kids. You need to remove those items.
[0:20:19]
Exclusion, very, very important. Blocking holes and travel ways. There are a lot of people who just donât like poisoned baits â the greenies, I call them. The greenies are great. You donât like poisoned baits, but believe it or not, if you go through your building and block every single hole that you can find and stick the traps, eventually youâll win the war. Itâs going to take you a lot of time and effort.
We like the bait because we can set it and forget it and itâs less labor intensive, and therefore less expensive for you to have the treating done. However, exclusion is key; if youâre not blocking holes, youâre not treating for mice.
Baiting â system of continuous bait. Every 10 to 12 feet, there needs to be a bait station. Youâve got a three-family, youâre going to run down a Home Depot. You got a good deal going on. Youâre going to buy a dozen traps. In reality, you need about 50 placements in a three-decker, at least 50 placements to solve that problem. Half a dozen traps, a dozen traps are not going to cut it.
Glue boards are good. Some people donât like those. Theyâre kind of queasy because they donât die right away. Fact is if you got stuck on a glue board as big as you, youâd have a heart attack in about a half hour as well, and thatâs what happens to them.
Noise machines â I wish I was the guy selling these! Noise machines, they give off this little vibration or some type of noise through the environment. Believe it or not, they work great for about 3 weeks, and then they adapt to the situation. Itâs just a normal noise like you walk in the door from work. You can put that. Plug it in a wall. It will work for a while, and youâll feel all great about your mouse treatment, but over time, 3 or 4 weeks later, thatâs going to be the end of it.
These are some of the tools we use besides the bait. This here, we have copper mesh. Copper is a little expensive nowadays, so weâre not using it as much, but we still use it quite a bit. The benefit to copper is it doesnât rust. When weâre plugging a pipe chassis underneath your kitchen sink that occasionally gets moist, damp, gets wet under there, so weâll seal it up with some copper mesh.
This here is a foam gun. It produces black foam. Some of you have probably seen some of those black, funky little holes going around, not the great stuff you get at Home Depot. The black foam, itâs a little harder. Theyâll still chew through it, but theyâll have a harder time with it. We take the black foam and secure the copper mesh with it.
Steel wool, best deal in the world. Screw driver and steel wool, block as many holes as you can, then weâll go over it with the black foam to prevent it from rusting because we know over the course of time, it will rust.
Now these are not permanent fixes and they are not aesthetically pleasing to a living environment at all, but through what weâre trying to accomplish when weâre in your three-family, or whatever structure weâre in, disrupting the mice, breaking up that [triggermatic 0:23:32] behavior, this is the way you do it with these three items using exclusion.
Here you can see where weâre blocking up an entry point with an electrical wire that leads to a building.
Bait stations, indoor bait stations tamper resistant. I know a lot of people like to go to Home Depot and get a little bag of bait and throw it behind the refrigerator and throw it under the sink, throw it under the couch. Then the family pet is playing with it, and then we got a young kid with green on his teeth. Now weâve got a tenant taking the family pet up to tops on a weekend, and when theyâre done, who do they want to pay the bill? When the young ones chew on that green bait and heâs got it in his teeth, they run up to the emergency room.
âMy landlord put this bait out!â
âWhat is it?â
âI don't know. My landlord put it out.â
Here you see what we use â a tamper-resistant bait station. Itâs got a lock and key on it. The bait goes inside the bait station. The bait doesnât come out of the bait station. When weâre finished loading up the bait station, on the top or the back of that bait station thereâs a label that says who we are, what our phone number is, what the material is in that bait station, what the percentage of active ingredient is in that bait station, and most importantly, what is the EPA registration number of that material thatâs in there.
[0:25:01]
If God forbid somebodyâs Rottweiler gets to that bait station and they may open it and they have, and they chew on that bait, when they get to the veterinarian, âThis is what the exterminator put in my house.â They punch in the EPA registration number, and boom, vitamin K1 comes up. They give him a shot and boom, the dog is happy as ever again usually if you can catch it on time.
The good thing about the baits that we do use, the toxicity ratio is about 1 ounce per pound, so you have a 1-ounce block of bait that goes in that bait station. If youâve got a 50-pound Rottweiler, heâs going to have to eat 50 blocks, which means heâs going to have to eat every single block that we put in the entire house. Is the dog going to die? No. Is he going to get sick? He might get sick from swallowing some of that bait station, but the bait isnât going to kill the dog. However, it can do some nerve damage to it. Itâs an anticoagulant, and itâs going to make their blood thin right out.
Here, weâve got an outside bait station. You can see the blocks of bait here. See the cover, lock, and key? Next time you go through Dunkin Donuts, Wendyâs, go through the drive-through, and youâll see the fancy landscaping. Look at those nice rocks! Theyâre not rocks. Those arenât rocks! Those are bait stations, and theyâre all over the City of Worcester. Your commercial accounts are loaded with these things. Theyâre fantastic. itâs a good way to be discreet about rodent control especially with all the drive-through that we have nowadays, and then, thatâs it. Thatâs it!
I hope I shed some light on you about mouse control. I know a lot of you would like to do it yourself, maybe I convinced a few of you that we may want to handle it, and Iâll open it up for questions.
Rich: Here.
Male Audience 2: Again, what was the change in the formulation of d-Con? Can you explain why it happened and what the difference is?
Brian: The d-Con is whatâs called an acute bait, and what that means is it works very fast. Some of the baits that we use are called accumulative baits where they have to accumulate in their system, where a mouse may have to eat the material three, four, or five times. When they finally do get around to eating d-Con, it will kill them pretty quickly, and thatâs fine. The problem is that that bait is stored deep into a wall void where theyâve eaten it, where theyâve died, and a heavy population of rodents may die in that wall void, and itâs not going to be pretty when that happens. Thatâs when you start to get the smell.
Male Audience 2: So in laymanâs terms, the formulation was changed toâ
Brian: Weaken it.
Male Audience 2: Keep the mice from dying in the walls?
Brian: In theory, thatâs basically what they wanted to do. They wanted to make it more of an accumulative bait than an acute bait. The problem is itâs a pellet-sized bait and they can pick it up and store it. d-Con, just because itâs in its pellet form doesnât work for me. I like the block bait or the jailbait where they have to eat it when they come in contact with it. I donât like them storing that for tomorrow.
Rich: We have a question over here.
Female Audience 2: [crosstalk 0:28:09] for wildlife protection.
Rich: Can you hold that for one second so that I get over there with the microphone, pretty please?
Female Audience 2: Iâm sorry.
Rich: Do you have a question?
Male Audience 2: I have another question.
Rich: Please, can you hold for one?
Male Audience 2: Yeah. I have a question. I had exterior bait stations in my buildings, and I realized after a while that squirrels and raccoons were coming into it. I wasnât so happy about that.
Brian: No, neither will the squirrels and raccoons because they fell into something they didnât want to. Thatâs a non-target pest. You got your bait stations outside. If theyâre in the lock and key, the protected type of stations, you did all you could, but non-target animals. I think thatâs where youâre going is with the non-target animals and second-generation poisoning, and thatâs part of the problem with d-Con as well is that after a rodent dies, that active ingredient is still active.
If a family pet consumes that dead mouse, there could be a problem. However, that family pet actually has to consume the whole liver for that to happen. Again, the baits that we use, the block baits, the jailbaits that weâre using, second-generation poisoning is prevented. It does not happen with the baits we use. If a mouse gets eaten by a family cat after the fact, there will be no effect. Was that okay?
Female Audience 2: No. I just wanted to tell them that is an environmentalist issue. That issue on the news was an environmentalist issue. They were afraid of wildlife eating it because it was so strong, and they wanted to protect the wildlife, so they just made it a little weaker.
Brian: Non-target pest.
Female Audience 2: I have a half a basement full of d-Con [laughter].
Brian: Good luck scooping that up [laughter].
[0:30:01]
Rich: Do you have a question over here?
Sandra: No, I donât think so.
Rich: No? Okay. All rightâ
Brian: Weâve got one in the middle.
Rich: A lot of mouse questions.
Female Audience 3: My question was what do you recommend for people who do have pets in the home â cat food, dog food out. How do we help prevent feeding the rodents? The other question was how long is the â
Female Audience 4: Gestation.
Female Audience 3: Gestation period?
Brian: Gestation period as in?
Female Audience 3: For a mouse.
Brian: For its turnaround fromâ
Female Audience 3: Like sheâs 32 hours and she gets pregnant again.
Brian: Yeah.
Female Audience 3: Whatâs the gestation?
Brian: In about 3 weeks. Within that 3-week period, youâre looking at another litter of 6.
Female Audience 3: Wow! Three weeks.
Brian: Yeah, about 3 weeks. Again, all depends on the environment now. If the environment is plentiful, itâs definitely going to happen in 3 weeks. If itâs not so plentiful, it will slow it down. Iâm sorry. What was your question again?
Female Audience 3: What recommendation do you haveâ
Brian: Pet food, pet food. Obviously, letâs keep it out of sight if we can, especially with the cats. You kind of leave the food out so the cats can eat when they want to eat. What you might want to do before you go to bed, maybe make that pet food inaccessible, or move the pet food around. I mentioned [triggermatic 0:31:20] behavior. The pets will find it if you move it to the other side of the room. It will be fun watching the mice find it, though. The more inaccessible you can make it, the better off youâll be.
Male Audience 3: Tenants are you going to do [unintelligible 0:31:32].
Rich: Hold on, hold on. Iâm chasing you.
Male Audience 3: Tenants are going to do what they want.
Brian: Yeah.
Male Audience 3: We canât go around every apartment, every night to move the food.
Brian: Well, when we come into an apartment, and weâre doing work, we mention this to the tenants. We try to educate them a little bit on how they can help themselves. Some of the information that you get tonight when youâre speaking to your tenants and they have pets and youâre experiencing a mouse problem, ask them. Maybe theyâll work with you. Can you make the pet food inaccessible when you go to bed at night? Letâs hope that they work with you; sometimes they donât. I understand that.
Rich: All right.
Brian: [unintelligible 0:32:12] back there.
Rich: Perfect for this [unintelligible 0:32:15] person from where I was standing. Here you go.
Male Audience 4: The tenants you mentioned, you canât always control them, and theyâre going to leave stuff around. You put the poison out, they wonât eat it. What Iâve done is put peanut butter with the poison and they love peanut butter, and it gets them to eat it. I know there might be more problems towards other things eating it. But what do you think about that?
Brian: Well, for us weâre not allowed to do that. Thatâs against label directions and we can have problems doing that. If you can do it and get away with it, itâs not a bad idea but again youâre maybe attracting non-target animals to that by doing it.
Male Audience 4: Well, what about the poison you use? Thatâs something thatâs going to get the mice to eat it over Cheerios left on the floor by the babies and stuff?
Brian: Well what we do is we look at the travel ways. Weâre kind of looking at their habits and where they move and weâre going to make those bait placements where they travel. Thereâs nothing in our bait that is making them attracted to it. We really donât want to do that. Weâre going to make our trapping placements and our baiting placements in their travel ways, so theyâre going to run right into it eventually. We donât really want to attract them to it.
Male Audience 4: Okay.
Rich: All right. We got another question here.
Male Audience 5: Do mice travel along the walls? I know there are a lot of areas that are dark. Is that where the trap should be is along a wall?
Brian: Exactly, exactly. Mice have very poor vision, but they have a really good sense of smell, and they use the feelers on their face to run along the edges of the wall, so they really canât see. You take a mousetrap, your conventional mousetrap, and you bring that lever back this way, and you take the trap and you slide it into the wall with the lever open to the wall. You donât have to put peanut butter on it. You donât have to put bacon on it â bacon is really good by the way if you want to do that â but you donât have to put anything on it. Put the trap with the open end against the wall; heâll run right over it by accident. Glue boards â
Rich: Filling bacon might make the trap worth it [laughter]. All right.
Male Audience 6: In terms of trying to keep them out, right, theyâre getting in from outside, assuming you have none in your house, how like do they climb up? Is there a certain height or will they eat through like that spray foam insulation or whatever to get in andâ
Brian: Yeah, eventually theyâll get through that foam insulation. When we use the foam insulation, we try not to use that exclusively. Weâre going to combine it with something else, but if you routinely go around the property when youâre there, looking for holes around the foundation. In the cellar area, youâve got the cellar windows and a lot of these old cellar windows, the thresholds on them, the windowsills theyâre deteriorating. The mice can get right through them.
[0:35:06]
If youâre routinely inspecting around the foundation both through the basement and around the outside, the copper mesh is the best bet because it wonât rust. If you get some steel wool, you can plug up some holes with that but eventually especially on the outside, itâs going to rust, so you may want to cover it with some foam just to keep it from rusting, get a little more longevity out of it. But if you can go around and do some routine exclusion, you can save yourself a mess of headaches.
Audience: Wiring [unintelligible 0:35:37].
Rich: Thatâs not fair.
Brian: Right. We do the same thing. We kind of use the foam to fasten the copper up to kind of hold it in place, and thatâs why we do it. Then weâll cover it right over when weâre done.
Rich: We have a question back here at the back of the room.
Brian: Way back.
Chris: Brian, I always enjoy calling you but before we do that, I go to Home Depot or whatever. Is there some stuff that works better than others, some that doesnât work at all that youâd recommend?
Brian: To be honest with you, Chris, I donât have a large knowledge of over-the-counter materials. To me, Iâm an IPM guy, an integrated pest management guy. I talk about poison and you hear our ads on TV, âItâs always a good day to kill something.â Thatâs not really what itâs all about. To me, blocking holes will serve you more than anything else, and if you want to do some preventive work, just start blocking holes. Save you a heap of trouble.
Rich: We have a question over here.
Female Audience 4: You mentioned mice nest. What does mice nest look like?
Brian: Well, they could be anything anywhere. Nesting material like you saw in some of the slides could be insulation, clothing, towel â
Female Audience 4: Okay.
Brian: Weâll be up in an attic and kind of following the droppings around, and weâll find a box with a bunch of shavings. Weâll open up the box and there they are in the Christmas items.
Female Audience 4: Okay, I get it.
Brian: Usually the week after Thanksgiving, what does everybody do after Thanksgiving? You get your Christmas out, right? You go up into the attic. You go out into the shed. You go into the cellar, wherever you keep it. The first couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, Iâm really busy with mouse work because everybody is finding mouse droppings in their Christmas decorations. It happens year in and year out.
Rich: Thatâs gross! Okay, whoâs next [laughter]? We have a question up front. Here you go, Sandra.
Sandra: I would think that if you get the really good heavy plastic containers and put either papers or even the pet food into those plastic containers, I don't know whether or not we could actually force our tenants to do that, but I would think that certainly itâs not paper that itâs more difficult for them to get through on a heavy-duty plastic container than it does in a plastic bag.
Brian: I make that recommendation every single day. When weâre in a home with pets, we say, âMaybe you should store the pet food in a plastic container with a lid that snaps shut. Take the bag and just dump it all in there. Itâs also good to catch up with those great insects. Iâm sure a lot of people have had the Indian [unintelligible 0:38:22] very popular with pet food. Itâs another way to detect that early.
Male Audience 6: Do most of the infestations happen when it get cold like theyâre coming in from the cold, or all other things being equal, would we just assume theyâll leave in the spring when itâs warm that they would move out of the house?
Brian: Well, once theyâre in, theyâre in. I get that a lot. âItâs March now. Iâve got mice in my house. Wonât they be gone by spring?â No. If theyâve got food, moisture, and shelter, theyâre not going anywhere. However, mice do traditionally live outside, and as it gets cooler, they can sense itâs coming. Right around the end of August, September, theyâre going to start foraging, looking for openings. Yeah, our business picks up in the winter. Itâs normal, but the theory that itâs March and April is coming and theyâre going to leave because itâs getting warm out, no theyâre not leaving. They love you and theyâre staying.
Rich: Letâs give Brian White a big hand [applause].
Brian: Well, thank you very much.
Audience: That was awesome!
Brian: Is that okay?
Rich: Thank you very much.
[End 0:39:42]
