With the arrival of cold weather the mice and rats come calling.
They leave their holes in the ground (where they live during the warm spring and summer months), and move into your home.
Very soon you have a rodent infestation, and you wonder where all those critters came from.
Maybe you won't even know they're invading at first. At least not until you spot a few of those "calling cards" they leave behind. And if you don't know the difference between mouse poop and a roach dropping you can't know if your pest is a rodent or a cockroach.
Mice and rats invade your space because they're moving from their summer home (the burrows where they find plenty of food during the warm months) to their winter home (your place where you give them all kinds of warm rooms to roam in, and lots of food sitting around in your kitchen cabinets).
As I said, those calling cards are your first alert that you have pests.
When rodents invade you, you'll usually find those droppings at the base of a wall. Mouse and rat running paths most often run along the base of walls because that's where they find the most objects to duck behind and take cover.
When they see you coming they scurry to get out of sight.
Cockroach droppings show up mostly inside your cabinets.
But the main way to tell the differences between a cockroach dropping and a rodent dropping is by looking at the ends. Cockroaches don't have sphincter muscles. Their dropping is rounded and blunt on the ends.
The rodent's sphincter squeezes the dropping, making it pointed on the ends.
Of course if you ignore the droppings when you first see them the mice and rats start building families. Before long you'll not only see lots of calling cards, but you'll hear these pests.
When their family grows big enough they make plenty of noise as they run around in your walls and attic.
They'll keep you awake at night.
You have options for treating a rodent infestation.
Placing baits in strategic locations is one.
Baits come in different forms. Most commonly found are the pellets and the blocks. If you want to use the rodent baiting pest control technique learn about proper placement. You'll need to know what bait shyness means, how rodents get that way, too.
Setting traps is another rodent pest control technique.
Look for a variety of mechanical traps where you buy your pest control supplies. The type you choose is a matter of personal choice. Another available trap is the glue board. The rodent walks onto the board and becomes stuck to the glue.
They all work well at catching rodents. (Glue boards work good for mice. Rats are strong enough to escape the boards. I occasionally found rat hair on glue that a rat left behind as he got away.)
Knowledge of how to properly place traps is also necessary if you want to capture all the rodents.
If you have (or suspect you have) mice or rat invasion in your home you want to perform pest control early. Don't let a rodent infestation get out of control.
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