Ask Anthony About Rodents

Here at Fox Pest Control we have a team of Associate Certified Entomologists (ACE) who help us understand pests and pest risk factors we encounter. Anthony Mobley is a member of our ACE Team, and a great person to ask when you have a question about a bug that’s bugging you.

This week we had some great questions for Anthony about rodents, and here is what he said:

Maria in Baton Rouge, Louisiana asked:

Are rodents a big problem in the US?

According to Anthony, Yes! 

“They could be more of a problem in certain areas, but generally, they are a problem in the US. Recently there was a survey done by Harris Poll, and it found that 37% of homeowners have seen a rodent, so a mouse or rat, in their home over the last year. So, that’s a large percentage of the homeowners that have seen that. 

Now, some of the conditions that could cause that is, maybe the home is not sealed up properly. Could be sanitation, there could be bedding material in there, or it could be just the time of the year. There’s just lots of reasons why rodents are a problem in the US.

9-year-old Avery in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania said; “Mice and rats are tiny, how can they be dangerous?”

So we Asked Anthony; 

Are mice dangerous?

Well, that’s a really, really good question, Avery. Yeah, there’s several ways that mice and rats can be dangerous. The very first is just the diseases they carry. 

You know, they have diseases that in some cases cause the plague. I mean, that’s an old disease. You know, people don’t talk about it that much but they can carry the Hantavirus. That’s a big one for them, that is something they can carry. And it’s a big issue with rodents that can carry salmonella.

Now they can track this around your home. Because they’re looking for food, so they’re in your pantry, they’re in your cupboard, they’re crawling across the cabinets to floors, they are constantly urinating, everywhere they go, they can’t control their bladder. So they’re just passing along that on surfaces that you guys will touch or come across. And so that could cause a really big issue for someone to pick that up, someone with a low immune system, just lots of issues there, when it comes to what they can carry throughout your home. Then, you could eat something that maybe they were in and they contaminated.

So you just got to be on the lookout, if you know there’s possible rodent activity in your home, you really need to pay attention to that and get a trained professional out there, you know, get with your mom and dad and make sure they know to do the right thing and get a professional out to do a good inspection and come up with a plan to eliminate the rodents.

From Clara in Harlingen, Texas;

How do I know if I have mice in my house? What are the signs?

So there’s several signs. You might hear scratching noises. You can have marks on your sheetrock, on the bottom of doors or corners of your home where maybe an addition and your original home come together. Mice will just chew through things to get in. 

You could have damage to food products, damage to containers that protect food products, they could chew through that to get at it. 

You could actually just see their droppings, you know, scattered throughout the home because as I said before, when they’re traveling, they’re constantly defecate and urinating. So you will see little black droppings just kind of scattered throughout the house, wherever the rodent is traveling. 

So, other things you can find is bedding material. So, when they chew into a box of cereal, or they chew into some type of fabric or cardboard, a lot of times they’re taking that back to create an area where they could create a bedding area and then have their pups. So that’s another thing that could show you that you have an infestation.

So,  I asked Anthony if he had any good rodent stories. He told me one, ironically, about something that happened at a pest control office he worked at many years ago, before his days at Fox . . .

You may be wondering;

What will Fox Pest Control do to get rid of rodents in my house?

So what is Fox gonna do to get rid of rodents and keep them out? So when the technician comes out, the first thing he’s going to do is just have a conversation with you, the customer, kind of understand what you’re seeing where you’re seeing them. And then from there, he or she is going to just go take care of an inspection. 

They’re trained professionals, they’re gonna go and inspect your home and just look for signs of an infestation. That could be droppings, marks, holes, boxes chewed on for nesting material. Once they see that, then they can develop a plan that would allow them to do several different things. 

They may set snap traps. They can lay out blue boards. On rare occasions, they can put out an actual bait box that has bait in it, that the rodents will eat and that could kill them. But it really is based on the plan of action they’re going to come up with in conjunction with you based on things you’re saying and what they find. This is something they’re trained to do and they know where to place these products to eliminate the infestation.

They’re also going to make recommendations to you because there are some things that are beyond the technician’s control. It may require you to maybe repair an area, seal up an area, or do something that is beyond what we can do. But it’s going to impact whether or not we’re going to be able to control and ultimately eliminate the rodent infestation.
Thanks for sharing your questions with us, and thank you Anthony for answering them! If you think you may have mice or rats in your house, give Fox Pest Control a call at (855) FOX-PEST or click HERE to have one of our certified, trained technicians come take care of your rodent problem today!