Are there signs of mice invasion in your home?
Most probably, you have run into mouse droppings or seen gnawed-on items.
Mice like staying under kitchen sinks, and some signs of invasion in your kitchen include their droppings.
It’s irksome to keep on dealing with this nuisance in your home. However, this isn’t a call for despair because you can still get this problem under control with an excellent approach.
This post has valuable information to help you do away with the mice invasion under your kitchen sink. By strictly implementing these tips, you’ll get mice out of your kitchen in no time.
Signs of Mice Infestation at Home
1. Rodent Droppings
In the beginning, mouse droppings are dark and moist, but with time, they’ll dry up, become gray, and easily crumble if moved. You’re likely to come across mice droppings under sinks, in cupboards or drawers, next to food packages, along their runways.
You’ll also encounter the most droppings in rodents feeding or nesting areas, so examine the areas surrounding fresh droppings to determine if there’s a new or active infestation.
2. You Spot Gnaw Marks
New rodent nibble marks are lighter—in contrast to the droppings and become darker after a while. You may discover gnawed holes on the walls or food packages. Compare a newly-found nibble mark with an older one to determine the age.
Recently found gnaw marks could be a sign of an ongoing invasion. These marks also show whether it’s a mice or rat infestation. Rats have more prominent teeth, so they’ll make more significant nibble marks compared to mice.
3. You Can Smell a Foul Odor
Dogs and cats get excited and active in rodent-infested areas. In other words, pets get a whiff of rodent’ urine, especially after these nibbling creatures invade your home.
If you notice your pet pawing at areas that it initially had no interest in, use a flashlight to inspect the area for mice or rats. Take action immediately when you find out that it is a mice invasion into your home.
4. You’ve Noticed Tracks and Runways
You’ll notice tracks and runways in or around your house during an active invasion because the tracks are usually distinctive at first, but get fainter with time.
You can easily detect these runways using a backlight or flashlight held at an angle towards the area of interest. You should see droppings, urine stains, footprints, or smudge marks if you do this.
If you think a particular area is a rodent resting spot, sprinkle a thin layer of baby powder or flour to see their trails when they become active.
5. You’ve Heard Scratching Noises
Another sign of active mice in your home is scratching noises at night.
You will, most often, hear them burrowing behind joists and walls, scurrying around the cupboards, scampering beneath the floors, or hear muffled squeaking.
Keep an eye on your cat or other pets to see if they’re taking heed to what’s happening behind the walls, and listen to determine if you can catch something that indicates trouble.
Why Do Mice Get Under The Sink?
Mice identify crawl spaces beneath the sinks to nest. These places are cozy, warm, and they can also find surplus food (especially your last night’s leftovers) to eat.
Nesting under the sinks protects mice from predators like cats since they crawl into tiny cracks and holes along the sides.
Can Mice Come Through The Kitchen Sink?
Take note that the space under your kitchen sink is a frequent rodent entry point because openings around pipes are big enough to accommodate them.
Look through the food storage area, remove exposed food crumbs, and store the items in sealed solid tins that mice can’t access easily.
5 Smart Ways To Get Rid of Mice Under Your Kitchen Sink
1. Seal Cracks and Holes
First, survey your house and the surroundings to look for any cracks and holes because these pesky rodents will always have an entry point that you must uncover.
Though you may successfully get rid of the mice currently inside your home, there’s a possibility that there could be more outside your house.
You will have to look for any cracks and holes in your house a couple of times to be sure that there are some or none.
You might think a hole is too small for a rodent, but you must know that mice can wedge their tiny bodies into such holes and cracks.
2. Regularly Clean Your Home
Regularly cleaning your home is a great way to keep mice at bay. Mice will most likely invade your home if there’s a food or water source around your house.
Mice won’t have any food source if you have always kept your house clean.
Your day-to-day life can sometimes be hectic, and you might find yourself brushing off doing house chores. However, you need to try as hard as you can not to disregard house chores to make sure there are no traces of food leftovers that could attract mice into your house.
Vacuum your house once in a while to get rid of any crumbs lying around. Also, you’ll need to ensure that you regularly mop and sweep your kitchen and bathroom.
If you have a dishwasher, make it a habit to always load the dishes every night. And instead of piling up dishes in your sink, wash them every time you use them.
3. Use Mouse Traps
Traps have been used to eliminate mice in homes since time immemorial. So why should you not try removing mice the old-fashioned way? Set some traps under your kitchen sink and other areas in your home where you’ve suspected mice could have hidden.
There are various mouse traps available, but the best mouse trap is the regular mouse trap with a spring make.
The spring makes is one of the most straightforward to set up and it has been in the market for a while. Besides, this mouse trap has a pressure pad that sets off the system and results in a chunk of steel to land on the mouse hence trapping it.
Finally, this trap will be more effective if you will use bait to lure the mice. Cheese is the most common bait used in traps, though peanut butter is the best bait to use.
4. Get a Cat as a Biological Remedy
If you like cats, you can get one to deal with your mouse infestation problem. Having a cat is better than setting up traps, as cats will chase down all the mice in your house and is also a proven biological method of dealing with mice invasion. However, please note that you won’t eliminate all the mice in your home with traps.
With a cat, you’ll be able to sleep soundly at night, knowing that your mice problem is a thing of the past.
Sometimes, your cat can bring you a deceased mouse early in the morning, just as you wake up. When your cat does this, it’s looking for validation. However, some cats could sometimes leave the deceased rodent outside your door to showcase their hunting prowess.
Encouraging your cat to keep hunting will make them want to hunt down mice more. Just ensure that your cat won’t eat the rodents.
A word of caution: Not all cat breeds are great at hunting down rodents. Some cats are lazy and are not into the chase that hunting involves.
5. Use Ultrasonic Repellent Gadgets
Ultrasonic Repellent gadgets use has been on the rise lately. These devices produce noise that makes rodents steer clear of your house.
You can buy any of these gadgets and put them in a strategic position in your kitchenette. The best of all is that some gadgets come with a plug which you can place on the wall if you wish to use them inside the house.
Ultrasonic repellent gadgets come with settings that make sure human ears can’t perceive the noise they produce. Therefore, you won’t be bothered by the sound if you decide to give it a try.
However, the sounds can affect your pets. That means that these devices are not ideal for individuals with pets such as cats or dogs.
Good news, though: this is the ideal device to have in your home to deal with your mouse infestation problem if you don’t have pets. The sounds that emanate from these gadgets can make mice leave your home altogether.
Get Rid of Mice
If mice have taken over your home, there are plenty of solutions you can choose from. The first logical solution would be to cover any holes or gaps in your home to prevent mice from getting in your home.
Ensuring that your home is always tidy is another excellent way of eliminating mice. Once you’ve done all this, put up traps under the kitchen sink.
If traps aren’t your thing, you can try getting a cat to hunt the mice down or using poison. Some mice repellents are available on the market if you want to keep mice at bay.