Monday, October 16, 2006

Mouse Proofing Tips

The cold weather has arrived and with it comes the rodents looking for a warm place to wait out the winter. One way to avoid becoming pray to these furry squatters is to mouse proof your home. First thing to do is inspect from the inside out. Simply stand in your dark garage and if you see light coming in from under the door or a crack in the corner then a mouse can enter. Stand in your dark basement and any light coming in from under doors or windows is a sure sign a mouse can also enter. Now walk around the outside and look for wires and pipes that are entering. All spaces around these entry points need to be sealed. If you have a home over a crawl space then the pipes for the utilities that might come up from the crawl space should be sealed where the floor meets. Using a product called Stuf-fit or Stuff It will help to seal these areas. Stuf-fit is a cooper mesh that is able to be stuffed into holes or around entry points to keep rodents out. For your garage door or entry doorways you may need to replace or install a good piece of weather stripping or a door sweep. These can be gotten at your local hardware store or a do-it-yourself pest control store. The Stuf-fit product can also be bought at one of these retail establishments. Some other tools to arm yourself with would be caulk for the space around the wires that seen sealing and some expandable foam for any area that needs a large section filled. Mice are opportunistic and even though it is filled with foam that they can easily gnaw though, chances are they will look for an easier entry route.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

To mouse proof your home, you will need to use the correct materials, you can buy mouse proof sealant it seals all the holes and cracks throughout your property.
their web address is www.mouseproof.co.uk

Anonymous said...

Light coming under a door!!
This is the sort of rubbish I hear from auditors all the time. A mouse is a lot less capable of entry under a door than light is. It would be more beneficial to offer a lower limit of the size of gap that a mouse could squeeze through. In the respectable pest control profession, this has been determined to be 6mm. I would advise anyone that a gap larger than this could present a potential entry point to mice.

Inoculand Ltd Pest Control said...

It is true than to mouse proof we need 0.5cm mesh. We consider than it is best to block systematically any gaps bigger than a pencil.

It is best to concentrate on gaps around the pipework, or at skirting board level.

Also gaps at kitchen unit level and to the walls need sorting out.

The difficult bit is not to overlook a potential access point, if you missed it, the mice will most likely find it eventually.

D
www.inoculand.co.uk