Have you seen a rat or mouse in your home? If you have it can be alarming and overwhelming. Having rodents inside your home is never a good sign as it is usually an indicator of a bigger problem. Knowing what you should do if you see a rodent in your home in the PNW will help you in dealing with the problem.
Signs You Have Rodents In Your Home
- Seeing a rat, mouse, or multiple rodents in or outside your home
- Rodent droppings similar to the shape of rice
- Oily trails along baseboards or inside cupboards
- Rodent urine
- Chewed wires
- Gnawed areas of wood
- Holes around the exterior of a building near the foundation
- Scratching or chewing noises coming from an attic space or walls
- A pungent smell coming from the vents
- Nesting materials
- Chewed through packaging
What Should You Do If You See A Rodent In Your Home
If you see a rodent in your home you will want to call your local pest control company as soon as possible as one rodent can be an indicator that you have an infestation. Rodents are carriers of a variety of diseases that are harmful to humans that typically spread through their feces and urine. Catching a rodent on your own without proper traps and protective wear is a healthy safety risk which is why we encourage calling a professional at the first sight of a rodent.
After you have seen a rodent you’ll need to look around your home for other signs of them without coming into physical contact with anything. Look for signs of rodents around baseboards and inside cabinets. Go around the exterior of your home and look at the outside vents to see if they have holes as well as any other holes around the exterior that can be in the ground near the foundation or around piping and concrete. If you have plants and shrubs near the outside of your home or large wood piles these can be places where rodents hide. Chicken coops are also attractive to rodents as they provide a food source. Looking for signs of rodents in and around chicken coops can give you an idea of where rodents may be active.
Why You Want To Deal With Rodents Inside Your Home
Rodents reproduce very quickly making them challenging to control. Mice themselves will reach reproductive maturity in less than two months and can have up to seven babies with each pregnancy. Since rodents are nocturnal creatures and avoid human contact they are not always spotted right away. This allows them time to breed and increase in population numbers.
Outside of increasing numbers, rodents are also carriers of disease that is harmful to humans. Rodents can carry diseases like Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome, Lassa Fever, Leptospirosis, Lujo Hemorrhagic Fever, Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis (LCM), Monkeypox, Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever, Rat-Bite Fever, Salmonellosis, Slyvatic Typhus, and South American Arenaviruses, including Argentine hemorrhagic fever, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Chapare Hemorrhagic Fever, Sabiá-associated hemorrhagic fever, and Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever. These diseases can be spread directly from rodents.
Diseases that can be spread indirectly through rodents due to the fleas, mites, and ticks they can carry are Anaplasmosis, Angiostrongylus, Babesiosis, Borreliosis, Colorado tick fever, Cutaneous leishmaniasis, Eastern equine encephalitis, Flea-borne (Murine) Typhus, Hymenolepis diminuta, La Crosse virus, Moniliformis moniliformis, Plague, Powassan virus, Rickettsialpox, Scrub typhus, Tick-borne Relapsing Fever, Tularemia, West Nile virus.
If you see a rodent in your home or suspect that you have rodents in or outside of your home call your local pest control company as soon as possible to deal with your rodent issue in the Pacific Northwest.
