Keep your home safe from pests this winter!

As the temperature starts to drop at night, animals that are usually happiest living outside start to look for warmer places to spend the winter.  For some this means hibernation, but for others, there is a ready solution to hand.

A Mouse Nest in Loft Insulation

One of the most common wild creatures in the South East is the Wood Mouse, or Long Tailed Field Mouse (Apopdemus Sylvanus).

Normally they are very happy to live their lives outdoors, nesting in vegetation, or in tunnels they dig out of the soil.  But as it starts to get colder they start to look for somewhere with a little more warmth.  That, sadly for you, is likely to be your house.

Mice are fantastically agile and can run up vertical brickwork as if it were horizontal.  As if this wasn’t enough they can squeeze through a hole the size of a pencil.  What this means is that if they want to get into your roof space then there is almost nothing you can do to stop them.

Mouse Droppings in a Kitchen Cupboard

Once there they make a nest inside your loft insulation and only leave the roof to find food.  Unfortunately they are as likely to find this by climbing down through the cavity walls and in to your food cupboards as by going outside.

And once they have both security, and food, they are unlikely to ever leave.

This wouldn’t normally be an issue if it was not for the fact that mice carry a number of diseases that are transmissible to humans.

From the rare, but potentially deadly Hanta-Virus, through to the much more common Weil’s Disease (Leptospirosis) and many more besides.  As with any infectious disease, children and the elderly are most at risk.

As if this wasn’t enough, mice, like all other rodents, gnaw constantly on whatever they happen to be near.

If this is a brick, or a heavy wooden joist then it is unlikely to be a problem, but if it is your electrical wiring then it is potentially a very big deal indeed.

Rodents have caused a great number of house fires over the years, and sadly that number increases every year.

Sometimes you will hear them scrabbling around in the ceiling or walls, sometimes you will notice an unpleasant smell, and sometimes you will clearly see their droppings, or the damage they have done.

But sometimes you won’t have any idea mice have moved in until it is too late and they have already caused costly damage to your possessions or the very fabric of your house.

If you think that you might have mice in your house, then you need to act now.