5 Ways to Tell if You Have Rats or Mice in Your Home in NYC
Do you frequently hear wall scuffing? Do you often wonder if you heard a squeak? These telltale symptoms should be enough to make you uneasy, but if they don't convince you that you have a rat or mouse infestation in your NYC home, you should be on the lookout for additional overt evidence. Over the past few years, residences in Overland Park have been a special target for rats, and as a result, calls for pest control have dramatically increased.
Since food is located in the kitchen, that is where you'll most likely encounter rats or mice in your home. One of the many impulses for survival that rodents are programmed with is to not be out in an open space, and to keep one side of themselves close to a wall, so the places to check for signs of rats is around the borders of your kitchen, underneath cupboards/the fridge, behind appliances and at the back of your cabinets.
In this article, we talk about how to tell if you have rats or mice. To learn more about how these sometimes cute looking creatures are more trouble than you might realize, please read, Why Rodents are Scarier than you think.
Here is how to tell if you have Rats or Mice in your home in NYC:
1. Have they been chewing your home?
Have your electrical wires been chewed? Have you noticed any holes in food packaging, in your cupboards, or elsewhere? Are there any gnawed-looking holes in the back of your cabinets? These are all vital signs that there are more residents in your home than you bargained for.
2. Have they left any little souvenirs?
So, I’m obviously not talking postcards or pressed pennies. Use a torch to inspect your kitchen, making sure to search the back of your cupboards, behind appliances, and any other crevices where you think rodents might have left waste.
In order to know exactly what steps to take to solve your rodent problem, you should first know who the problem is being caused by mice or rats. This is easy enough to figure out based on the size of the droppings; mice defecate tiny- significantly smaller than rat droppings, which are usually about half an inch long.
3. Displaying any strange behavior?
If your pets have been acting strange recently, it might be due to an unwanted company. In particular, if you catch your pets fixating on certain spots in your home, they could be leading to you to your rodent invaders- after all, dogs and cats can hear and smell things that we can’t.
4. Does your house smelled differently, recently?
If you start smelling a musky smell, this is a strong indicator that you have a rodent’s nest in your home: the smell is the build-up of urine, feces, and the rats/mice themselves (if they’ve given birth in your home, then there’s also all the organic matter that comes with that process, too). In an even more unpleasant scenario, you might smell something rotten- rats often become trapped in small spaces within your home and die, meaning their corpse is left to decompose, filling the surrounding air with the stench of a dead animal.
5. Spotted any little tracks?
Even if you think that you haven’t, you may just not have recognized that what you were looking at were tracks. While prints are a sure-fire sign that you have a rodent problem, disturbances in dust and dirt that roughly form a trail is also an indication that you have rats or mice, since they often slide on kitchen surfaces and the floor, and kick the dust when they run.
Another commonplace for mice and rats to inhabit, in your home, is in your attic. Roof rats, in particular, choose to make your attic their home for purposes related to shelter, both from predators and harsh weather conditions, as well as warmth. Rodents are pretty nimble and often make their way into your attic through small holes in your roof or walls, sometimes via a tree branch. If you hear scratching and squeaking above you while you’re trying to get to sleep, then this is a pretty indisputable sign that you have a rodent problem up there. However, if you want to make sure, you can go ahead and do a search of the attic and look for the things listed above.
So, what next?
The best course of action is to call the experts as soon as you suspect a rodent infestation because the longer mice or rats are allowed to live in your house, the more damage they can cause. Rodent control may locate the issue (also known as the point of entry for the pests) and seal it up to keep no further rodents from entering your home. This prevents you from having to thoroughly search your attic and helps you avoid any possible encounters with the mice or rats themselves. Pest control will then take care of the problem within your property.
Thank you for reading this piece about how to tell if you have rats or mice hidden in your home in NYC.
Since food is located in the kitchen, that is where you'll most likely encounter rats or mice in your home. One of the many impulses for survival that rodents are programmed with is to not be out in an open space, and to keep one side of themselves close to a wall, so the places to check for signs of rats is around the borders of your kitchen, underneath cupboards/the fridge, behind appliances and at the back of your cabinets.
Signs You Have a Mouse or Rat in Your House in NYC
In this article, we talk about how to tell if you have rats or mice. To learn more about how these sometimes cute looking creatures are more trouble than you might realize, please read, Why Rodents are Scarier than you think.
Here is how to tell if you have Rats or Mice in your home in NYC:
1. Have they been chewing your home?
Have your electrical wires been chewed? Have you noticed any holes in food packaging, in your cupboards, or elsewhere? Are there any gnawed-looking holes in the back of your cabinets? These are all vital signs that there are more residents in your home than you bargained for.
2. Have they left any little souvenirs?
So, I’m obviously not talking postcards or pressed pennies. Use a torch to inspect your kitchen, making sure to search the back of your cupboards, behind appliances, and any other crevices where you think rodents might have left waste.
In order to know exactly what steps to take to solve your rodent problem, you should first know who the problem is being caused by mice or rats. This is easy enough to figure out based on the size of the droppings; mice defecate tiny- significantly smaller than rat droppings, which are usually about half an inch long.
3. Displaying any strange behavior?
If your pets have been acting strange recently, it might be due to an unwanted company. In particular, if you catch your pets fixating on certain spots in your home, they could be leading to you to your rodent invaders- after all, dogs and cats can hear and smell things that we can’t.
4. Does your house smelled differently, recently?
If you start smelling a musky smell, this is a strong indicator that you have a rodent’s nest in your home: the smell is the build-up of urine, feces, and the rats/mice themselves (if they’ve given birth in your home, then there’s also all the organic matter that comes with that process, too). In an even more unpleasant scenario, you might smell something rotten- rats often become trapped in small spaces within your home and die, meaning their corpse is left to decompose, filling the surrounding air with the stench of a dead animal.
5. Spotted any little tracks?
Even if you think that you haven’t, you may just not have recognized that what you were looking at were tracks. While prints are a sure-fire sign that you have a rodent problem, disturbances in dust and dirt that roughly form a trail is also an indication that you have rats or mice, since they often slide on kitchen surfaces and the floor, and kick the dust when they run.
Another commonplace for mice and rats to inhabit, in your home, is in your attic. Roof rats, in particular, choose to make your attic their home for purposes related to shelter, both from predators and harsh weather conditions, as well as warmth. Rodents are pretty nimble and often make their way into your attic through small holes in your roof or walls, sometimes via a tree branch. If you hear scratching and squeaking above you while you’re trying to get to sleep, then this is a pretty indisputable sign that you have a rodent problem up there. However, if you want to make sure, you can go ahead and do a search of the attic and look for the things listed above.
So, what next?
The best course of action is to call the experts as soon as you suspect a rodent infestation because the longer mice or rats are allowed to live in your house, the more damage they can cause. Rodent control may locate the issue (also known as the point of entry for the pests) and seal it up to keep no further rodents from entering your home. This prevents you from having to thoroughly search your attic and helps you avoid any possible encounters with the mice or rats themselves. Pest control will then take care of the problem within your property.
Thank you for reading this piece about how to tell if you have rats or mice hidden in your home in NYC.
