Mouse infestation is a nightmare for any home, Airbnb, VRBO or short-term rental. A mouse infestation starts with a hungry mouse looking for food and ends with a pack of mice living in your house.
You can curb a mouse infestation with hardware cloth. You can use mouse traps, airtight food containers, and rodent repellent sound devices. Prevention is the best cure for mice and other rodents.
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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Can You Hire a House Cleaner to Come Clean a Mouse Infestation?
Mouse infestation, can you hire a house cleaner to come to clean up your mouse infestation? Yes, you can hire a house cleaner to come in and clean up all the mice poop and the mice infestation.
But it’s recommended actually put an end to those mice. There are a couple of things that I would encourage you to do first before you hire somebody to come in and clean up.
Because if we don’t fix the mouse problem, in just a minute there’s going to be a whole bunch more mice poop.
Mice Breed at a Prolific Level
Now, here’s what we know about mice. Mice breed at a prolific level, okay? They just keep having babies over and over again, and so if you have a couple of mice in your house. They can keep multiplying themselves, and now you have bunches of mice.
As soon as you see one, you want to eradicate that immediately. You want to get rid of all the mice. What you do, first, is you want to put out some mice traps to catch the mice that are already in your house. There are very inexpensive mice traps that you can buy at The Home Depot or the Lowe’s.
You want to put out mice traps. Don’t poison them, but use peanut butter or cheese, because it smells nice, and it will attract them. Then they will eat it, and then you can catch them.
Stop Access for Mice to Your Food
Okay, so having said that, don’t give access to mice to your food. End all the possibilities where mice can find food in your house. This will help you prevent mice.
They have an amazing sense of smell, and they’re going to find whatever food they can chew through. Mice will chew through potato chip bags. They will chew through bread bags. They can chew through this stuff, so what you want to do is you want to get airtight containers.
Now, in my pantry, for example, we have airtight containers for everything. Everything is in airtight containers. We have some great big container tubs that are big plastic bins, and you can fit many things in them. Or you can have smaller individual containers. They make little individual containers that are for a loaf of bread, but it’s airtight so mice can’t get in.
Then they have containers where you have cereal, and you empty your cereal bag into the container, and it has a little pour spout. Then when you use your cereal you pour out what you need and snap the airtight lid back on. Start thinking, how can I protect the food that I have so that it doesn’t give off a smell and attract mice and rodents in your house?
Mouse Infestations Happen in the Summer
Okay, now as the weather changes and it becomes hot in the summertime, mice don’t like to be outside either. So if they can climb underneath your house and go kind of cozy up to those cool water, air conditioning pipes, mice will do that in the summer.
If it’s dark, and it’s cool underneath your house, they’ll hang out there. A lot of houses that have crawl spaces have grates. They’re little square grates that have a little knob that opens and closes, and there’s usually some kind of a mesh that goes behind that grate. But what you may want to consider is getting some zip ties and some more mesh if they’ve chewed through those holes.
You can cut a little square, and you can add that right behind the vent. It’s called hardware cloth. Once you zip tie that on the inside of your vents, the mice can no longer get through.
Mice Infestations Can Lead to Snake Infestation
Now, we also know that snakes eat mice. If you have mice, snakes can be right behind, right?
You don’t want snakes and mice in your house. So, after you’ve set the mouse traps in your house, and you’ve eliminated all the possibilities of them finding food. Then there are a couple of things that I would also recommend.
If you don’t want to do the parameter walk around your house and you don’t know how to do it. You can either watch YouTube videos on how to do it, or you can hire a handyman because a handyman knows exactly what they’re looking for.
Stop Mice Infestations By Cleaning Up After You Eat
All right, then the next thing that I would recommend is that you clean up after you eat. Lots and lots of people eat in their living rooms in front of the television, and then when they eat the crumbs spill down in the cushions of the couch.
That attracts mice, so you want to make sure that there are no crumbs around your house.
Being tidy, and eliminating the mice, and preventing the mice from finding your food. And preventing the mice from coming into your house are all ways that you can end the mouse infestation.
A Normal House Cleaning Company Can’t Clean Hazardous Mouse Poo
If there’s a lot of mice poo, and it’s a hazardous situation, it’s not going to be a regular house cleaning company that’s going to come in.
It’s going to be a remediation company that’s going to come in, and they charge a lot more money. The reason they do is that they don’t clean your house like a house cleaner.
They come in and they do top to bottom scouring of everything. Sometimes it’s two, three, and four scourings to make sure everything is normal. So, it’s not cheap at all.
*** RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE ***
Airtight Storage Containers 10 Pack Perfect for Sugar, Flour, Baking Ingredients, Coffee, Rice, Nuts, Snacks, & Pet Food – https://amzn.to/2BB04Cp
Set of 4 Large Cereal & Dry Food Storage Containers BPA-Free Plastic Container Airtight Lid – https://amzn.to/2w5PL4h
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24-Inch x 50-Foot 1/4-Inch Galvanized Mesh Hardware Cloth – https://amzn.to/2BAEMVB
Cable Zip Ties,500 Packs Self-Locking 4+6+8+10+12-Inch Width 0.16inch Nylon Cable Ties- https://amzn.to/2BB1psV
GE Silicone 2+ Window & Door Caulk, 10.1 Oz. Tube, Clear, GE5000 – https://amzn.to/2wqAJFF
Standard Size 10oz Silicone Caulking Gun Tool Set, Manual Cartridge Rod Cradle, Fits 10 oz tube/cartridge – https://amzn.to/2w6ocaT
Rolling Mouse Trap – Rodent Traps Mouse Control – Kill or No Contain Trap for Mice, Rats & Other Pests & Rodents – https://amzn.to/2wjcEAr
Smart-Kill Wi-Fi Electronic Mouse Trap, Black (Texts You When You Catch a Mouse) – https://amzn.to/2PsYOnL
Catcha 2 Piece Humane Smart Mouse Trap Live Catch and Release Rodents, Safe Around Children and Pets – https://amzn.to/2OTWght
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