What To Do About Rodents In Your Pleasanton Home
Common Rodents To Find Invading Your Home
The two most common home-invading rodents are mice and rats. They look similar and both pose some major problems to your health and property. Learning how to tell them apart is important, however, since a home is almost never infested with both of these territorial mammals at the same time. Here’s how you can tell mice apart from rats:
- Size: Mice are much smaller than rats, often only a couple of inches in length. Rats, however, can grow up to a foot or more in length.
- Ears: The most drastic difference between mice and rats, besides their overall size (which can be misleading when you’re determining a baby rat vs. adult mouse), is to check the ears. Mice ears are large and circular, while rat ears are pinched at the sides and tucked far back on their heads.
- Droppings: You’re more likely to see the feces they leave behind than you are to spot a rodent. As such, checking the droppings can help identify the problem. Rats have large, often crescent-shaped feces, while mice have small rice-sized ones.
The Dangers Of A Rodent Infestation
Rodents aren’t just creatures of squalor, they are actually hazardous to your health and property. Here are just some of the biggest issues that a rodent infestation can expose you to :
- Damage: Both rats and mice have front teeth that never stop growing, meaning they must file them down by chewing on hard surfaces. This results in marks and holes in household items and materials.
- Disease: Rodents are known to spread many harmful diseases, including plague and rabies. They also frequently carry parasites like fleas and ticks, which are also dangerous.
- Odors: With their unclean habit of leaving their urine and feces all over, rodents will quickly contribute to foul smells in your home.
DIY Methods Almost Never Work
While certain preventative measures, like proper food storage and frequent cleaning, can help make your home less attractive to foraging rodents, there are truly no guarantees when it comes to do-it-yourself methods of removing rodent infestations. By their nature, mice and rats look for shelter to survive cold months and find easy sources of food. As such, anyone can wind up with a rodent problem on their hands and it can quickly grow out of control. Many homeowners try to solve the problem on their own, using unproven treatments they heard about or turning to store-bought traps and chemicals. Not only can these methods be dangerous, but they also rarely work to get every rodent. Only professional solutions can root out and eliminate an entire rodent population , and keep you safe from future invasions.
Safe & Effective Rodent Control From Patriot
Rather than waste time and money on unsafe and ineffective measures, choose the sure approach by partnering with local experts. At Patriot Pest Management, our trained technicians can get started immediately on an inspection of your home, determining if a rodent population is already there or if one could easily become a problem. We’ll not only help you with our proven prevention and elimination , we’ll follow up to make sure the issue stays resolved. For rodent control that you can rely on, turn to Patriot Pest Management today.
