Spotting rats and mice in your Houston home can be quite an unpleasant surprise. The good news is that you’ll rarely have to deal with both at the same time. Mice and rats don’t get along very well. The mice in your Houston home might be three inches long at the most, not including the tail. Their tan or grey bodies pale in comparison to the dark gray or brown rats that can inhabit the area, measuring over six inches long in many cases (tail not included).
What Houston homeowners fail to understand, however, is how dangerous mice and rats can be. It’s not like they attack, right? While rat and mouse attacks are extremely rare, these rodents are dangerous in other ways. This disturbing fact is because of their typical habitat. For the most part, mice and rats spend their time in dumpsters, landfills, and sewers, picking up tons of bacteria along the way.
As they rummage through your house for food, they’ll spread this bacteria all over frequently-touched surfaces and even your kitchen counter where you prepare your food. This can expose you to dangerous diseases such as salmonella, E.coli, and many more. Even their urine and feces are toxic and can contaminate your home.
How Do They Get In?
A mouse or rat infestation is surprising to most homeowners because these rodents are fairly big compared to insects. Obviously, insects can sneak in through small cracks and crevices, but it’s not like your door is wide open all the time. So how do rodents get in? Rats are the more intelligent of the two, so they’ll sneak close to the house, using cover in the yard. At the right moment, when the garage door is left open or they spot an opening to crawl through, they’ll bolt when no one is looking.
Mice, on the other hand, have two special abilities that help them gain entry to your home. First of all, they have very sharp teeth and the willingness to chew through almost anything. When you combine this with the ability to squeeze their bodies into small spaces, they can find their way in through almost any size opening by chewing a larger hole and squeezing through. These sharp teeth also leave you exposed to lots of damage to electrical wiring, linens, and more.
Calling For Backup
When Houston homeowners try to get rid of mice or rat infestations on their own, they wind up in real trouble. First of all, prolonged infestations can increase your chance for disease incursion exponentially. Also, home remedies simply do not work well on mice and rats. Most rats are too intelligent to fall for traps or poison, and their rate of reproduction is likely beyond the rate that you’ll catch them.
Mice, while not as intelligent, reproduce even faster. You may catch one or two per day, but you’ll have a dozen more within your walls in just a matter of weeks.
If you really want to get rid of mice and rats in a timely manner, pick up the phone and call for backup. The most effective and safest way to get rid of rodents in Houston is to contact the professionals at TNT Home & Commercial Services.