When you see a rodent running along a baseboard in your West Chester home, you're going to have feelings. You may even have strong feelings. We're not talking about the kind of feelings that will prompt you to write a love song, but the kind that will make you want to do everything possible so that you don't have another surprise encounter with one of these creepy little pests. Before you take the next step, it is important that you know about a few of the issues associated with do-it-yourself rodent control.
What Happens When DIY Fails
There are many ways mice and rats can threaten your health and property. If you fail to get control of the rodents in your West Chester home, they will be allowed to continue to create these issues. You may not even realize that they are still a threat to you and your family. Here are a few of the ways mice and rats can impact your life.
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Rodents leave their waste in many places. This waste can damage your property and cause contamination that can lead to a health risk.
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Rodents are dirty animals that cause contamination simply by crawling around on things. They can contaminate your food, food-prep surfaces, dishes, silverware and much more.
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Rodents carry ticks, fleas and other parasites. These bugs can also present a health risk. A single mouse can have as many as a hundred seed ticks on its body.
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Rodents gnaw on many things. This gnawing behavior will cause them to damage building materials and items stored in your attic or storage rooms.
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Rodents are known to gnaw on wiring and gas lines. They are considered a fire hazard when they get into structures.
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Rodent mate and reproduce quickly. If you fail to get control of them, you can actually increase the cost of having your rodent problem corrected because you'll have more rodents in your home when you finally contact a licensed professional.
Trap Issues
A common and effective method for controlling mice and rats is trapping. Unfortunately, there are issues that can arise from an improper deployment of traps. Here are a few to consider:
Rodents are fast. Sometimes, they move quickly enough to avoid the death blow of a spring trap and only get a foot stuck. When this happens, they're likely to chew this appendage off in order to free themselves. This can lead to the rodent crawling away into your wall and dying in there. A dead rodent in your wall can create an unpleasant smell. But, more than this, it can attract other pests into your home.
Rodents are smart. If a mouse or rat has a bad experience with a trap, it can become trap shy. This makes them more difficult to capture and remove. Professionals use specialized traps and field-tested deployment methods to prevent rodents from escaping traps and becoming trap shy.
Spring traps are commonly used by residents to get control of rodent problems. When these traps are found by children or pets, they can cause harm. Professionals deploy tamper-resistant traps to prevent injury.
Waste Of Money
When you purchase traps, rodenticides, and other control products, you could be throwing your money away. Rodent control is often tricky. Not only are rodents difficult to trap, but they're also difficult to keep out of a structure. Rodents can jump over a foot in the air, scale walls, squeeze through tiny holes, and make tiny holes larger with their strong teeth. Professionals use methods designed by industry experts to properly deploy control products and perform inspections to evaluate the success of rodent control programs. You're likely to save money if your first step is to hire a professional.
Are You In West Chester?
If you're in the West Chester area, you're in our service area. At the first sign of a rodent problem, contact Masters Touch Pest Solutions. Our technicians are highly-trained and experienced pest management professionals. The methods and products we use are known to be effective at capturing and removing rodents. Let our team develop an effective plan to address your rodent infestation. We'll not only establish an effective control solution, we'll provide you with the necessary follow-up to make sure everything goes according to plan and that all of the rodents are gone. We can also help you prevent future infestations by correcting conducive conditions, or by continuing to trap rodents and monitor rodent activity on your property.
For more information about rodent control from Masters Touch Pest Solutions or to request a rodent inspection for your property, hop over to our contact page and drop us a line. We look forward to helping you get rid of rodents and to keeping rodents out of all the structures on your West Chester property.
