Mice

Service Summary:

• A Grove technician will assess your home and provide recommendations for non-lethal control (exclusion, sanitation, etc.).

• We will set mouse traps throughout the home.

• We will return in a couple of days to check all of the traps, remove any mice, and reset the traps.

• A second follow-up service is required to either pick up the traps or continue trapping.

Mice Information

Mice are everywhere in Calgary. Well… mice are everywhere. Period.

Common house mice have evolved to live alongside humans and are therefore very well suited to live in our homes and get into our food. Mice are primarily nocturnal, though they can come out during the day. They are fast, good climbers, swimmers, and can even jump as high as twelve inches! This gives them free access to almost anywhere in the house once they have entered. They prefer dark, enclosed spaces where there may be food, and tend to avoid places where humans spend a lot of time. For these reasons, expect to find mice under the kitchen sink and adjacent cupboards, in the pantry, behind the stove and dishwasher, and in the sub-floor space/basement ceiling.

​The common house mouse is grey, with large ears and a hairless tail about as long as their body, 5-6 cm as adults. Their droppings are slightly larger than a grain of rice and naturally black in colour, though may have a blue-green coloration if they have eaten rodenticide. Deer mice have a rusty brown colour top with a white underbelly and slightly hairy tails.

House mice breed year-round under suitable conditions, such as in homes. Females have litters of anywhere between 3-12 pups, but usually five to seven. They reach sexual maturity at six weeks of age and have a gestation period (pregnancy) of about three weeks. Females have 5-10 litters per year. This creates enormous potential for exponential population growth.

​The first sign of an infestation is usually seeing mouse droppings. Mice poop every few minutes, or more when they are well fed, so droppings are a good indication of where mice are hanging out. If there are no droppings, it doesn’t necessarily mean mice haven’t been there, but it does mean they haven’t spent much time there. Removing droppings and checking again later is a good test to determine if the mice are still in the area. Use a wet cloth to clean up mouse droppings as opposed to a vacuum to avoid any diseases. While rodent-borne diseases are extremely unlikely to contract from cleaning droppings, it’s not impossible.

​Other signs of mice include chewed up paper, tissue, cardboard, wood, or food packaging. Noises such as scurrying or scratching in the walls or ceiling are another sign of an infestation. Sometimes, but not always, dead mice can create an unpleasant odor. If you notice any of these signs, call a professional pest control operator.

Prevention is the Best Solution

A thorough inspection of the exterior of the home is the first step to prevent more mice from coming inside. Click here for more information on how to find where the mice may be entering.

​Mice need food much more than they need water. Keeping your home clean is crucial for controlling mice. Click here for more information on keeping your house clean when controlling mice.

​Remove as many harborage points around the outside of the house as possible. This can include piles of wood, junk, or unkempt greenery. Make sure there is no garbage around, especially food trash!

​Once the entry points have been repaired and the house has been thoroughly cleaned, the mice are much easier to control. Dangerous rodenticides won’t even be required.

Mouse Control

There are many different methods of rodent control. The primary tools are rodenticides, snap traps, live traps, and glue traps. Please do not use glue traps! For more information on the terrors of glue traps, please click here.

​At Grove, we do not use rodenticides in your home. We prefer to use traps. Traps ensure that no rodents die inside your walls or ceiling. They are much safer for pets. When used properly, they are much more humane as well.

​Click here to learn how to trap rodents in your home.

​Or, just give Grove Eco-friendly Pest Control a call and let us take care of it for you! We are the experts in Calgary mouse control!