There are many ways a pest can be a pest. Rodents are guilty of almost all of them. Today, we're going to look at a few of these pest problems and see how mice and rats fit into the picture.
Home Damage
When it comes to wrecking homes, no pest beats the termite, except maybe a rodent. Rodents chew holes to get into our homes and the holes they create can allow rainwater to get in. This can lead to wood rot, mold, and other serious issues that accumulate over time. Before you know it, you're looking at a hefty repair bill and are perhaps suffering from unexplainable health problems. But it gets worse. When a rodent chews holes through the interior walls of your home, they can sever a live wire and cause a house fire, which can claim your entire property in a matter of minutes.
Secondary Moisture Pests
When rodents create holes in your exterior walls, they can make a pathway for pests, especially moisture pests. It would take a long time for a silverfish to chew its way into your home—if it did such a thing. But silverfish, centipedes, spiders, ants, and many other pests will take advantage of holes created by mice and rats.
Damaged Building Materials
When a rodent gets into your home, it is going to make a nest within your home. This nest is going to require materials, and rodents will take those materials from many places. They'll tear the wallpaper. They'll rip up insulation. They'll rip apart sheetrock. The list of materials they'll use would surprise you. They're even known to gnaw on a bar of soap to get the shaving they need.
Damaged Keepsakes
One location mice and rats enjoy is attic spaces. When they get into attics, they often chew their way into cardboard boxes. If you have sensitive keepsakes stored in cardboard boxes, rodents could ruin them.
Contamination
Mice and rats leave their urine and feces in many places. They'll soak your insulation. They'll leave droppings in the back of your silverware drawer. They even leave their waste where they sleep. These waste products contaminate locations in your home and can contaminate the rodents themselves. Exposure to harmful bacteria can make you sick, even if it isn't inside your food. A mouse crawling across your cutting board or a rat rubbing its belly over your plates will most definitely be a bad thing.
Food Poisoning
When rodents get into a home, they often feed on the foods found in the home. They'll chew into paper, cardboard, and plastic food packages and nibble on the contents. They'll crawl inside trash bins. They'll nibble on pet food—if it isn't being guarded. This brings harmful bacteria from your trash or pet food dishes to your stored-food products. But rodents don't need a trash bin or pet food dish to taint your pantry and kitchen foods. They can do it with the bacteria from their urine and feces.
Diseases
Bacterial illness isn't the only sickness connected to rodents. Mice and rats can cause Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM), plague, and other human pathogens. These can be spread by direct contact with waste, the consumption of exposed food, and by particulates spread from air ducts.
Parasites
When rodents get into our San Antonio homes, they bring other organisms with them such as ticks, fleas, lice, mites, and worms. Ticks are particularly scary. A single mouse can have as many as a hundred seed ticks on its body, and as those seed ticks mature, they will drop off their first host and seek another. This can expose your pets and everyone living in your home to deadly tick-borne diseases and the potential for lifelong illness.
Noises
If you hear annoying bumping, scraping, or chewing sounds in your walls, those noises are the least of your problems. In fact, you might want to thank those rodents for making those noises. Most of the time, they don't.
Are you dealing with a rodent infestation in San Antonio? Reach out to the pest control experts here at Family Pest Control. We are an Angie's List Super Service Award winner and we back our family-friendly pest control with a 100% Guarantee. When it comes to rodent infestations, don't settle for anything less than the best pest control.