There is nothing worse than discovering that you have rats or mice lurking around in your home. Many times after calling in the professionals and having successfully gotten rid of the problem, you may fear that these awful creatures have once again returned.
Sometimes it is really hard to tell. Are the mice and rats gone or are you just being paranoid? How do you know if you still have mice or rats?
Some helpful methods to tell if you still have mice or rats.
Here are simple and helpful methods which may assist you in being able to determine if you still have mice or rats:
- Droppings:
- Gnawing:
- Smell:
- Tracks:
- Nesting:
Let’s look at each one of these in more detail.
Droppings: As awful as this may seem, droppings are a good way to tell if you still have mice or rats lurking around your home. Dropping which are fresh can be easily identified as they are moist when you touch them. Older droppings become grayer in color. If the droppings are old, they will start to crumble if you touch them.
If mice or rats or nesting in a particular area, you will see that there will be more droppings around that particular area. The trick is to go as far as identifying their droppings. The age of their droppings and the touch of their droppings can be very telling signs.
Gnawing: Gnawing marks can be found on various food packaging or other places in your home. By examining these marks you will be able to tell the age of these marks which can help answer your questions.
Newly found marks are lighter in color and as time progresses they get darker. Therefore this can help you determine if you still have rodents or not. Another trick that can help you is to know that bigger gnaw marks may indicate that you have rats while small ones may indicate that you have mice.
Smell: Our pets can play a big role in helping us to understand if we still have rodents running around our homes. If your dog or cat is running around a structure sniffing and excited, it may be best to get a flashlight and examine the situation.
Remember that dogs and cats can smell much better than humans are, if they are running around excited and smelling something, this could be a sign that you have a rodent. However, do not be falsely alarmed as it could also be a smell of something else.
Tracks: Examining the tracks of mice and rats can be a very telling sign in determining if they are still hanging around. As time progresses their tracks become fainter and fainter in color. Therefore the darker that their tracks are the newer that these tracks may be.
Another way to determine if they ate still lurking around is to put baby powder on their tracks. If they are actively still lurking around your home, you will soon begin to discover trails in the powder that you put down.
Nesting: Unfortunately rodents will nest in almost anything. This means that any pieces of materials that you leave around the home may be used as a nesting ground.
If you see any signs of droppings, tracks, or smells around these areas it could be a sign that they are living in the area and lurking around.
Identifying all these above signs may help you in your quest to determine if you still have rats and mice or not. Good luck.
