Do You Have Mice?

Signs you have mice:

 Droppings
 Chewed food
 Rub marks
 Urine stains
 Gnawed holes
 Nests
 Strange noises, especially at night
 Changes in the behavior of your pets

It’s not always as obvious as you might think that you have a rodent problem. Especially when it first starts. The commonly accepted wisdom is that where there’s one mouse, there’s more, and that’s often true. These small rodents are prolific breeders and can establish a population in an area that will support it with astonishing speed. But most infestations start with a single individual. And it’s not always easy to tell if there’s one in your house.

So here are some of the ways to tell if you’re dealing with a rodent issue. Some are more obvious than others. And some aren’t necessarily signs of an active infestation; they could be from a prior problem that has already been solved. But put a few of these clues together, and you can be confident that you have a mouse.

Droppings

Let’s start with poop. Mice are very good at hiding. Given their small size, their lives depend on it. They move quickly and have a collapsible skeleton that allows them to squeeze their bodies into incredibly small spaces to hide. But they are very careless about where they go to the bathroom. This is why they can be such a risk to health, as they easily contaminate food with their feces. But it also means that the droppings are one of the first signs of infestation.

The droppings of a house mouse are around 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch long, usually black, and cylindrical with pointed ends. Despite their small size, they poop a lot. They produce around 50 droppings each day. So while no one likes looking at poop, it’s often one of the first and clearest signs of an infestation.

Chewed food

Like any other animal, mice need to eat. They will eat just about anything a person would, and will also happily consume things like insects and pet food. But their favorite kind of food is seeds and dry cereals. Like all rodents, they have large front teeth that grow continuously throughout their lives. They use these teeth to gnaw holes in packaging. So if you find a hole chewed in a box of cereal or package of sunflower seeds, there’s a good chance that these creatures are the culprit.

Mice like to nibble. If they find their way into the kitchen cabinet, pantry, or another area with stored food, they are likely to try a taste of everything they can get to. This is part of what makes them such a costly pest. Along with rats, they make up the most economically significant group of pests in the US, responsible for $19 billion in damages each year in the US alone.

Rub marks

These critters are creatures of habit. They are also territorial. This means that each day, they will go out and patrol their territory, looking for both food sources and other mice. If this territory is your home, you may notice dark rub marks on walls and baseboards caused by contact with the oils and grease in their fur.

Urine stains

Any animal that produces 50 poops per day is also going to create a lot of urine. Additionally, they use urine to mark their territory. The urine can often leave a yellow stain on floors and walls that you should look out for.

Gnawed holes

A rodent’s front teeth never stop growing. For this reason, all of these creatures need to gnaw on hard surfaces to keep their teeth from growing too long. But they are also capable of gnawing holes in hard surfaces such as wood and drywall.

Mice can fit through tiny gaps. A 1/4 inch hole is large enough for them to use. As long as they can fit their head through the hole, their body will follow. Their skeleton is collapsible, with the rib cage highly compressible so that they can squeeze through small holes. But sometimes, holes that would ordinarily be too small for them can be enlarged by the mouse gnawing at its edges.

Keep an eye out for gnaw marks around holes in walls where pipes and wires enter a room. Also check the bottom of exterior doors, since these often provide rodents with a way into a building.

Nests

Like the rest of us, these creatures like to be cozy. They will build nests in dark, quiet, out-of-the-way places. Under kitchen appliances or in rarely used cabinets are common places for mice to nest, but they will also nest inside walls, where they use the insulation for warmth and comfort. They will also gather nesting material from elsewhere in the house, such as cotton balls, paper products, and fabric. If you find a strange collection of soft materials in a secluded area, you may have found a nest.

Noises at night

Mice are largely nocturnal. They have incredible senses of smell and hearing, but their eyesight is very poor. They are unable to see more than six inches in front of them. So they are quite happy operating in the dark. They will typically become more active once the sun goes down, and this is when you’re more likely to hear them.

They try to be quiet. But their daily patrols, constant hunt for food, and gnawing activity all create noise. You may hear a faint rustling sound in your walls, or a mouse gnawing its way through the food packaging in your kitchen cabinet. Remember, though, that if you can hear a mouse, it can most definitely hear you. If you get up to see what the source of the noise is, most likely the mouse will have disappeared by the time you get there. These small creatures have an almost magical ability to vanish when they hear humans coming.

Changes in pet behavior

Both dogs and cats respond to the presence of rodents. But cats are especially sensitive to these animals. There was a lot of truth in those old Tom and Jerry cartoons we all used to watch as kids. Cats have an instinctive drive to seek out and kill small creatures. In fact, it’s likely that it was the mouse-killing ability of cats that first led us to domesticate them thousands of years ago when our species began farming.

Pets have senses that far exceed ours in sensitivity. Your cat will hear the rustling of a mouse long before you do. And a dog will easily smell their droppings, urine, and the mice themselves. So pay attention to your pet’s behavior. Is there a particular area of your home that your dog keeps sniffing at that it never used to be interested in? Is your cat habitually drawn to a specific area of the house, where it sits and waits? Admittedly, cats are strange, and a lot of their behaviors are hard for us to understand. But if your cat seems to be suddenly fascinated by an area of the house that never interested it before, such as underneath the dishwasher or behind the fridge, there’s a good chance it hears a mouse back there.

Problem with Rats Instead?

Check out my story on RATS here: https://medium.com/@crosfieldd/sixteen-facts-about-rats-578684383c37