Homeowners are inclined to believe their house is totally free of issues until a mouse or rat scurries across the kitchen floor. The fact is that rodents are very secretive and nocturnal, making it easy for them to hide in dark, quiet spaces such as wall voids, crawl spaces, and attics. Long before you see a person you didn’t know, you get physical clues to alert you to their presence.
It is important to note these signs of infestation so that you can get professional rodent control Tampa services before it becomes a significant health and structural threat.
Unusual Odor and/or Unexplained Structural Damage
Rodents have unique biological urges – to chew and to mark their territory with scent. Noticing physical changes in your home can be a clue to their presence in the early stages.
Fresh Gnaw Marks on Household Materials
The front teeth of a rodent grow continually throughout life. Rats and mice will require hard surfaces for chewing to maintain their size. Often, the property owner will find small, irregular teeth marks along the wooden baseboards, plastic storage bins, drywall corners, or even heavy-duty rubber utility pipes. Any fresh, light-colored shavings around your cabinets or behind large appliances are a sure sign of active chewing.
Sudden and Persistent Odors in Enclosed Spaces
A rodent infestation in a home creates a unique odor that is very unpleasant. This musk smell is the strong, stale ammonia smell that comes from the buildup of urine and droppings. Rarely does the odor occur in well-ventilated rooms, including open pantries, under-sink cabinets, utility closets, and nooklike corners of the attic. Your household pets will start snorting at a certain part of a wall or floorboard before you notice it.
Droppings, Smudges, and Nesting Material Monitoring
Rodents establish highly repetitive routes between their burrows and feeding grounds, thus creating physical trails along walls and entry points.
How to Recognize Fecal Pellets in Common Pathways
Finding special droppings is one of the most reliable signs of a pest problem. Young droppings are dark, soft, and damp, while old droppings are dry, grey, and crumbly. The droppings left by mice and rats are quite small, about 1/4 inch from a mouse and 1/2 inch from a rat, with pointed ends. The most common places to find these pellets are kitchen counter back splashes, corners of pantries, or next to the points of entry for utilities.
Dark Grease Smudges and Runways
Rats and mice don’t have great eyesight and move around by holding their whiskers and fur against long vertical surfaces such as walls and cabinets. As the years go by, the natural oils, dirt, and grease on their fur rub off on these surfaces and cause dark, dark grey smudge marks around tight entrances and baseboards. Once you’ve found a dark line on your walls or down your floor joists, then you’ve found the path of travel.
Audible Sounds and Altered Pet Behavior at Night
When a house is silent at night, the hidden spaces in the building behind the walls and above the ceiling can magnify the activity of these pests.
Scratching and Scurrying Behind Drywall
Rodents are nocturnal and very active at night, looking for food. Homeowners have said that they hear clear, quiet scratching, clawing, or light thumping noises in attic areas, drop ceilings or wall cavities. These noises are often near the bedrooms or kitchens, where the pests travel their network of structural runways.
Nests Made from Shredded Household Goods
Rodents gather soft, fibrous objects around the house so that they can raise their young. Piles of shredded insulation, chewed cardboard boxes, torn paper towels or collected fabric in dark corners are signs of nesting.
Keep Your Property Safe from Unsuspecting Suspects
If you overlook these clues, pests can compromise important electrical wiring, destroy costly attic insulation, and pose potential health hazards to your family. Basic retail traps are unlikely to solve a deep structural pest problem.
Keep your home safe and secure by calling a rodent exterminator Tampa from Critter Control for a thorough examination, elimination of existing infestations, cleanup of damage done by rodents, and professional sealing of openings so that they will not be able to return.
