Mice may look cute in a pet shop, but those that invade your home bring along with them lots of potential health problems and property damage. Rodents carry a lot of risks that can make them a serious pest. Not only do they have the potential to carry dangerous diseases, but they also destroy your home, and contaminate your food.
Let’s break down the destruction rodents cause and why they are such a concerning pest.
Health problems
Rodents carry a few diseases that humans can contract. Infection of these diseases can be transmitted through direct contact with the rodent, or contact with soil, food or water contaminated by an infected rodent. While infections are rare, it is important to remain vigilant and take steps to reduce the risk, and seek medical help if you experience any of the common symptoms of these diseases.
The diseases commonly spread from rodents include:
- Leptospirosis – Symptoms of this include fever, headache, sore muscles, chills, vomiting, and red eyes.
- Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection – Symptoms include influenza-like illness, headache, and meningism (neck stiffness and pain when looking at light).
- Rat bite fever – Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, rash, joint pains, vomiting, and headache.
- Gastrointestinal infections including, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis and cryptosporidiosis – Symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, abdominal pain, headache, vomiting, body aches and lethargy.
Property damage
Rodents love to leave a trail of destruction in their wake. They love to chew their way through anything to get to food, water and shelter. As well as this, they will break and collect things to build their nest. This can sometimes lead to serious property damage.
Common property damage caused by rodents includes:
- Chewed out wood, paper, clothes, books.
- Gnawed out spaces in upholstered furniture, car seats, and more, to create a hidden nest.
- Tunnelling into insulation to build a nest or gather material for their nest.
- Creating fire risks by chewing on insulation around wires.
- Rodents will also often build nests in appliances, chewing out wires. This can cause the appliance to short circuit, and even potentially catch fire.
- Any items that rodents can chew on, they will. This includes precious items like family photobooks, heirlooms, valuable paintings, and important documents.
- Chew through water pipes in search of water. This has been known to cause water damage to properties.
Any space hidden away and untouched is the perfect place for a rodent. They will turn these spaces into a home, while stealing materials from all across the house to build their nest.
Food contamination
Rodents love to eat anything. They will feed on any stored food, or pet foods. While they only eat about three grams of food a day, they will leave droppings in food, nibble on packaging, or leave partially eaten food behind. This then contaminates the food they touched making it inedible for people and pets.
A common target for rodents is food in cardboard or paper wrappings. These offer a double bonus, with easily accessible food and packaging they can use for their nest. Similarly, any napkins, paper towels, etc, also offer great nest materials for rodents.
In your gardens mice may also dig up your food plants, destroying them before they have the chance to be harvested. They will also burrow into other part of your property to get to food or to rest.
Conclusion
If your home has a rodent infestation, it is vital that it is dealt with quickly. As shown in this article, rodents can deal a lot of damage to your health, property, and food. The best way to deal with them is to reach out to pest control experts, like Pest Gone Pest Control. We know how to both remove rodents from your home and offer advice on filling in any holes they may have used to enter in the first place.
Reach out to us today for a quote.