How To Keep Rodents At Bay: Tips For Effective Pest Prevention For Yakima County Homes

Teenager, your parents probably put boundaries on your activities. You likely had a curfew, especially on a school night. There may have been a few occasions when your parents forbid you to go to an individual's home or a place of business because of a reputation. While you did not like the boundaries placed upon you, you now understand the wisdom behind the prohibitions.

Boundaries are good because they keep us from getting into trouble and keep harmful things away from us, like rodents. We need barriers around our house to protect us from these furry, filthy invaders because of the damage and disease they cause. How do you create these borders to keep rodents at bay? How can you stop a current rodent infestation? You have come to the right place if these questions plague you.

Prosite provides pest control in Yakima; we can help you protect your home from the ravages of rodents. We have an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and are National Pest Management Association members. Our company is one of only 3% Certified QualityPro pest control companies in the country. The Foundation for Professional Pest Management awards this certification to pest control companies that meet 16 standards that exceed local, state, and federal standards. These requirements include employee background checks, a drug-free workplace, and passing pest control and customer service training and certifications. You can trust Prosite to remove rodents from your home and keep them at bay in the future.

Signs Of Rodent Activity: How To Detect A Problem Early

Rodents are warm-blooded, furry animals that forage for food at night while you sleep. Although this brief description could describe the family pet, a rodent is an animal with constantly growing incisor teeth. Because the teeth continually grow, the rodent gnaws on available objects to keep them trim, which also sharpens them. They use these teeth to chew through roots, thin metals, wood, plastics, and glass.

Rodents can either be wildlife (e.g., beavers) or commensal. From a pest control treatment perspective, the commensal rodents are the ones that invade many Yakima County homes because they do not mind living around people. Rats and mice are commensal rodents.

You may surprise a rat or mouse when you move a couch or table and see it dart across the room, but if that hasn't happened, are there ways to determine their presence in your home? Yes! These are signs you have house rodents:

• Droppings
• Pathways
• Tracks
• Grease marks
• Stains
• Odor
• Damage
• Nests
• Food

Some things on this list may make sense without explanation, while others may leave you wondering what we mean, so let's unpack each item.

All living creatures produce waste, and rodents are no exception. A rat deposits about 25,000 rod-shaped, dark droppings throughout the year; Norway rats leave 3/4-inch long feces with blunt ends similar to an olive pit, while 1/2-inch long roof rat droppings have pointed ends. Mice produce about 18,000 droppings annually, or about 50 to 75 pellets per day per mouse. Since mice are smaller than rats, they leave smaller feces (3/16 to 1/4 inch) than rats. If you have rodents in your Yakima County home, you will find droppings behind appliances, furniture, cabinets, and around holes or corners.

All living creatures produce not only solid droppings but also liquid waste. Rodents sometimes enter Yakima County houses searching for water after a dry season. If they find the water source (e.g., leaking pipes, drains, or a pet water bowl) and food, they set up a nest in the home. Of course, what goes in must come out, so rats and mice urinate as they travel trails in the house and stain flooring and objects.

Rodent urine has a pungent odor. If you have a significant infestation in a confined area, you will notice a musty smell from urine deposited in those areas.

When rats or mice find a food or water source, they will create a path to and from their nest. Inside the house, these runways are along walls; outside, they consist of two-inch wide trails next to buildings and fences. You will find droppings and other items on our list along these pathways.

The oily fur of rodents attracts dirt and grime as they forage in sewers, drains, garbage, and other unsanitary areas. Poor eyesight and night-time foraging habits result in rodents bumping into objects throughout the house and leaving grease marks on their fur. You will find these spots along the pathways they create in your home.

Because rodents must keep their teeth trimmed by gnawing, they chew on any available object along the pathways. Rats will create two to three-inch holes in walls and floors to facilitate access to their nest and sources. Both rodent types chew on furniture, containers (paper, plastic, and glass), metals, wiring, and corners.

When rodents find food, water, and shelter in a house, they create nests to raise their young near the sources. Rats travel about 150 feet from their nests, and mice go about 50 feet. They build their homes out of insulation, paper, fabrics, and other materials in appliances, wall voids, and dark areas of closets, attics, basements, and crawl spaces.

Rats tend to stay at food source sites and eat the food, but the naturally curious mice will take foodstuffs back with them to the nest and often drop food items along the way. The presence of discarded food is another indication that rodents are in your house.

Prosite technicians know where to search for signs of a rodent infestation. Furthermore, our certified technicians can determine the rodent species infesting your home based on the indicators and their location within your house.

Rodent Dangers: Health Risks And Property Damage

Because rodents constantly chew on available objects and forage in filthy areas, they create physical problems for the home and occupants of the house. Aside from furniture, wall, and floor damage, rodents can cause significant damage, income loss, or even the loss of the house.

How can a rodent infestation cause you to lose your home or income? Rodents often construct nests inside wall voids and appliances where there is wiring and electronic equipment. Because they constantly gnaw, rodents chew in wiring and remove the protective coating. When moisture from the rodent's fur or other sources contacts exposed wires, short circuits result, which can result in expensive repair bills. If the exposed wires are electrical and touch each other, sparks may occur and begin a fire in the wall insulation, resulting in a house fire. Nowadays, many people work from home and rely on continuous internet access. If the rodents chew through these types of wires in the house, you cannot work and could lose income while waiting on the local service company for repairs.

Rodents not only cause physical damages rodents, but they harm the health of occupants. The areas where rodents forage are full of bacteria, viruses, parasitic worms, fleas, ticks, mites, and lice. As they eat in these places, disease-causing organisms stick to their fur, and other insects hitchhike onto their bodies. Furthermore, they ingest various pathogens from rotting plant and animal matter in these areas.

When they travel through a Yakima County house, they deposit infested urine, feces, and saliva onto and inside objects in the house. Also, pathogens are present in the grease marks they leave on the walls and items throughout the home. Leptospirosis, rat-bite fever, tularemia, salmonellosis, jaundice, cowpox virus, and trichinosis are a sampling of the various diseases rodents spread to humans. Furthermore, their hitchhiking buddies transmit other maladies to humans through their bites.

Prosite provides rodent control in Yakima County to protect the community from rodent diseases and destruction.

Rodent-Proof Your Home: Essential Steps To Keep Unwanted Guests Away

Rodents live around us but do not have to live in your house.

The following rodent prevention tips will create barriers for rodents around your home: 

• Remove rotting fruit and animal feces from the yard
• Cover trash containers and compost piles
• Provide drainage to ditches, low-lying areas, and gutters
• Trim tree branches and shrubs away from the structure
• Cover the attic and crawl space vents with wire mesh
• Place a spark arrester on the chimneys
• Seal gaps between incoming pipes and wires, foundation, and roofline cracks
• Install door sweeps

When a Prosite technician inspects your home for the various types of rodents, we can provide additional ideas.

Professional Pest Control: The Most Effective Rodent Control Solution

Because rodents are a significant problem in our corner of the country, Prosite offers rodent control near you. We will inspect your house to determine if there is a rodent infestation, the rodent species invading your home, entry points, attractants, and hot spots. After our investigation, we will provide you with a quote to remove the pests and additional options like our exclusion services.

Our rodent removal process involves mechanical traps, bait stations, and monitors. Because every situation is different, our trained technician will determine which tools to implement. To prevent a future invasion, we offer exclusion services to seal openings that rodents can use to enter your home. We also provide custom monitoring programs based on your situation.

Contact us today to learn about our residential and commercial pest control services in Yakima County.