Rodents: Unwanted Guests

Fall in the South is rodent season. As the temperatures fall, rats, mice, and other small mammals will want to seek refuge for the colder months. Leave it to us to make sure that they don’t choose your home for the winter.

The secret to keeping rodents away from your home is understanding what they are looking for and making sure they don’t have access to it. Like any species looking to survive the cold weather, they are looking for food, water, and shelter.

When rodents are hungry, they will look to the buffet of your home where you keep your unsecured pet food, your composted vegetables, open trash containers, bags of birdseed, gardens, and wild animal feeders. Keep these areas clean and secure to ensure the unwanted guests look elsewhere for their next meal.

Hydration is vital for all life, and rodents will seek theirs in places like birdbaths, clogged gutters, ponds, fountains, and swimming pools. Keep things dry and secure and they will need to seek a different watering hole.

Staying warm and dry and finding a place to breed in the warmer months is what these critters crave. Seal up holes that allow access to your home’s crawlspace. Clean up debris and dense vegetation around your home. Keep wood piles stacked neatly.

Knowing what these pests are looking for and ensuring that they can’t get to any of them is the key to keeping the only unwanted guests in your home this holiday season the ones that you are related to.