6 Problems House Mouse Can Bring To Your Home

Would you believe that something as small and tiny as a house mouse can actually cause big and serious damage to your Dublin home?

House mouse gnaws everything

Yes, you’ve read that right. As shocking as it may be, one little mouse can even be deadly. Mice in the house cannot help but chew everything and anything they can get their mouth on.  Gas lines and wires are just two important things these rodents can chew on.

Experts also believe that a certain percentage of property fires with unknown causes are probably the result of rodent infestation. This means that it only takes a single mouse to burn your Dublin home ground.

If it is not a good enough reason for you to deal with a house mouse infestation at the soonest time possible, here are other ways that mice can wreak havoc in your home:

Ticks

Lyme disease (carried by ticks) often creates serious acute symptoms that may even lead to some long term chronic symptoms that may affect a person’s health for the rest of his or her life.

Now, you probably don’t need to be told how serious it can be if there are ticks in your house. However, you might not realize the connection between ticks and mice and more specifically, Lyme disease and mice. 

It has been discovered that about 90% of house mice likely carry Borrelia burgdorferi. It is a type of spirochete bacteria responsible for the development of Lyme disease in the human body. 

Rodents like mice are also closely connected to the spread of Lyme disease. This is why scientists are able to estimate the number of cases of Lyme disease in a given year through checking of populations of mice in the area for the previous year.

To make things even worse, the body of even just one house mouse could have a hundred seed ticks. Scary, isn’t it?

Fleas and Other Types of Parasites

Nothing can beat the house mouse when it comes to bringing all sorts of parasites to your home. Adult mice could easily slip through gaps with the size as small as a dime. The moment it finds its way inside, an adult mouse will go on an exploration of the different floors of your house.

Ticks are not just your only concern as far as diseases related to parasites are concerned. There are plenty of house mouse parasites that can make you and your whole family sick, particularly if they have fed on the mouse that was responsible for bringing them inside your house.  

Property and Structural Damage

What makes mice really dangerous once they start infesting your home lies in their tendency to chew and chew.

These rodents chew in order to maintain the length of their teeth and this makes them chew through drywall, plastic pipes, rubber, aluminium, insulation, and as mentioned earlier, even gas lines and wires.

Openings that result from chewing must be properly sealed up although these don’t really pose any imminent threats to you or your family. But, once these rodents end up chewing through wires, it increases the risk of starting fires. If a leak occurs in gas lines, it makes it more likely for carbon monoxide poisoning to occur.

Aside from these more pressing concerns, there are still plenty of ways for mice to damage your Dublin home and some are equally alarming. Here is a quick overview of the threats that mice can bring about in your home:

• Mice in the attic can ruin the furniture pieces that you have stored there. The moment mice get inside your house, the first thing they do is look for their nesting sites. Several nesting sites that can be attractive to their eyes include the soft interior of your upholstered furniture.
• Mice can chew holes just to get inside and make their nest there. This nest is where they will defecate, urinate, and produce their offspring. The mice’s offspring may also make their home in that same furniture piece that can only further increase the damage. 
• Once mice chew on holes to get inside your house, these can create access points for other types of pests such as destructive silverfish and dirty cockroaches. These rodents can also form starter holes for the dreaded carpenter ants. Secondary pests could be as bad as or even worse than mice depending on the specific circumstances. 
• If mice chew holes to find their way inside your home, these can act as pathways for moisture and rainwater. It can result in wood rot that can lead to termite infestation in your house. This can also cause mould issues that could have some wide-reaching and serious medical implications for you and your whole family.
• Mice can rip up insulation, wallpaper, clothing, and many other items as they accumulate the materials they need for making their nests. It wouldn’t be easy for you to know or predict where they will strike or what they will damage along the way.

Diseases

For a mouse to mark its territory, it needs to defecate and urinate in the specific area it wants to maintain. Similarly, because of their regular feeding schedule of 15 up to 20 times daily, mice are also known to make their nests close to their source of food. It puts all your food in a position that is prone to contracting a disease from the mice.

A few of the common health issues brought about by mice include the following:

• Hantavirus

Most commonly found in deer mice, the virus can be found in their faeces and urine. Once the urine dries, dust is formed and this can be harmful to human health. Even the urine and faeces themselves are bad for humans.  

Hantavirus disease starts with chills and fever. However, this can turn to a more serious condition if it doesn’t get treated properly right away. The condition can lead to shortness of breath that can eventually affect the kidneys and worse, even cause death.

• LCMV or  Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis

Serious neurological issues like inflammation of the brain and the meninges can occur if a person gets exposed to fresh urine, droppings, saliva, or other types of nesting materials where the mice have been.  

• Salmonella

Mice scurry around and they can run through your pantry, cabinets and kitchen counters while carrying bacteria and dirt with them. Food in cabinets or left out in the open are prone to mice bites and touches that can result in salmonella. Salmonella is often linked with symptoms similar to those of food poisoning.   

Food Contamination