This time of year, as the weather gets cooler, the mice are looking for a place to live. These mice are coming into people's houses all the time. One mouse can have 49 babies a year, and they can start reproducing when they are just 4 weeks old.
There are six main ways to keep mice from creating a home in your basement.
- Keep food in glass or metal containers. Don't keep your food in boxes, plastic or bags of any type. Don't put food in plastic bags or plastic containers because the mice can gnaw through those. Also, don't forget about pet food. Keep pet food in glass or metal containers too. You want to feed your pets, not the mice.
- Keep your trash can lids on, covered and tight. Not just the ones in your garage, keep your kitchen trash covered tightly as well.
- Get a cat. Mice and rats are afraid of them.
- Hire an exterminator or put traps around.
- Peppermint oil. Put it on a cotton ball and place them around your home. Mice don't like the smell
- Probably the most important thing you can do to keep mice and rats out of your basement is to seal the places where they are coming in so they can't get in anymore.
The main entry points where mice come in is through cracks in foundation walls. They only need about 1/4" to get into your house. Another place mice come in is through pipe penetrations. Those are your electrical conduits, water pipes, sewer pipes that come through a foundation wall or floor. Another way to keep mice out of the house is to seal up around the sewer pipe in the floor. There is a clean out in there that is not cemented and they can come up through that space and burrow around in those areas.
First do a survey of your basement and look for cracks and holes. Get some steel wool and put it in the cracks. Then re-mortar, and they won't be able to get in. Another benefit of fixing cracks and holes in basement walls and floors is that you will also stop drafts and water from getting into your home as well.
For more information, contact A1 Foundation Crack Repair.