The human relationship with rodents goes back millennia. They’ve been with us, learning how to thrive in our homes and eat our food and trash, all the while accumulating bacteria and disease in the underbellies of our cities.
There are many types of rodents common to our communities, and both domestic rodents and backyard rodents are dangerous to your health. For more on the types of rodents in Columbia, the signs of their presence, the diseases they carry, and the safest way to get rid of rodents, keep reading.
Signs Of Rodents In Your Columbia Home
To learn what signs to expect in your house, it may be important to know what kinds of rodents can come indoors. Some of the most common house rodents in Columbia are the house mouse, the deer mouse, and the roof rat. A common species among backyard rodents is the rock squirrel.
Each of these rodents carries different risks and may show different signs. For example, a rock squirrel may devastate a garden, sprinkler system, or yard, while a roof rat may gnaw holes in brick to make their passage easier. Out of this selection of rodents, you can expect signs like these:
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Droppings, especially around opened food packages
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Shredded paper, insulation, fabric, or grass as nesting material
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Food packages that have been chewed through
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Gnawing or holes in walls, wood, or floors
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Greasy rub marks along pathways or around holes
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Scratching sounds in walls or ceiling
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A musty or foul odor
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Seeing a mouse, rat, or many more squirrels than usual
Rodents are persistent chewers that can make a way there is no way, causing damage to your property, putting your home at risk of electrical issues and fire, and jeopardizing your health.
Can Rodents In Your Columbia House Make You Sick?
Domestic rodents, including the ones that are mostly outdoor nuisances, carry a wide selection of dangerous diseases, including a few deadly ones. While the house mouse can transmit food-borne diseases like salmonella and lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM), the deer mouse is a carrier of the deadly hantavirus, which has a 38% mortality rate and manifests as a pulmonary illness similar to pneumonia. Hantavirus is spread through dried urine that becomes airborne, and so it is especially dangerous to enter into an infested area to try to clean or exterminate by yourself.
Roof rats carry a great number of dangerous diseases, but they can also bring plague-carrying fleas and other parasites into your home. Some of the diseases roof rats can transmit include jaundice, typhus, rat-bite fever, trichinosis, as well as food-borne diseases like salmonella.
While less likely to contact humans, rock squirrels may scale rock walls to make their residence near or inside human habitations. They are carriers of tularemia and plague.
All of these rodents are significant health and safety threats, whether through the destruction they can cause to make their burrows, the diseases they carry, the ticks and fleas they bring indoors, or through their ability to worsen allergies and asthma. It’s well worth the time and effort to protect your home against rodents.
The Safest Way To Get Rid Of Rodents In Your Columbia Home
House rodents are not easily dealt with alone. They are smart and reproduce quickly, making at-home traps a means of keeping the population down but not capable of getting rid of the entire infestation. Not only can DIY pest control waste your time and money, but it can put you at serious risk of contracting diseases from the corpses of the animals or from coming into contact with the poisons used in over-the-counter methods.
Over-the-counter methods can also risk making your pest problem worse as sticky traps make beautiful charcuterie boards for mice. Poisons aren’t immediately effective, making it possible that the rodents will hide and die somewhere out of reach and attract other dangerous scavengers.
The safest way to get rid of rodents is with professional pest control services from Go-Forth Pest Control. With our services, you will get a thorough inspection and treatment, but we wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we didn’t help you fortify your home against pests with home maintenance and sanitization tips.
With Go-Forth Pest Control, you can have a pest-free home with no risk to you or your family members, and you can learn what puts your home at risk of pests during every season. For year-round pest control and support for making your home pest-free, call Go-Forth Pest control today and get your free, no-obligation quote.
