Mouse control in Almere: recognising the signs
You will rarely see mice during the day, as they are mostly active in the evening and at night. Their traces are easy to spot once you know where to look: along skirting boards, behind the fridge, in the meter cupboard and in the loft.
- droppings a few millimetres long, dark and roughly the size of a grain of rice
- gnaw marks on food packaging, cables, insulation or pipes
- dark, greasy smears along regular runs
- scratching and rustling in the ceiling, cavity or crawl space when the house is quiet
- a sharp, musty smell of urine in cupboards
- shredded paper or insulation used as nesting material
How mice get into your home
A mouse needs a gap of only about 6 mm, roughly the width of a pencil. In autumn, when it turns colder and wetter outside, house mice and wood mice move indoors in search of warmth and food. In many homes the crawl space is their front door. They get under the floor through a damaged air vent or an open weep vent, then follow pipe ducts upwards into the meter cupboard, behind the kitchen units or into the cavity wall.
Other ways in include gaps under a garage or back door, holes around the washing machine waste pipe and openings where cables enter the wall. As long as those routes stay open, new mice will replace every one you catch.
Our approach, step by step
We start with detective work. In the crawl space, the meter cupboard and the loft we look for droppings, runs and gnaw marks, and we walk around the outside of the house checking for openings. That tells us where the mice are living and how they get in.
Next we seal the entry points with materials a mouse cannot chew through, such as fine stainless-steel mesh, metal vent covers or mortar. At the same time we deal with the mice already inside, using traps or bait in sealed bait boxes; professional rodenticides may only be used by a certified pest controller. On a follow-up visit we check for remaining activity and remove everything again. Cause first, control second: that principle runs through all our pest control in Almere.
What you can do yourself, and what to avoid
You can make life a lot harder for mice. Keep cereals, biscuits and pet food in sealed containers, sweep up crumbs under the kitchen units and do not leave a rubbish bag in the utility room overnight. Clear out the shed as well: cardboard boxes and old cushions make ideal nesting material.
Avoid putting down loose poison. Children and pets can reach it, and a poisoned mouse often dies somewhere inaccessible, such as inside a cavity wall, leaving a bad smell. Not sure it is mice at all? Rats leave droppings of one to two centimetres and often burrow in the garden; in that case, read our page on rat control.
Keeping mice out after treatment
A mouse-proof house only stays that way if you check it now and then. Every autumn, inspect the crawl-space vents and replace damaged ones with covers that have fine mesh. After building work or a new connection, for example for a heat pump, charging point or fibre broadband, check for gaps around the new pipes and cables.
Keep the garden tidy too: dense planting against the walls, open compost heaps and birdseed on the ground all draw mice towards your home. Use a bird table or a hanging feeder instead. And if fresh droppings appear, do not wait until spring; the sooner you act, the smaller the problem.
