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This is Roger Tinker, owner and manager of All Star Pest Control in Columbus, Georgia. What I’d like to talk about today is rodent proofing. Now, I’m going to include many things. But this will not be all inclusive. But it will be enough to give you an idea of what is involved in rodent proofing. First thing that we need to know is which rodent is it? Is it a mouse? Is it a Norway rat, or roof rat, and also squirrels or rodents. I’m gonna start with mice first. Mice are usually in the house. Now there are female mice that come in from the outside. But mice only have about a 15 to at the most 25 foot range that they travel. To keep my mice out from the house, it would be necessary to caulk around the pipes, make sure the vents are fitted tight against the house, if there’s no holes, they can get into areas where the crawl doors are and so forth. You just basically look around the bottom of the house and see where something very small could get in. No way Rach the next subject here. Norway rats live in the ground they bury in the ground. And so they are at the ground level. And again, the things you’re looking for with Norway rat a lot of the things that you’re looking for with a house mouse. Except that rats will chew holes in anything that’s word, they can know off the corner of a crawl door, they can know off the corner of the siding in the house. And so far, so it would take a thorough inspection to find where they are at. Now, roof racks are the ones that’s going to pose the most problem because they crawl, they can be in trees and jump from the lands over to the house. They can walk power lines to get in gable vents. Or one of the ways that they come in other words, you would have to go up in the attic and put screen on the inside of the event and make sure that spring stays there because they will push through it. They too will knock on wood and corners and stuff to get in. They get in a lot from breaks in the roof. You have pipe vamps that need to be covered with hardware cloth, because they’ll actually go into the vent and come out to the toilet. And that does happen. You have all kinds of events that’s on top of the house. There’s a top of a Viet COVID China hat that fits on there but they have unless you got hardware cloth around that they’ll go into the channel there. Understand now that they are making the newer channel events with hardware cloth layer radio just for that purpose. Another thing that can be done is that you trim branches far away from the house as possible. Now this also is a way that squirrels get in is jumping from the trees to the house. So the further away that the branches are cut, the better chance you have of not having squirrels get in the house. And of course with all rodents that are on the ground, particularly you want to keep your grass cut and keep clutter and other things from around the house. Because if you’ve got clutter and piles of wood and stuff, you’re making places for the Norway rat to burrow. Now one of the things if you have tried and tried and have not found where the rodents are getting in. What I have done in the past when I was a little bit younger, was wait too late at night when it’s dark and go up in the attic with a good floodlight, and then take have somebody on the outside of the house. And you take that floodlight and go around the edges of the house everywhere where the construction meets and shine that light and the person on the outside if they detect light coming through, you found where that road is getting in and you know where you need to repair. As again, I said this is not all inclusive, but it does give you some idea of what’s involved in rodent proof and this is Roger Tinker, and if I can ever help you, be sure and give me a call
