The Dangers of Rodents

How Dangerous Are Rodents?

Rodents are dangerous in two key ways:

1. They can threaten the structural integrity of your home by scratching and gnawing.
2. They can carry and spread diseases.

Diseases are spread through urine, feces, and saliva (yuck), and they can also carry bacteria that can cause food poisoning, and can introduce parasites like fleas, mites, and ticks to your house. According to the CDC, they can directly transmit the following diseases:

• Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome
• Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome
• Lassa Fever
• Leptospirosis
• Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM)
• Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever
• Plague
• Rat-Bite Fever
• Salmonellosis
• South American Arenaviruses (Argentine hemorrhagic fever, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Sabiá-associated hemorrhagic fever, Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever)
• Tularemia

Mice and rats also cause serious home damage. According to PestWorld, rodents are responsible for 20 percent to 25 percent of all fires of unknown causes because of their propensity for chewing electrical wiring and gas lines.

Rodent Lifespans

Give rodents warmth and access to food, and they can live for years. More specifically:

• Mice can live around two years
• Rats can live over two years

Why does this matter? Naturally, this means if you don’t take care of your rodent problem, it could carry on for 2+ years with the exact same rodents. But even more importantly, withholding treatment can give female rodents the opportunity to reproduce many, many times. Here’s exactly how big the problem can get, by the numbers:

• Mice can get pregnant 5-10 times a year and have an average of 6-8 mouse babies per litter which equals up to 80 baby mice per female mouse a year.
• Rats can get pregnant up to 7 times a year with 5-12 rat babies a litter, which equals up to 84 baby rats per female rat each year.

If that sounds like a lot, it is – but it’s not even the worst of it. When rodents live inside a home, they will live in larger groups than normal – after all, a comfortable place for rodents is going to be prime real estate for lots of rodents. What this means is that you can have a whole group of rodents in your home, with each female birthing 80+ baby rodents each year. Doing some simple math based on those numbers, it’s not hard to understand how a rodent problem can go from mild to major pretty quickly.

Preventing Rodents

So how can you prevent rodents? There are a few important things that you can do:

• Seal holes inside and outside the home to keep rodents out. This may be as simple as plugging small holes with steel wool, or patching holes in inside or outside walls
• Remove potential rodent nesting sites from your property, including leaf piles and deep mulch
• Clean up food and water sources in and near your house.
• Keep kitchen garbage in containers with tight-fitting lids.
• Turn compost piles to cover newly added food scraps.
• Stop feeding outdoor birds while you are controlling an infestation, or feed only huskless items that leave less residue that can be food for rodents.

Getting Rid of Rodents the Dixon Pest Services Way

With all the facts laid out, we can see that there’s always a chance that a rodent problem can become more than a nuisance. It’s also clear that rodents are crafty: even if you take all the DIY measures outlined in this article, there’s still a chance that rodents will get in because of even the tiniest oversight.

So what can you do about it? If you are in Thomasville, contact Dixon Pest Services! Our rodent control services will get rid of rodents and make sure they stay gone, keep your home and loved ones safe, and our preventive pest plan can keep rodents from ever getting indoors in the first place.

Want peace of mind protection for your home? Contact us today, and we will schedule a rodent control appointment as soon as it’s convenient for you.