Having house guests for the holiday season can be an enjoyable tradition. Having mice as house guests? Not so much.In El Paso County, the mouse guest problem gets worse in the fall, when nighttime temperatures drop and mice make a beeline for houses in anticipation of cozy winter accommodations and fine dining.Mice can get into a house through almost anywhere, said John Bonneville, owner of High Plains Rodent Control in Falcon. The El Paso County Department of Health and Environment recommends filling all structural holes larger than one-quarter inch with steel wool or cement.As a first defense against mouse guests, Bonneville recommends removing all the stuff that tends to accumulate outside: trash, piles of lumber and other building materials.”I can flip over a sheet of 4 by 8 plywood laying on the ground and show you all the mice nests,” he said. “Things like that create a place for them to live where a predator, like a fox or a cat, can’t get them. Don’t let your garage pile up with lots of hiding places, either.”Inside the house, a cat is the best defense. Mice seem to sense the presence of a cat and naturally shy away, Bonneville said.Seeing mouse droppings is the most common way of discovering mouse guests. The droppings are typically black and a little smaller than a grain of rice.”If you see droppings, take action right away. Don’t wait to see more,” he said. “For every mouse you see signs of, there are a lot more you don’t see.”They breed fast, too, having litters as often as every three weeks.Once in a house, mice build nests in clothing and linens and quickly locate food, gnawing through plastic packaging to sample everything from dried beans to chocolate.According to the Web site for the Illinois Department of Public Health, mice can jump 13 inches vertically and can easily climb walls and cabinets.Home improvement stores sell a variety of products for dealing with mice, including poison bait, snap traps, glue boards and battery-operated electronic “zappers.””A lot of money is wasted when these things aren’t used properly or are too cheap to do the job,” Bonneville said.He said he doesn’t recommend poison bait, which usually kills by causing internal hemorrhaging. Poison is not a good idea for people with children and pets, and the mouse can die anywhere in the house and might not be found for months. A family pet could be poisoned, too, by finding and eating the dead mouse.Glue boards also have their drawbacks.Edward Wallace tried glue boards and found they just got dusty over time, losing their stickiness.If a glue board works and a mouse sticks to it but isn’t discovered, it dies by dehydration or starvation. If a mouse sticks to the glue board and is found alive, people risk getting bit trying to dispose of it, Bonneville said.Wallace also bought a $20 electronic zapper from a local home improvement store and loaded it with peanut butter as bait. “The mouse went in, ate the peanut butter and left,” he said.When the same thing happened after changing the batteries, Wallace figured the $20 zapper wasn’t powerful enough to kill the mouse. So, he bought a $50 electronic zapper designed to kill rats as well as mice. He said the $50 model works.Bonneville prefers trapping mice with a snap trap.”With a proper mousetrap, one that flips, they don’t know what hit them, so they’re not going to be struggling or suffering,” he said.According to the Web site for the Centers for Disease Control, people living in homes invaded by mice are at risk for getting Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, rat-bite fever, leptospirosis and lymphocytic choriomeningitus, a virus that poses particular risks for pregnant women.As stated on the Air Force Space Command Web site, the last recorded case of Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in El Paso County was in 2006 when a military retiree camped in the U.S. Air Force Academy campground, contracted the disease and died.The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Web site confirmed 32 cases of Hantavirus in Colorado since 2005.The county health department brochure describes deer mice with brown fur on their backs and white fur on their bellies. They are commonly found in rural areas of El Paso County and are more likely to carry Hantavirus than city mice.Hantavirus is spread through urine, droppings and saliva. Humans contract the disease when fragments become airborne and are inhaled.The incubation period averages two to three weeks, with early symptoms including fever, headache, muscle pain, severe abdominal, joint and lower back pain, nausea and vomiting.There is no cure for Hantavirus, so left untreated or caught too late; Hantavirus can result in death from respiratory failure.The county recommends avoiding all contact with rodents. When cleaning a rodent-infested building, open all doors and windows for at least 30 minutes before cleaning, or use an N95-rated respirator.Spray all droppings and nest materials with a bleach solution of 1.5 cups of bleach to a gallon of water, and let it soak for 10 minutes.Use a mop, sponge or wet vacuum to clean. Do not use a broom or a conventional vacuum cleaner that could spread contaminated material into the air.
