It is during the winter that mice are more likely to enter your home, but these rodents will actually come inside at any time, for a number of reasons. As well as constantly being on the hunt for food, these creatures also require safety and shelter from predators and the elements, as well as warmth. Mice don't actually need that much in order to survive. they don't even really need a steady source of freshwater, getting most of their water intake from the food they eat.
There is bound to be a time in your life that you experience a rodent infestation, or a property in which you have your suspicions a rodent problem might be present. Here are the top five signs that you'll encounter:
1 - Physical sightings
You might actually see a mouse or two if you're lucky. These critters are mostly nocturnal, but it is not unusual to see them out and about during the day, too. There are actually a lot of things that would encourage a usually-nocturnal animal to become more active during the daylight hours, food, mating, and disturbances being just a few.
2 - Crumbs, Here and There
Mice are attracted to the floor in your kitchen because there are crumbs there that they can eat. Once they're in your kitchen, though, there's a plethora of other food items to explore and enjoy. They'll start to leave the crumbs on the floor and chew through cereal boxes in the cupboard, instead. They might even create another, newer nest closer to that source of food, if they can manage it.
Mice don't just eat the food they steal from your kitchen, however; they'll also store it for later consumption. This is very much the same as the average person doing their weekly or monthly grocery shop, filling up the cupboards. Mice tend to do it in more of a "panic-buying" manner, though. They'll keep grabbing as much of that food as they can, stashing it in little places close to where they have nested. This ensures that any mouse pups have the opportunity to grab food quickly, and also makes life easier for the adult mice in the group.
You will probably see crumbs in places that you wouldn't usually see crumbs, such as, in rooms in the house that you and your other household members don't usually eat. You may also find little food-stashes, too, especially once the food starts to turn bad and smell bad.
3 - When Things Scratch in the Night
Even the smallest of mice can be heard in the dead of night, when everyone and everything else is asleep or turned off. Being nocturnal in nature, these creatures tend to be more active at night, and when you combine that with the fact that everything else in the building is usually pretty silent, the mice have a playground to explore.
If you stay awake a little longer than usual, until after the rest of the family has gone to sleep, and start listening for the sounds of something that shouldn't be in your home, chances are you'll hear them. If you have a rodent infestation, you'll hear them. Tiny they might be, but mice can still be pretty noisy when they want to be.
4 - Poop, Poop, Everywhere
It's not a pleasant thought, but mice relieve themselves multiple times a day, sometimes running into a hundred times a day or more. They'll urinate and defecate as they run around the property, leaving tiny little 1cm-long pellets (at most) in their wake.
This poop is annoying, unsightly, and unsanitary, but it does lead you in the right direction of mouse activity, which is where you'll want to center the majority of your mouse-trapping efforts. There's no point in setting down traps or similar in places that those rodents would normally hang out. They just won't find them and, in turn, will render the traps useless.
5 - Gnawing
Mice are renowned for chewing everything and anything in sight, although rats are just as much a common culprit. Mice will chew through anything, and if they can't eat it, they'll soon find a use for the mush they create. Cardboard can be chewed for some sustenance, with the remainder used to create a cosy nest. Mice will also chew through drywall, wallpaper, carpets, other soft furnishings, wood, plastic, some soft metals … Need we go on?
If you see signs of chewing, there's a pretty good chance that you have a rodent interloper in the building.
There are other signs that you should keep your eyes peeled for, such as smudge or grease marks caused by fur, tracks or pathways made by rodents constantly running to and fro in that particular area, weird behaviour coming from your pets, and a lot more besides.
If you see just ONE of these things, it is highly recommended that you seek urgent professional assistance. A single female mouse can reproduce more than one hundred young mice in just 12 months, and there's a 0% chance you have just one breeding female in the building. This is not a job that you'll want to get wrong.
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