How Can You Tell If There Are Mice in Your Attic?

If you have mice living in your home, you’ll start to notice that some things seem amiss. While mice can be fairly hard to detect, since they avoid humans as much as possible, there are still certain undeniable signs that you have an unwelcome visitor within the walls of your attic. 

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Have you noticed strange noises, strange smells, or strange debris left scattered along the floors of your attic or kitchen? All of these are clear indications that you might have a furry visitor. If you fear that you might have mice in your attic, here are some of the surefire signs that you need to be watching out for.

Unusual Sounds

The sounds that mice make to communicate are quite strange. They include high-pitched squeaking noises that vary in pitch and volume depending on what exactly they are trying to communicate with their cohorts. 

Mice are nocturnal, meaning that you’re more likely to hear these high-pitched squeaking noises at nighttime. They also tend to follow the same paths through your attic and congregate in the same areas. Listen carefully. Do the sounds seem random or somewhat organized? 

High-pitched squeaking noises aren’t the only things you might hear if you have mice in your attic. While traversing the pathways they’ve made through your attic, you’re also likely to hear the sound of them scurrying from place to place. This is actually the sound of their nails clicking on the floor. They also do a lot of chewing. Fun fact: mice teeth never stop growing, so mice are constantly chewing on things in order to keep them filed down. 

If you’ve heard any of these sounds, you likely have mice and you need to take action.

Unpleasant Odours

While we don’t typically see the mice that are living in our home, we can definitely smell them. After mice move in, they leave behind a pungent odour that will quickly permeate your attic (and then your house). Even if the mice infestation is relatively new, the smells within your home will accumulate rather quickly.

Mice tend to designate specific spots for waste, meaning that you might notice that the pungent odour is especially concentrated in one specific area of your attic. This, alongside the smell more generally, is a definite sign that there’s a problem.

Droppings

This one kind of goes hand-in-hand with the last one; if you’re smelling something unpleasant lingering in your home, it’s only a matter of time before you find physical traces of the waste that is causing such a smell to permeate your attic.

It’s important to know that mice can leave a lot of waste, meaning you will find droppings scattered throughout your attic even if they haven’t been occupying the space for long. Their droppings will look like small brown pellets. As mentioned earlier, you’re likely to find higher concentrations of them in certain areas, but that doesn’t mean they won’t show up in other places as well.

Another very important thing to remember is that you should never come into physical contact with mice droppings (or mice, for that matter). Mice droppings are capable of transmitting numerous diseases, including Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS). It’s not worth the risk, particular considering the dangerous deer mice epidemic.

What Should You Do Next

If any of these signs sound familiar to you, it’s time to take the next step and address the problem immediately. If you believe that you have mice in your attic, you need to contact wildlife removal services.

Mice breed very quickly; letting the problem fester for even a period as short as a few weeks can result in the mice population within your attic doubling. The more mice there are living in your attic, the higher the risk of contamination and damage to your property. Dealing with the issue immediately is your best way to prevent it from getting out of hand.

Do you need wildlife removal services? Request a quote today!