How Rodents Break Into Peoria Homes
Are you finding signs of mice or rats living inside your Peoria home? Are scratching and bumping sounds emanating from the walls of your bedroom as you are about to go to sleep? Do you smell the strong scent of urine when you go up into your attic? Are you finding tiny droppings in the backs of kitchen drawers? These are all common signs of a rodent infestation! It’s very important to recognize these signs as rodents can be very quiet and hard to detect when they get into a home. When they remain undetected, they can spread illness and introduce parasites into your home, as well as damage your property. The damages they cause can be done to the inside or outside of your home. Today, we're going to look at the damages they create on the outside of our homes and how these damages can grant them entry inside.
The doors of our Peoria homes are notorious entry points for invading rodents. They don't open your doors and come right in. Instead, they’ll chew their way in. The damages that rodents cause are usually found on the bottom of doors.
When rodents explore your perimeter and sense heat escaping from a small gap in the weather stripping of one of your doors, this can inspire that rodent to chew on that weather stripping and create an opening large enough to squeeze through. Most rats can fit through a hole the size of a quarter while mice can squeeze through a hole the size of a dime! So, if there are any gaps in your weather stripping, they should be addressed quickly, no matter how small.
Mice and rats will also chew on door frames. If you find a hole in the corner of an exterior door frame, you probably have rodents to thank. These damages should be fixed as quickly as possible. However, if you don't have the budget to repair these damages immediately you can fill those holes in using caulk. Sealing the holes created by rodents will help keep a wide range of pests out of your home, not just mice and rats.
Windows are another popular entry point utilized by rodents, especially foundation and first-story windows. Rodents often chew their way in through window frames in the same way they chew through door frames, typically targeting the lower corners. They will also chew through screens and nibble on the interior portion of window frames in order to gain access to the voids beyond.
Generally, Peoria homes have many voids in them. There are voids in walls, ceilings, floors, window and door frames, rooflines, and more. Once a rodent chews its way inside, it will use these voids to travel throughout the house. That is the reason you may hear them bumping and scraping around within your bedroom walls at night.
If rodents find a room that has food in it such as a kitchen, pantry, or other food storage area, they will often chew a hole through baseboards, sheetrock, and other building materials to create a quick access route to that food source. That is why Peoria homeowners may find holes under cabinets in the kitchen or behind boxes in their food storage room when dealing with a rodent infestation.
There are also some rodents that invade Peoria homes through higher areas. Roof rats are usually the culprits as they are excellent climbers. If there is a tree branch on your property that passes over your roof or is located near your roof, rodents will have an easy line of access to your vulnerable roofline. Once they find their way onto your roof, all that is standing between those rats and the voids of your Peoria home may be a flimsy piece of aluminum, plastic, or rubber that can be easily chewed through. The three most common locations that roof rats target are aluminum or plastic soffits, rubber gaskets around exhaust pipes, and softened roofing materials above where the roof meets the gutters.
Squirrels are another type of rodent that can chew on those high locations and gain entrance to your Peoria home. Fortunately, squirrels are usually content to stay in attic spaces and won't explore the rest of your Peoria home. But this is where the good news ends as there are many problems squirrels can present when they get into your attic spaces.
Rodent Control
If you're seeing these warning signs of rodent problems on the outside of your Peoria home, reach out to us and schedule a free, no-obligation Peoria home pest inspection. We'll help you figure out how serious your problem is and guide you toward a solution with a pest control plan!
