Mouse control in Groningen: the tell-tale signs
House mice rarely show themselves, but they do leave traces. Knowing what to look for often tells you where they run and how long they have been around.
- Small dark droppings, about the size of a grain of rice, in cupboards, drawers and along skirting boards.
- Nibbled packets of biscuits, rice or birdseed.
- Scurrying and gnawing in the evening and at night, above the ceiling or inside a wall.
- Shredded paper, insulation or fabric in a hidden corner: a nest.
- A sharp, musty smell in a closed cupboard or the meter cupboard.
How mice get into your home
A mouse can squeeze through a gap of about 6 mm. Openings like that are more common than you would think: around pipes in the meter cupboard, at a broken air vent in the façade, under a back door that does not close properly or in open joints in the cavity wall. From the crawl space, mice climb up along pipes and end up behind the kitchen units or inside hollow walls.
More mice come indoors in autumn. It gets colder outside, food becomes scarce and gardens, verges and fields empty out. In blocks of flats, mice also travel between homes via service shafts, so the problem may well have started next door.
Our mouse control, step by step
Every visit starts with detective work: where are the droppings, where are the runs and where is the way in? Only once we know the route do we choose the approach. We seal gaps with steel wool, mesh or mortar, because mice chew through sealant and expanding foam with ease. We also set snap traps or bait in locked stations, placed where only mice can reach. Professional products may only be used by certified pest controllers.
After a while we come back to check whether anything is still feeding, and we remove the stations. Mice are often not the only thing we find in a home; read more about our wider pest control in Groningen.
Mouse or rat? The difference matters
A mouse is small, with big ears and droppings a few millimetres long. A brown rat is much larger, leaves droppings one to two centimetres long and often digs burrows in the garden or under paving. Rats also regularly come in through a broken sewer pipe. That calls for a different approach: more investigation outside, around drains and the sewer connection.
Large droppings, dug tunnels or greasy smears along the wall point to rats rather than mice. Our page on rat control explains how we handle that. If you are not sure, we will tell you during the inspection.
What to do yourself – and what to avoid
Mice come for food and shelter, so taking those away makes life much harder for them. Keep dry food, pet food and birdseed in sealed containers, sweep up crumbs straight away and never leave a bin bag standing in the shed or hallway.
Please do not put down poison yourself. In the wrong place, children or pets can get to it, and a mouse that dies behind a wall will start to smell. We advise against glue boards too: they cause needless suffering. A couple of snap traps along the skirting are fine, but unless the gaps are sealed, new mice will keep coming.
