Mice are best described as “moving dirt stealthily in the dark.” And it is true that wherever there are heaps of garbage, open garbage or dung heaps, plus the darkness that means security to them, you will find these cursed and feared by creatures. You will also find them in uncultivated and wild places.
A few years back, our late friend Lucille Lipp, who lived near Half Moon Bay, invited us to a “rat’s nest” day. The rats had built three, four-foot-tall nests in an uncultivated area opposite Lipp’s farm. Mrs. Lipp, an ardent fan of fuchsia, had found that the material in these nests was well-fertilized soil, which was ideal for growing a favorite flower. . Rats were a pest on the farm and everything was done to drive them out of the area.
We brought home several bags of this excellent smug potting material in the idea that we had no account. A few days later a large rat was seen running across the walkway to a pile of wood stored in concrete in the enclosed area under the back porch. Through research we have found that homes and gardens with live oak trees have occasionally had problems with mice and rats.
Mice are a dangerous pestilence, the mouse is a constant eater and, through droppings and a contaminated body, either by itself or through the lice and fleas that live on the bodies, it will pass to you and your family. Rats spread typhoid, salmonella food poisoning, disease, amoebic dysentery, rabies and the terrible bubonic plague.
You can detect the presence of rats without seeing them around the consumer’s doors, windows, packaged goods, utility lines, especially in food. file area. Recent excavations and pits around foundations, under sidewalks or floors are also signs of their presence. We found our caves in the grass. Every time a house is built in the woods behind us, we seem to have a new rat invasion. All gardeners should watch out for these dangerous pests.
The interior of your house is not at all sacred, even if you are a curious steward. One warm evening a few years ago, while we were watching TV with a young neighbor, the boy saw a mouse across the hall in to eat< /a>. Because of the heat, the front door, which had screens, was open. It took us a week, with the mice, to catch the intruder. Mice break inside through open or open windows, doors, ventilators, cracks or in the foundation, holes around electrical sockets or pipes leading from the sewer. Once inside and safe they can reproduce with alarming ease. In fact, under ideal conditions, and the laws of mathematics being what they are, one pair of rats can theoretically have up to 5,000 surviving offspring in one year.
Unlike rats, living habits make rats more difficult to control. They cannot enter the house through openings smaller than a man’s finger. They can nest in the smallest of inaccessible places, and because they are small eaters, they require about twice the amount of rodenticide than is necessary to kill a rat. Contrary to popular belief, rats do not live and are alive. They contaminate the food, to which they have access by omitting it: the smell is appalling in their dense multitude. And they will nest and carry their young in undisturbed places such as your folded sacks and stored clothing, cut pieces of each to provide ‘ houses.
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If you see one mouse in the house, in most cases you see that the mouse has a concubine and several mouse pups, and possibly other families. Before long, infestation is a problem. Under normal circumstances, mice will move more than 20 feet from the nesting site in search of food, if it can be found, in that radius. Some rats can live in their nests all their lives without ever tasting a drop of water, although they can close the water conveniently and willingly. to drink
When we saw our first rat, we immediately set about plowing into the trap and did the same when we spotted our guest mouse in . room It was a long process to catch these pests and when we caught some we had the very unpleasant task of killing them, freeing the body from the traps and disposing of it. Because of our problem, we have always been focused on an easier way to control mice and rats. We learned about a substance called “warfarin,” which he called an anticoagulant, which thins the rat’s blood so that it can leave the capillary lining of the lungs. The process takes several days or weeks. The advertiser also dehydrated this material body so that there was no odor.
We searched for a rat and mouse killer that contained “warfarin” and used it according to the directions on the package. we seemed to have good success. A few weeks later we visited a bird-loving friend in Southern California who spent the night watching mice running around the attic. . These mice came down after dark and the bird feeders licked themselves. We gave him a box of food containing “warfarin” and helped set up food stations. At the end of the month he reported that he heard several rats rip in the attic at night.
Rats chew to live. Their first ones grow up to five inches a year and they gnaw as they grind their teeth to survive. Otherwise, the teeth grow into the skull, from death. But warfarin is much faster. Mice are not heavy eaters, but they eat as much in 40 days. Food containing warfarin as an active ingredient has been successful in controlling rats in our garden. I have found that I have several food stations for these rodents not to go far for food. While we do not keep bail all the time we do from time to time to control the rat and mouse population.
Rats and Mice Infestations
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