Short days and cold nights entice two of the Valley’s most dreaded pests into your home and they may even use the same points of entry. It’s hard to imagine how small the holes are that scorpions and mice can get through, and once they do, they may be your unwelcome visitors for a long time.
Scorpions
Although you’re more likely to see scorpions during hot weather, it doesn’t mean that they disappear as the weather starts to cool. Scorpions seek shelter as soon as the temperatures drop, and your home is a good place for them to hibernate. You’ll find them under boxes, inside baseboards, hiding in shoes, tucked away in the linen closet, or beneath appliances.
They can crawl through a crack as narrow as a credit card where they’ll seek refuge in dark, moist, quiet places. Scorpions use textured surfaces like stucco and block walls. They have trouble with anything smooth, like bathtubs, sinks, windows and patio doors.
Since the majority of these pests in the Valley are venomous bark scorpions, all the precautions you take to stop them at your home’s perimeter might save you a trip to the emergency room and days of grueling pain.
Mice
Mice like to live indoors as much as you do. The food is good, there’s plenty of water, and it’s comfortably warm. Mice can enter through any crack or gap bigger than ¼ inch.
These rodents bring lots of problems with them. Their urine and feces spread disease, they might carry fleas, and they eat voraciously. Since they’re a rodent, they need to chew whether they’re hungry or not. While you certainly don’t want the drywall damage they cause or lose the food they destroy, their most harmful activity is chewing on wires.
They will strip the insulation away from any wire in the roof, walls, or appliances. Not only does this harm your appliances, it sets the stage for house fires from electrical shorts. Unless your home is unusually quiet, you may not hear them rummaging through the attic and walls, or behind and beneath kitchen appliances and cabinets. You may find the trails of waste products they leave behind, especially in the kitchen.
Getting Ready for Winter
Look for holes around the home’s exterior, especially around exterior door and window frames. Use caulk to seal them, or apply fresh weatherstripping. If you have larger holes, fill with expanding foam. If you have mice, stuff them with steel wool, which is impossible for them to chew through. Avoid overwatering around your home’s exterior, which attracts both scorpions and mice.
The specialists at Atomic Pest Control use commercial-grade insecticides effective against scorpions and will trap the mice for you. They’ll double check for entry points and seal them, followed by using and placing mouse traps and bait stations.
