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The House Mouse is everywhere. The common house mouse, Mus domesticus (also known as Mus musculus), is the most widely distributed mammal on the planet. It occupies cities, towns, fields, forests, deserts, marshes and even portions of Antarctica. In fact, the house mouse is credited as being the second most successful mammal on the planet. In our suburbs and cities, the house mouse is found living both inside and outside our buildings. With the exception of our companion animals, no other mammal lives closer in proximity to people as does the mouse.
The mouse will actually nest within the devices we use to cook and store our food (stoves, refrigerators), as well as where we sleep (mattresses, box springs). The house mouse will consume nearly all types of food. Outside, mice feed on types of natural grains such as weed seeds and on many different types of insects. Inside, mice feed on a pet and human food. They also eat cockroaches and houseflies. Mice typically sample food in several different areas. A mouse may make 20 or more visits to food sites each night within 10 to 20 feet. Well fed mice are highly reproductive.
A healthy female mouse typically can produce 10 litters a year. Most litters contain an average of five to ten pups, which they themselves, will begin producing their own litters after 10 weeks. Restaurants and homes can get inundated with mice in a short period of time. The mouse has been clocked at speeds of 12 feet per second and jumps up to 12 inches in a single bound, to wires and pipes above. The word mouse translated means thief. And characteristic of an effective thief, the mouse is quiet, quick and active in the darkness of night. Because of its size, it is able to enter buildings and rooms larger animals cannot, rendering it quite elusive to its predators. The mouse is a master at adapting Mice in hot areas to grow longer tails to help dissipate the heat from their bodies. Mice in colder climates grow longer coats of fur.
Are we jealous? Obviously. They can pass knowledge to their children genetically, while we humans have to pay for expensive educations for ours. They embarrass us with their intelligence. We now know that should there be a nuclear holocaust, the rodents and cockroaches would survive. Ancient Greek farmers tried to rid their fields of rats by writing notes on bits of paper( left on a rock written-side up, so rats could read them easily), promising the rats unmolested use of a certain parcel of land if they agreed to leave the rest alone. Medieval Europeans used the old-time religion to get rid of unwanted pests, they read the Gospel of St John in three corners of a house, assuming that the unholy creatures would flee the remaining fourth corner.
In the 18th century France, the government formally charged invading rodents as criminals and swore out a summons against them. But as all criminals were entitled to a fair defense, an attorney was appointed for them. In a master ploy, the attorney defended the charges on a technicality, and the court could not convict. In the 1960s scientists attempted to produce a strain of genetically sterile rats that, when interspersed with the normal rat population, would cut down on the number of births due to the sterile rat’s inability to reproduce. There are still plenty of fertile rats around in spite of the experiment. Around the turn of the century, the U.S. Patent Office recorded the Humane Mousetrap, a complicated device that caught the rodent, automatically clapped a belled collar around its neck and released it unharmed. Theoretically, the collard rat would return to his friends and family and warn them away from humans and their possessions. A gadget patented in 1929 is a cube with a one-way door into which the mouse entered to get at some food. The bait is suspended over a false bottom. The mouse falls through the trick floor into a closed compartment where it awaits a lethal dose of poison. In 1950 an American patented the bait holder for the classic spring-type mouse trap.
An ultrasonic device was discovered by accident while the inventor was fixing the strings of an electric guitar. It uses frequencies of sound not audible to humans to disorient the mice. It has made the inventor a tidy sum. But part of the problem of building the better mousetrap is that results are often as bad as the problem itself. However technologically advanced we may become, no doubt the battle between man and mouse will rage on, at least until one of us gives up.
The professionals at PSI Pest Scene Investigations know what it takes to remove your mice infestation. Call us today for further service details.
Crafted By Ducks in a Row Marketing.
