Mice can enter your home any time of year, but spring can be extra tricky. Mice that moved in during winter are still there, and warming weather increases outdoor mouse activity and gives them new chances to enter.
If you're hearing scratching in the walls or finding droppings in the pantry now that spring has arrived, it's natural to wonder where they came from. The short answer is that they’ve probably been there for months. And the longer they stay, the bigger the problem gets.
That’s probably frustrating to hear, so it helps to understand some of the reasons why this is happening. Most indoor mouse infestations begin in fall and winter when dropping temperatures drive mice to seek warmth. Once inside, they don’t voluntarily leave when spring comes. Your home still provides more food, more water, better shelter, and total protection from predators. Going outside would be a mistake as far as the mice are concerned.
There’s also the fact that by spring, a winter infestation has had months to worsen. Mice breed year-round indoors. A female can produce a new litter roughly every 25 days, with six to eight pups each time. Those pups reach breeding age at about six weeks. So a pair of mice that entered in November could have produced several generations by April.
There’s also the added difficulty that outdoor mouse activity increases as temperatures warm up and more food becomes available. Mice forage, explore, and travel along foundations. Any existing gaps around pipes, utility lines, vents, or door sweeps that haven't been sealed are potential entry points. You might solve the indoor problem only to have new mice find their way in through the same openings.
It’s also easier to see evidence of mice in the spring. As you spend more time in the garage, open storage areas, and do spring cleaning, you’ll be more likely to see droppings in the back of a cabinet, shredded insulation behind the water heater, or gnaw marks on a cardboard box you haven’t touched since December.
If you’re a Bergen or Passaic County homeowner and you’re dealing with mice,Mosquito Squad of Bergen Passaic can help. Mosquito Squad offers rodent control that includes professional inspection, targeted trapping, and exclusion. As part of the service, a tech will find out how mice are entering, where they're nesting, and build a plan to manage the existing population and discourage re-entry.
