Most pest problems start small and quiet. A couple of mice in the attic, a few roaches behind the refrigerator, an ant colony under the slab. By the time you’re seeing them in broad daylight, they’ve usually been around a while. The good news is that pests almost always leave clues first, and if you know what to look for you can deal with them while it’s still a small job.
Here are seven signs to watch for and what each one tells you.
1. Droppings
Droppings are the most reliable sign, and they tell you more than anything else on this list.
- Mouse droppings are about the size of a grain of rice, dark and pointed at the ends.
- Rat droppings are much bigger, around half an inch or more, with blunt ends.
- Cockroach droppings look like ground pepper or coffee grounds and collect in cabinet corners, drawer tracks and behind appliances.
Check under sinks, at the back of the pantry, along the attic floor and in the crawl space. Fresh droppings are dark and soft, while old ones are dry and crumbly. If you find a lot of fresh ones, the problem is active right now.
2. Chew marks
A rodent’s front teeth never stop growing, so mice and rats gnaw on just about everything. Look for small, ragged holes in cereal boxes and bags of pet food, chewed corners on baseboards and cabinet doors, and shredded insulation. Chewed wiring is the one to take seriously, because it’s a real fire risk. And don’t assume a hole is too small to matter. Mice get through gaps that look impossible.
3. Sounds in the walls or ceiling at night
Scratching, scurrying or light thumping overhead after the house goes quiet is a classic rodent sign. Mice and rats are most active at night, and attics and wall voids are their highways. Squirrels make a similar racket but move around during the day, mostly early in the morning. Pay attention to where the noise starts and stops, because that often points right to the way in.
4. Nests and nesting material
Mice build nests out of anything soft, like shredded paper, fabric, insulation and pet hair. They pick quiet spots such as the back of a closet, a box in the garage, behind the stove or a corner of the attic. Matted, tunneled insulation in the attic or crawl space is a strong sign you have company.
5. Rub marks, tracks and trails
Rodents use the same routes every night and stay tight against walls. Over time the oil and dirt on their fur leaves dark, greasy smudges along baseboards, around pipes and at the edges of holes. In a dusty attic or crawl space you might see tiny footprints or tail drags.
Ants leave trails of their own. A steady line from a crack in the slab to the kitchen counter or the dog’s bowl means a colony nearby has found food and is sending workers for it.
6. Bugs out in the open
Roaches and mice avoid light. When you see one in the middle of the day, it often means the hiding spots are crowded or something drove it out, so a daytime roach is worth paying attention to. Other things to notice are dead insects collecting on windowsills, shed skins or egg cases in drawers, and a sudden crop of webs in the corners. Spiders go where their food is, so lots of webs usually means lots of insects.
7. Odd smells
A stale, musky or ammonia-like smell in a closet, cabinet or attic can come from rodent urine. A heavy roach infestation has an oily, musty odor of its own. A sudden bad smell coming from inside a wall can mean a rodent died in there. And if your dog or cat is fixated on one spot, sniffing or pawing at the baseboard, they may be onto something.
What to do next
One sign isn’t always a crisis. A single ant trail in July is a lot different from droppings in your kitchen drawer. But most of these problems get bigger the longer they go, and store-bought sprays tend to treat what you can see, not where the pests are living.
If you’re hearing or seeing rodents, our rodent control service finds how they’re getting in and deals with them. For ants marching through the kitchen, ant control targets the colony, not just the trail. And if webs keep appearing faster than you can knock them down, spider control takes care of the spiders and the insects feeding them.
On every visit we treat the inside, outside, crawl space and attic, and same-day or next-day service is available. Give us a call and tell us what you’re seeing.
