Seeing mice

The most clear cut sign of a mice infestation is, of course, seeing one, but since mice are cautious, nocturnal creatures, they can live in your house for months or even years without ever showing themselves.

Unfortunately, by the time you’re seeing them, you’re already too late. There’s never just one mice, so for every one you see there’s almost always a whole family you’re not.

Hearing mice

You’re more likely to hear mice than see them. When lying in bed you might hear the telltale skittering and scraping sounds behind walls and beneath floorboards that tell you mice are about. If you make a noise, you’ll hear them stop for a moment, before resuming once they feel safe again.

Smelling mice

Finally, you might smell them. Mice urine has a strong ammonia odour, which is strongest around their nest or their preferred feeding spots. Mice are incontinent and spread urine wherever they go, which can build gradually into a strong odour.

It takes quite a lot of urine to produce a strong smell, so if you can smell mice, you need to act immediately because you likely have a severe mice infestation.

Evidence of a Mice Infestation

Seeing, hearing or smelling mice might give away an infestation, but it’s more likely that you’ll spot the evidence they leave behind them, such as their droppings.

Mouse droppings

Mouse droppings are black or dark brown and about the size of a grain of rice, hence our favourite phrase, “if it’s rice, it’s mice”. Any larger than that, about a peppercorn or above, then you’re dealing with rats.

You’ll often find droppings beneath kitchen units, in cupboards, on surfaces or even inside toasters and grills where they feed on crumbs or fat.

Mouse holes

If mice don’t have existing routes around your home, they’ll start making them. Mouse holes are nothing like the neat arches from Tom and Jerry; they’re small, rough openings that are smaller than you might expect. Mice only need a hole the size of a ballpoint pen to be able to squeeze through.

Mouse markings

Mice are greasy little creatures, and when they squeeze through their holes or scurry along skirting boards they’ll leave their residue behind them. As dirt sticks to the grease, you’ll start to see dark marks form along their favourite routes, known as smearing. The presence of smearing is an easy way to tell if a hole was preexisting or made by mice.

Gnawed food bags

If you go to pick up your cereal in the morning and a bunch spills out a hole onto your counter, then it’s time to give us a call because you have a mice infestation.

Bags of rice, cereal, flour, pet food and so on are easy targets for hungry mice. Bags of pet food stored away in attics or basements are especially ideal, as they let families of mice feast without being spotted for weeks or months. This is why we always recommend to store all food in gnaw-proof containers.