MICE

To some, cute and fuzzy little animal friends. To others...panic at just the thought...EEK!

Mice have been around since cavemen, and are believed to have arrived in North America in the 1500s aboard the ships of Spanish explorers. The word 'mouse' comes from the Sanskrit word meaning 'thief'. Some ancient cultures actually found medicinal uses for cooked mice while other cultures, to the contrary, forbade even the eating of any food that a mouse had chewed claiming that it would cause forgetfulness and earaches. In folklore, it is said that the devil entered Noah's ark in the body of a mouse which then chewed holes in the hull in an attempt to sink it.

What we do know is that mice will chew anything softer than their teeth including electrical wiring...a fire hazard. We know that mice transmit rickettsial pox, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, leptospirosis, ratbite fever, tularemia, dermatitis, and hantavirus. And we know that they can squeeze through an opening as small as ¼", launch and land safely from a height of 12' and have a vertical leap of 12". Impressive and troubling at the same time!

Even more troubling for the homeowner is that mice produce 6 - 10 litters of 5 -10 pups per year. They begin breeding at two months of age.