Sometimes, uninvited guests make their way into commercial buildings or private homes in the United States today, and they are not burglars; rather, mice, rats, raccoons, opossums, and more have demonstrated themselves to be a hazard to food items, sanitation, and disease control, so wildlife control is the first thing a homeowner or public building manager should reach out for if such animals intrude in a building or land like a farm, garden, or public park. Wildlife control crews should be available in most towns or cities, and these professionals can take care of unwanted rodents and more with traps, bait, and more, and there are some measures that homeowners or building managers can use themselves to carry out animal control and animal removal. How can this be done, and just how often do such animals intrude where they are not welcome?
The Need for Wildlife Control
Animals such as rats and mice have troubled human societies ever since the agricultural revolution began, since such animals like to break into storehouses of grain and other food and devour it. In fact, even today, despite modern technology, rats and mice often break into food supplies around the world and eat everything that they can, often consuming as much as 20% of the world’s food supply. It could be worse, though; the National Pest Management Association believes that if the pest control industry were to be shut down, up to half of all the world’s food supplies would be consumed by rodents, insects, and more. In fact, this is one major reason why wildcats were domesticated many thousands of years ago: rat and mouse control.
Why else is wildlife control needed for squirrel removal or rodent removal? Animals like rats and raccoons also carry diseases, either in their saliva, blood, or in the fleas that live on them, and these diseases are often deadly to people and pets alike. Raccoons are well known to carry rabies, and rats may transmit other diseases through their bites or by means of the fleas that they carry. In fact, it is generally accepted that the Black Death was spread mainly by rat-borne fleas, and a relatively low cat population at the time made this problem worse. Today, rats are not causing nation-wide epidemics, but they are still a legitimate health hazard and should be treated as such at all times. What is more, rodents such as rats, mice, and squirrels may chew their way through wooden materials in a home and create leaks in the roof, and water damage may be the consequence. These rodents may also chew on utility cables such as phone or Internet cables, damaging these utilities and causing a need for repairs. They may even chew on plastic pipes in the homes, and squirrels are especially known to do this. Finally, such rodents may build nests in air ducts, and such nests may block air flow and compromise the heating and air conditioning system of a home or commercial building. This can also impact the electric bill.
Carry Out Wildlife Control
There are some measures that homeowners and commercial building managers can take to get rid of squirrels in the attic or rats in the kitchen, or anything in between. For example, classic mouse traps can be set across the home or building, which lure in rodents with bait, then snap shut a bar that breaks their spine. Such traps may accidentally harm children or pets, however, so anyone who places them should be careful about this. The same caution applies to setting out poison pellets, which rats and mice will eat and ingest lethal poison. Homeowners should make absolutely sure that no small children or pets try to eat them.
Contractors can be hired to repair rodent damage, such as the holes that squirrels chew in the attic and its walls, and the holes that rats and mice create in walls to travel in and out of public spaces. Crews can also remove squirrel nests from air ducts and apply paint on the attic walls, inside and out, that squirrels are unwilling to chew on. Nearby tree branches can be trimmed away as well, so squirrels cannot reach a home’s attic so easily.
