When you have to protect a large facility like a food processing plant against mice, being effective with your trap placement can help you save money. After all, rodents, mice included, cause billions of dollars in losses each year to the food supply, and they also carry dangerous pathogens such as Leptospira, E. coli and salmonella, so you want to make sure that you control their population if you are a food manufacturer, but you also want to make sure that you do so effectively. This is something that we can learn to do in domestic applications as well.
Initially, mouse traps were placed in a radius of 20 to 40 feet around known nesting sites, because researchers in the 1940s and 50s found that 20 to 40 feet is the distance mice will travel from their nest in search for food. However, over time, pest control specialists realize that trap placement would be more effective if it is done based on mouse behavior.
In a recent study, researchers were able to increase the effectiveness of mouse traps by placing them near areas of interest for the pests, areas which contained shelter and warmth. In addition to this, using fewer traps also increases effectiveness. This may sound counter-intuitive at first, but rodents can develop a suspicion for the traps. Fewer traps also have the added benefit of reducing the amount of devices that a pest control team or specialist has to check, and of course, it is more cost effective. This will also free up technicians to perform other tasks such as inspection in order to identify areas that are more heavily infested.
So how do we translate this into domestic cases? It’s simple, you can improve your results by, first, placing traps near heat sources. You can place them near your heater, behind the refrigerator (the compressor generates warmth), and behind the stove. You can also place them in areas that would provide shelter to the rodents, areas that are dark and shadowy. Outdoors, the traps will work in areas where there is thick vegetation.
More effective trap placement can improve your results dramatically, but it may still not be enough to take out a large infestation. In these situations, you will need to work with a pest control specialist. Contact us today if you have persistent mouse problems on your property, and we can get them under control.