Mouse Control across Cape Town

The house mouse, Mus musculus, is the mouse we deal with in almost every home and kitchen in the Western Cape. It is small and grey-brown with large ears, a pointed nose and a tail about as long as its body. Unlike rats, house mice can live their whole lives inside a building, nesting in cupboards, under kitchen units, inside appliances and in wall cavities. On smallholdings and near fynbos and veld you may also see the four-striped grass mouse, which is easy to recognise from the stripes down its back and seldom settles indoors. In the house it is nearly always the house mouse, and that is what our treatment is set up for.

Is it a mouse? Common look-alikes in Cape Town homes

Half the job is being sure what left the evidence. Getting it wrong costs time: weeks of traps for a problem that was never mice, or cockroach gel for a mouse. These are the mix-ups we sort out most often from photos sent on WhatsApp.

Gecko droppings

Geckos leave droppings on windowsills, behind curtains and along the top of cupboards, and at a glance they pass for mouse droppings. Look at the end. A gecko dropping has a chalky white tip, while a mouse dropping is dark all the way through. Geckos eat insects and are welcome to stay.

Cockroach droppings

German cockroaches leave tiny black specks, like ground pepper, and brown smears in cupboard hinges and corners rather than separate pellets. If that is what you have in the cutlery drawer, you need cockroach control, not mouse traps.

Shrews

The small grey animal the cat drops on the mat, with a long pointed snout, tiny eyes and a musky smell, is often a musk shrew. Shrews hunt insects in the garden and seldom set up home indoors. Cats tend to kill them and leave them uneaten, which is a decent clue.

A young rat

A young rat has a chunkier head and bigger feet for its size, and a thicker tail. That matters, because rat traps and rat proofing are a different job. If in doubt, photograph the droppings next to a coin.

Mice in the places people forget

Most mouse work happens in kitchens. The infestations that drag on are usually somewhere nobody checks.

• Cars and bakkies. A vehicle standing in a garage for weeks over winter is warm under the bonnet. Mice nest around the air filter and chew wiring, and the first sign is often a warning light.
• Caravans, trailers and boats. Stored through the wet season with a few packets of food left inside, they become a nest by December. Empty them completely before you park them for the winter.
• Holiday homes and lock-up flats. A place on the Atlantic Seaboard or the South Peninsula closed from autumn to spring gives mice months without disturbance. Ask whoever checks on the house to open a few cupboards, not just the front door.
• Geyser and distribution board cupboards. Warm, dark and hardly ever opened. A torch and a quick look every month or two is enough.
• Storerooms in offices, schools and church halls. Boxes of paper, tea and biscuits, and nobody opens the door for weeks. Stored food here can also attract stored product pests.

Getting your home ready for a mouse visit

A little preparation means we spend the visit finding the mice instead of moving boxes.

1. Take photos of droppings and damage before you wipe anything away.
2. Empty the cupboard under the sink and pull out the bottom drawer of the stove so we can see behind them.
3. Jot down where and when you hear or see activity. Two or three nights of notes help.
4. Put away any shop-bought poison you have laid, and tell us where it was.
5. Clear a strip along one wall of the garage if it is packed to the ceiling.
6. Tell us if you live in a flat or complex, because the shared ducts and the neighbours' units may need a look too.
7. Keep pets in another room while traps are set, and show us where they eat and sleep.

Most homes can be booked in about 48 hours, though winter weeks get busier. You get a written report after the visit and a minimum 3-month guarantee on the treatment. For the full treatment details see mouse control in Cape Town, or phone 021 012 5825.

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Mouse Control by suburb