One Mouse, Two Mice, Three Mice, Four

How Can you Tell How Many Mice you Have?

How are you with math? Today, we're going to do a little mouse math. How does that sound? Great! Let's get to it.

Let's begin with one female mouse living inside your home. We'll assume she has already mated with a male mouse. When she is ready to have babies, she will have up to 14 mice but the average is 6 mice. We'll go with that number.

Now, you have 7 mice living in your home, and each of those mice will be able to mate with other mice in 4 to 7 weeks. This is called the age of sexual maturity. For the purposes of our math calculations, let's assume all of the mice begin mating at 6 weeks. Lock that number in place. We'll need it in a moment.

It is important at this point to determine how long it takes for a mouse to go through the period of gestation.

It is typically 19 to 21 day, we'll go with 21 days to make the math easier. Adding the 6 weeks it takes for mice to reach sexual maturity with the 21 days of gestation we get 9 weeks.

That is just over 2 months. If half of the six original babies each had a litter of 6 mice, you would have 18 new mice to add to the 7 mice in your home. That is a total of 25 mice in 9 weeks.

Do you see how bad this is? The scary part is that mice can have as many as 14 babies in a litter. Under the right conditions, your house can quickly be overrun with mice.

What Happens in a Home that Has lots of Mice?

⭐ They can chew holes for access to the outside of your home, which can allow rainwater to get in and cause wood rot or mold.

⭐ They can chew holes for access to stored-food areas, which will damage the walls of your home.

⭐ When mice chew through walls, they sometimes sever wires. If they sever a live wire it could lead to a house fire.

⭐ They can chew holes in stored items. They are particularly fond of getting into stored furniture. If mice infest your stored furniture, the holes are the least of your problems. They urinate and defecate where they sleep. This can be extremely difficult to clean.

⭐ Mice are likely to go in and out of your home. When they do, they can pick up ticks, fleas, lice, mites and other parasites.

⭐ Mice explore every floor of your home. If they have parasites in their fur, those parasites will be spread around.

⭐ Mice get into dumpster, trash cans, sewers, compost and other dirty places. In these locations, they pick up harmful bacteria, diseases, and parasitic worms.

⭐ Mice can chew into your food packages. If they do, they will contaminate your food.

⭐ When mice come into contact with your dishes, pans, silverware, cutting boards, and other items, they can contaminate them.

⭐ Mice leave urine and feces everywhere they go, which is another form of contamination.

What to do When you are Infested with Mice?

It is safe to say that mice are bad houseguests. The more of them you have, the worse your problems become. If you believe a mouse has gotten into your home, don't wait till you have two, three, four, or twenty-five.

Reach out to a pest control provider to have those rodents removed.

If you live in DC, Maryland or Northern Virginia, we're here if you need us. American Pest is a pest control leader, not only in our region but also in the country.

We use state-of-the-art, tamper-resistant mouse traps and field-tested methods for locating and removing mice.

During the process, one of our rodent control professionals will seal visible entry points with silicone caulk, copper wire mesh, or expanding foam to keep new mice from replacing the mice that have been removed.

Multiple treatments are often necessary for the elimination and exclusion of mice. If your home requires follow-up inspections and treatments, we'll walk you through the steps so that you know what to expect.

For more information or to schedule a visit from one of our licensed and certified rodent control professionals, ask for our SMART trapping system.

It is never a good idea to let a mouse live in your home because it doesn't take long for that one mouse to become 25 or more mice living inside your home. Get help today.