Mouse Control in San Francisco
The house mouse is the one that moves in and stays. San Francisco's health department says it can set up long-term residence in homes and offices and live for long periods on cereal and crumbs. In a city full of shared walls and old kitchens, that's a lot of places to settle.
Mice are small enough that a gap you'd never notice is enough. The health department tells building owners to close gaps bigger than a quarter inch around exterior doors and windows. Pipe holes under the sink, the gap behind the stove and the space around a radiator pipe are the usual ways in.
Signs You Have Mice
Small, dark droppings in a drawer, under the sink or along the back of the counter. Chewed corners on boxes of crackers and cereal. A faint scratching low in the wall at night. In apartments, mice travel through wall cavities and along pipes between units, so the signs may show up in more than one flat at once.
- Rice-sized droppings in kitchen drawers and cabinets
- Chewed food packaging, especially grains and pet food
- Shredded paper or fabric tucked into a corner
- Scratching low in the walls at night
Flats and Shared Walls
If you live in a two- or three-unit building, mice don't care whose flat is whose. Trapping in one unit while the others stay open just moves them around. Talk to the owner and your neighbors. Owners have a duty to look into pest reports, and a building-wide plan works better. See apartment building rodents.
What the Company Does
Expect snap traps along the walls where the droppings are, a look at the kitchen, the area behind the appliances and under the sinks, and a list of gaps to seal. Steel wool, copper mesh, hardware cloth and sheet metal close the small holes. Foam and caulk alone get chewed. Rodent exclusion covers the sealing side.
Questions We Get
We keep the kitchen clean. Why do we have mice?
Clean helps, but mice need very little food. The health department notes they can live on cereals and scraps for long periods. Sealing the gaps matters as much as cleaning.
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