Mice and other rodents aren’t just coming into your house to take your food and ruin your walls, they’re also leaving behind signs that they’ve entered your home. Mice can leave droppings, but they may also be leaving behind another indicator of their presence: grease. This grease not only leaves trails around your house but may even be furthering the invasion of rodents.
Why You Should Care About the Marks on Your Wall
Sebum is the grease found on the coating of a mouse’s fur which is made of dirt and oil buildup. Unfortunately, mice leave this oily substance behind wherever they go. If you look closely, you can spot this grease on walls and in spaces that mice travel through. Because mice don’t have excellent eyesight, they navigate using touch. In fact, they often look like they’re walking against everything in their route – which is why smears of oil often get on the walls.
Mice are creatures of habit, repeating their routines, and inevitably building up sebum on the walls of your home. When sebum builds up, it can create an unpleasant odor and develop a darkened appearance. The darker the sebum, the more mice there likely are following this trail.
It’s crucial that when you spot these trails you clean them as soon as you can because it might be attracting even more mice. Other mice will pick up on this trail and follow it into and throughout your home, which in turn causes even more of a problem. Plus, the mice already in your home rely on these routes, so cleaning this oil can also help prevent the existing mice in your home from getting into the same areas over and over.
Other signs of a mice infestation may include droppings, tracks in dust from their footprints or tails, gnawing on objects around your house, urine trails, and other signs that indicate you are not alone in your home. You can learn more about mice and how they manage to get into the small spaces of your house here.
How You Can Take Care of Your Mouse Problem
When cleaning off sebum, make sure to use a disinfecting product and sanitize the areas where you’ve seen grimy trails and mouse poop. Focus cleaning around the points where you know mice enter and exit. These signs of mouse activity will attract other mice to the location, so it’s good to have a thorough cleaning of the area once noticed.
There are many different solutions that you can use to help prevent and rid your home of mice. Here are just a few options:
- Snap Traps are a tried-and-true method that uses a quick trigger system to eliminate mice without poison.
- Scent Repellents effectively & humanely repel rodents by using the natural ingredient of peppermint oil, which mice find unpleasant.
- Live Mouse Traps allow you to humanely catch and release a mouse from your home without you ever having to touch it.
- UItrasonic Repellents protect your property by using high-frequency sound waves that are inaudible for human and non-rodent pets but create an unpleasant environment for rodents.
How You Can Further Protect Your Home
We have many options for protecting your home from mouse invaders, including electronic mouse traps, snap traps, rodenticides, and our Smart-Kill™ Wi-Fi Electronic Mouse Trap. Here at Victor®, we want to provide you with the best products and information. While you’re on our site, sign up for our e-newsletter to get the latest updates about our products and helpful information to protect you home from rodent invasions.
