Mouse Control in Overland Park, Kansas

Mice are most of what we hear about, and it isn't close. The house mouse is small, gray-brown, and it only needs a gap about the size of a dime to get in. The call usually starts one of two ways: scratching over the bedroom after dark, or a few droppings in the silverware drawer.

Johnson County winters do the recruiting. Once fall nights get near freezing, the mice that spent summer in tall grass, greenbelts and garden beds go looking for heat. A finished basement with a warm furnace room is about perfect for them. Why mice show up every October covers the timing, and mice in a finished lower level covers where they go once they're in.

Droppings in the Silverware Drawer: How You Know It's Mice

Most people hear them before they see them. It's a light, quick running in the ceiling or a wall once the house goes quiet. Then the droppings show up, small and dark and about the size of a grain of rice, along the baseboards, in a drawer or behind the stove. If they're closer to the size of a raisin, you probably have rats, and that's a different job. Other things people mention when they call:

• Chewed cereal boxes, dog food bags or bird seed in the garage
• Shredded paper, insulation or fabric balled up in a corner
• A musty, ammonia smell in a closet or storage room
• The cat or dog staring at one spot on the wall

The Gaps Mice Use in Split-Levels and Newer Two-Stories

Every house is a little different, but the same spots keep coming up. Ranches and split-levels north of 95th Street have settled for decades, and they open up at the sill plate and around old utility lines. Older homes in north OP are full of these. Newer houses down in Blue Valley tend to leak at the garage door corners and where the AC line set goes through the wall. Go out to the garage at night, turn the lights off and check the weatherstripping on the garage door. If you see daylight at the corners, a mouse sees a doorway.

• Where the gas, water and AC lines come through the wall
• Worn rubber at the bottom and corners of the garage door
• Dryer and bath fan vents with a flap that's stuck open
• Cracks along brick or stone veneer at the foundation

What the Technician Does on the First Visit

The first visit is mostly looking. The tech walks the outside low and slow: the foundation line, garage door corners, AC lines, the dryer vent. Inside, they check the furnace room, under the sinks, behind the washer, the back of the pantry and any storage room near the floor. On lots that back up to the creek, like the ones around Corporate Woods, they'll spend some time at the back fence too.

Snap traps along the walls are the usual tool. If they use bait, it belongs in locked, tamper-resistant stations kids and pets can't get into, never loose pellets tossed behind the fridge. Most companies come back in a week or two to check traps and see where mice are still showing up. The price depends on the size of the house, how long the mice have been there, how many gaps need closing and whether there's cleanup in the attic. They'll quote it once they've seen the place.

When a Few Hardware Store Traps Are Enough

If you saw one mouse in the garage and caught it the next night, you might be done. Put dry food, dog food and bird seed in hard containers with lids, get the storage boxes up off the basement floor, and set a couple of snap traps where you've seen droppings, somewhere the kids and the dog can't reach. That's a reasonable weekend.

If you're still catching mice every week, or droppings keep turning up in new rooms, the gaps are open and new mice are walking in to replace the old ones. We hear that a lot from the newer streets in south OP and Blue Valley that back onto open ground, and from the older houses in Prairie Village. Sealing the entry points is what breaks the cycle. Trapping without sealing turns into a yearly chore.

Related: Rodent Exclusion and Sealing, Attic and Crawl Space Cleanup, Garage and Shed Rodents

Serving Downtown Overland Park, North Overland Park, South Overland Park and Blue Valley, Corporate Woods and College Blvd, Leawood, Lenexa, Olathe, Prairie Village, Shawnee, Mission and Merriam.