Could use some assistance from the brain trust.

I'm getting my house ready to sell and went into the crawlspace to fix some floor squeaks and noticed rodent feces all over.

I built a deck a few years ago and noticed about a 4" x 4" square hole in the plywood just inside of the base of the hardie siding. It looked like the builder cut it for the backyard hose faucet but then ended up putting it on the other side of the patio. Could they be getting in there? The insulation all around that spot had feces on top of it. I pulled all that down but didn't see any rats, but I was smelling urine.

I went ahead and screwed a piece of treated wood over that hole and set out some traps.

Does anybody have any tips on what to do next, should I just vacuum up all the feces and keep setting traps until I don't catch anything?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

One bit of advice I can give you is; do not, repeat do not, plug up a suspected entrance hole until you have the rodents out of the building.

You do not want dead rodents in the attic or the walls.

quote:

Originally posted by oldRoger:
One bit of advice I can give you is; do not, repeat do not, plug up a suspected entrance hole until you have the rodents out of the building.

You do not want dead rodents in the attic or the walls.

Or worse, they'll eat the living daylights out of stuff trying to get out. Yes set up traps or use the electronic ones, they work great and are easy peasy but would get expensive.....I'd go with A LOT of traps.

traps inside and bait stations outside around the perimeter of the house should get rid of them. once they are gone shop vac, replacing the damaged insulation, sealing up the entry points and bleach/water mixture spayed around the area should do it.

Get an aggressive kitty or two.

Google "hantavirus" before you start up with the shop vac, particularly if you live in the desert southwest.

^^^^^
He is living dangerously just crawling around in that area. You need to spray the feces with a Clorox solution.

You need to borrow one of these.

You need a king snake for your crawlspace. It'll fix your rodent problem, but may not help you sell a house.

Steel wool in areas you expect rodents to go or be. They hate steel wool.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Google "hantavirus" before you start up with the shop vac, particularly if you live in the desert southwest.

definitely a nasty threat. the only good news is it does not live long outside the host so by the time the mice are gone and the problem is dealt with for good, the threat is as well. ps. i don't work with the cdc so do your own research before cleanup.

You need a one way excluder.

My daughter used these in her job. She'd then set traps to catch the rest. Poison will kill them but then there's the stink from the bodies.

https://www.amazon.com/Tomahaw...y-Door/dp/B00B9JVD7K

get a chemical bait that makes them very very thirsty - they will then try to get out of the house to find water before they die

yeah, careful of the droppings

There is a product called fresh cab thay will repell them. Has a cedar-pine smell. Put that in wait a week seak the hole. Clean up and reapply. Info here.