Protect your home from mice invasion

WESTFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Heating your home during the cold days makes it more comfortable for you, and unfortunately, more appealing for pests.

Cluster flies, lady bugs and stink bugs can be a problem this time of year, but the real issue right now is mice. And the colder it gets, the more they want to come indoors.

While a lot of your focus this time of year is in keeping your home warm, a warm environment attracts mice inside, especially this year.

"It seems to be a very bad year for mice. We had a lot of people coming in here looking for traps and everything. And people that have never dealt mice in the house as well so it's been a very busy year for mouse traps," said Seth Dihlmann, Store manager of Rocky’s Ace Hardware in Westfield.

While mice can certainly nest in urban areas, it's in suburban areas as well as rural areas where mice seem to be causing the biggest problem for people.

Wherever you live, a hole as big as a dime is big enough to allow a mouse inside. The house mouse and the deer mouse are the ones causing problems here in western Massachusetts.

"The concern with the deer mouse is that it's definitely the winter habitat for lime disease ticks, the deer tick, and they are the winter reservoir for the lime disease virus. So these mice are getting into your home and potentially spreading ticks that could cause lime disease," said Robert Russell, an Entomologist at American Pest Solutions in Springfield.

To solve your mouse problem, Russell recommends setting mouse traps baited with peanut butter.
  
He also recommends avoiding the use of poison and sealing your home as tightly and as much as you can.

If the traps don't work, that's when you call in the professionals.