The Risks of a Rodent, Don’t Let A Rat Be The Cause of Your Claim Posted by Cole Sileven on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 · Leave a Comment

It’s really unknown how many insurance claims are called in each year due to rodent problems. Mice and other rodents can quickly turn your home into a ticking time bomb. One thing a rat may do is chew through electrical wire, and sometimes even plumbing. With chewed up electrical wire or plumbing you may be days away from experiencing a flooded kitchen or even a fire.

I remember a couple months back my sister was having water trouble in her kitchen. As we tore open the wall just above the kitchen sink we found some rubber hoses that looked to be bitten through by a mouse. The good news is it was an easy repair but its things like this that can turn on you if you don’t catch them in time. It doesn’t take that long for a leak to create mold in your home and mold has a way of getting out of hand. I was watching a program on TV. just the other night where this exterminator was hired to get rid of a raccoon that kept coming into the person’s attic. This thing was also biting wires near small gas lines. It was a disaster just waiting to happen.

The first thing to do to tell if a mouse is at work Is by taking a look around for mouse droppings. You can usually find them around food sources, under the sink, or in the pantry. You may also smell a musky smell of a mouse if it happens to be a common spot for it to visit.

For raccoons you’ll want to take a look around the outside of the house for any possible entry points. Look in areas around the attic such as vents, under the roof overhang or even near chimney crevasses. The easiest material to use for these openings is basic sheet metal.

Most times people will begin placing traps out to catch mice. Are you using the right bait? Throwing cheese on a mouse trap always gets me thinking about cartoons for some reason. Mice seem to be able to pull the cheese out of these things without getting snapped. Growing up in the outskirts of a small town we’ve ran into this problem more than once. I know rats loved my dad’s shed which was full of wires, tools everything a rat would love to chew on. Instead of cheese, his solution was always peanut butter. Peanut butter is sticky and if the rat wants to eat it, it’s going to have to hang around the trap for awhile. You can’t just run off with a small block of peanut butter, like you can cheese.

Most of us just don’t want mice in our home because we’re repulsed on the idea of sharing a home with a rodent. With the damages a rat can make, our feelings about the rat is just the surface of the problem. If your problem persists after your own attempts to elinate the problem, don’t hesitate to call an exterminator. After the work has bee completed it’s not a bad idea to also call an electrician to come inspect the home for dangerous wiring. This way you’re sure the entire problem is solved completely.

Resource: low-insurance.org/top/the-risk-of-a-rodent/

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