RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

It is amazing when you really analyze what mice can do once inside your home. Granted we in the pest management industry see things differently than the general public, its called “pest control eyes.” It is more than eyes, it’s a smell, a sound, a feeling, a sort of 6th sense that we are equipped with.

Mice will visit food sources and preferred routes around your house 200-300 times per night! Mice have lanolin on their fur, it is an oily substance that enables them to squeeze into tight cracks and crevices with ease. In doing this they create rub marks on their frequently travelled paths. This looks exactly like the dirty smears you would find around a light switch that is used often my various people. In the attached picture you will see the hole the mice made in this homeowners insulation in their basement with the rub marks leading into it. This person had a sizable mouse issue that they tried to treat on their own and obviously failed miserably. No worries, EHS to the rescue!!!

Mark Tremblay ,
Service Specialist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

One of the first things I was taught when I first became a “PMP” (Pest Management Professional) back in the 70’s was to always look up! Come to think of it, we were “Exterminators” back then.

In many situations this holds true for keeping rodents out of your home.

Mice are excellent climbers and our native mice (White-Footed and Deer Mice) are exceptional climbers. I remember camping once and I woke up at 1:30AM to attend to some business. As I exited the camper with my trusty flashlight (PMP’s always carry quality flashlights) I observed a White-Footed mouse climb the truck of a large Eastern Hemlock onto a large branch and disappear into the dark woods!

If you want complete mouse proofing, seal everything larger than 1/4” all the way up to and including the gutter line. Our company has always struggled to be competitive in offering this service to our clients due to the cost of enormous amount of labor and it’s tedious nature. We do offer it though if anyone is interested in it.

John Stellberger
President - Environmental Health Services, Inc.

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

OK, this is really gross BUT very real! No matter if you are a store selling food or you have food in your home if you have mice they will find it!

They will defecate all over food and food handling surfaces! They can easily transmit diseases to you by contaminating the food we eat. If you think having a few mice is not a big deal then think again!

It is a very big deal and you need a professional company like EHS to solve the problem.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Alcoholic Mice Live to Drink

A new line of mice, bred to prefer alcohol over all other beverages, is expected to offer insight into the role genetics and lifestyle play in alcoholism. The mice drink more alcohol than other animal models and consume it in a fashion similar to humans: choosing alcohol over other options and binge drinking.

A study published in the journal Addiction Biology reports the mice reach blood-alcohol levels of more than 260 mg/dl of alcohol daily—over three times the equivalent of the human legal driving limit and the approximate consumption level that the severest human alcoholics attain.

“The free-choice drinking demonstrated by the new mouse line provides a unique opportunity to study the excessive intake that often occurs in alcohol-dependent individuals and to explore the predisposing factors for excessive consumption, as well as the development of physiological, behavioral and toxicological outcomes following alcohol exposure,” says senior author Nicholas Grahame, a biopsychologist specializing in alcoholism at Indiana University.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, an estimated 17.6 million Americans abuse alcohol or are alcohol dependent. Alcohol abuse and alcoholism can be treated but cannot be cured.

Mice share 80 percent of their genes with humans, so they are an excellent model to study alcoholism, a disease with a strong genetic component. The risk of developing alcoholism is known to be influenced by lifestyle. Animal models allow researchers to employ methods that they are unable to use in humans.

“This line of high-alcohol-seeking mice should be able to give us a better understanding of the basic brain mechanism involved in alcohol consumption as well as greater insight into the toxic effects on the brain, with the goal of developing therapies,” says Grahame, whose research focuses on behavioral genetics and behavioral pharmacology.

As with humans, the mice become intoxicated when the pace of alcohol consumption is faster than the liver can eliminate it. Typically it takes six or seven hours of continuous alcohol drinking for the new strain of mice to reach the highest levels of intoxication.

Doctoral candidate Liana M. Matson is a co-author of the study. She has conducted research focusing on when the mice drink and determined that they are nocturnal drinkers. This knowledge enabled the mice’s blood-alcohol levels to be tested when at their highest level.

Undergraduate School of Science students Amy Buckingham and Nick Villalta assisted in the research by measuring intake and blood-alcohol levels in the new strain of high-alcohol-seeking mice. In a related study, they analyzed how drunk the mice became by testing how the animals performed on a balance beam.

The research was funded by NIAAA and the School of Science at IUPUI.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Mouse Virus Kills Montauk Man

A task as simple as vacuuming out the basement after a flood may have cost a Montauk man his life.

Chiropractor David Hartstein, 35, died last week from a rare lung infection blamed on contamination from infected mice and rodents.

According to public health professionals, humans can become infected by inhaling microscopic particles of diseased rodent droppings, urine or saliva.

Hartstein's death from Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome has shocked neighbors who saw him alive and seeing patients as recently as last Thursday.

"I was supposed to see him again Saturday," said Charles Flynn, who told NBC New York he still couldn't believe it.

Hantavirus is rare and sporadic. This case marks only the second confirmed and deadly incidence in New York state in the last 15 years.

Health officials have said they believe this case is isolated, but have also urged Suffolk County residents to take precautions against mice and rodent infestations in their homes.

Among the recommendations: store food in closed containers and seal tiny holes and spaces in floors, walls and under doors.

Symptoms of contamination may not manifest for up to five weeks. Physical signs include high fever, muscle pain, coughing and headaches. Respiratory problems may worsen after a few days and can prove fatal.

"It is devastating," said Geeta Jirham, one of Hartstein's neighbors.

Health officials have advised against contact with rodent droppings or urine. Any cleanup should be done with rubber gloves and a solution of detergent and bleach, and the debris deposited in a double-sealed plastic bag for disposal.

Source: Online NewsPress

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

The Smell of Danger: Rodent Olfaction and the Chemistry of Instinct

The mechanics of instinctive behavior are mysterious. Even something as simple as the question of how a mouse can use its powerful sense of smell to detect and evade predators, including species it has never met before, has been almost totally unknown at the molecular level until now.

David Ferrero and Stephen Liberles, neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School, have discovered a single compound found in high concentrations in the urine of carnivores that triggers an instinctual avoidance response in mice and rats. This is the first time that scientists have identified a chemical tag that would let rodents sense carnivores in general from a safe distance. Mice have about 1200 kinds of odor receptors. In comparison, humans —who rely more on vision than smell— have about 350 odor receptors.

According to Liberles, "In humans, the parts of the brain that deal with likes and dislikes go awry in many diseases, like drug addiction, and predator odor responses have been used to model stress and anxiety disorders. Going from chemicals to receptors to neural circuits to behaviors is a Holy Grail of neuroscience."

SOURCE = PSYORG.COM

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

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Mice are about as adaptable as any animal on the planet! I have seen mice eat things that humans would not even remotely consider tasting let alone eat! Ketchup is certainly an edible food but not exactly a meal…..except for mice. The attached image shows that mice completely cleaned out an individual packet of ketchup. Just this little amount of food is enough to support a mouse infestation.

This packet was found in a soon to open restaurant. Needless to say they needed EHS to protect the facility and their reputation before they even opened their doors. They put their trust in EHS and we take it seriously!

Pat Hagan
Commercial Business Development Manager

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

YOUR MUST TRAIN YOURSELF TO SEE WHAT OTHERS OVERLOOK ~ Sherlock Holmes

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This is a very important saying here at EHS and it is so fitting! Most people do not have the keen senses that pest control professionals have. We walk into an area and it is like we have super hero skills or an extra sense.

It is pretty cool! Most of the public will never ever observe what us pest management professionals see. I was on a bedbug inspection when I observed the ceiling light fixture loaded with mouse droppings. Needless to say we needed to control the mice plus bedbugs.

Alex Johnson
Service Specialist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

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So what are you looking at??? This is the unofficial-official “Mice Trap Gauntlet”

So the story goes...... a homeowner in Rhode Island has been battling mice for over a year. They tried several methods of “do it yourself” pest control and failed miserably. The mice were getting worse. They called EHS to solve the long-standing mice issue. When I get there I see this VERY elaborate contraption in the kitchen. The homeowner explained to me the mouse trap that was made up of 13 mouse traps.

The goal of the trap is to kill the mice as they investigate the food (peanut butter) but if they survive the 1st wave of traps then they go up the “ramp of death”.

They then try to get to the peanut butter smeared on the soda bottle, it then spins causing them to fall into the pit where additional traps wait for them. According to the homeowner it took two hours to create. They realized they could spend their time on better things plus all their efforts & they still had mice! There was a happy ending, EHS eliminated the mouse issue.

Tim Lynch
Service Specialist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

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What the picture shows is pretty disgraceful. It is a bait station that is used to hold rodenticide. It was in a garage at a home and it was a not tamper-resistant bait station, it was a cheap/inexpensive one. Worse yet is it had no company or rodenticide information on the station! By law we must use a tamper resistant bait station in areas where it is accessible to non-target organisms (children and pets). You must also, by law, have contact information on the station plus what material is being used. Unfortunately too many companies in our industry use these stations. Not EHS! No matter what the situation we always use tamper-resistant stations!

What makes this picture even more disturbing is that they had a company come in several times per year to “control” mice. They called us because they still had mice. The stations they put out were completely emptied out by mice. You can see the hundreds of mice fecal droppings, signs that it was very active with mice. The previous company did not have nearly enough stations in place to quell the infestation. I can not understand how companies can operate like this?!

We sealed up all the entry points, installed a few door sweeps, and put a program in place to eliminate the mice. The customer raved about the results after a few weeks! It’s really not that hard, all you need to do is know what you are doing plus care about solving the issue.

Mark Tremblay
Service Specialist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA