Homeowners have a common misconception about mice: They infest people’s homes during the winter and then disappear during the hot season. This is not entirely true. 

Mice in the summer have the natural tendency to forage for seeds and other food out in the fields and yards. But if they find a viable food source in or near your house, they will build a nest inside your home and stick around. 

When the cold season comes, they leave their summer burrows and flock to warmer places to survive. With adequate heating, food and water, our homes become a prime target. 

The attic is a favorite place for mice to seek refuge in. But as soon as the weather starts to get warmer, attics can become hot and humid, so they transfer to cooler areas in the house like cabinets and the basement. 

Summer is the Perfect Time to Mice-Proof Your Home

Because mice tend to be outside during the summer, it’s the perfect time to begin implementing preventative measures. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends four basic strategies to control rodents, including mice. 

Eliminate food sources. Mice have voracious appetites, eating around 15 to 20 times per day. They’ll typically consume 3 grams of food daily and can subsist on crumbs. So it’s important to maintain a clean home and practice solid waste management, i.e., proper storage, collection and disposal, to keep these pests at bay.

Remove breeding and nesting places. Being territorial creatures, mice will typically search for food no more than 10 to 50 feet from their nest. So if their food source is in or near your house, this means removing rubbish, including firewood and excess lumber, near your home. You should store these and similar materials 18 inches off the ground because mice can jump as high as 12 inches. 

It also helps to leave some space, maybe a couple of feet, between your house and any vegetation, where mice can hide. Remember: A clean yard keeps the mice away.

Mice-proof your home. Mice have small slender bodies that can squeeze through openings slightly more than ¼ inch (6 mm) in diameter. So, it’s important to cover any cracks, holes and openings in doors, windows, gratings and walls. Do an annual perimeter check in late summer or early fall just to make sure you didn’t miss a gap.

Use a mouse trap. You can use either live traps or kill traps, but ensure to place them near runways and burrows and along walls. For maximum effectiveness, monitor the traps and remove any mice it might catch. Otherwise, the rodents may avoid the traps altogether.

Prepare Your Home for the Winter Mice Invasion

These annoying pests can be persistent in invading your home, so consider getting the help of pest control experts. If you have mice in the summer, call the pest control professionals at On The Fly Pest Solutions. Their fully licensed and trained team will take care of the problem in a safe and sustainable manner.

Raccoons are notorious wildlife pests. They break into your yard or house and wreak havoc on your property. Typically coming out at night, they sometimes venture out of their dens in the daytime searching for food. 

You’ve probably tried different ways to keep them off your premises but to no avail. They’re smart creatures after all, with a series of studies in the mid- to late 20th century showing raccoons can solve problems and remember the solutions up to 3 years later.

So how do you outwit these intelligent creatures? The first step is getting to know them. 

Raccoon Habitat and Diet

Raccoons are native to North America, and in the U.S. can be found almost everywhere, except in parts of the Rocky Mountains and southwestern states. They are adaptable and live in a wide range of habitats—from mountains  and forests to farms and cities. However, since the first urban sighting in Cincinnati in the 1920s, they have become more prevalent in suburban areas than rural areas due to the abundance of food and shelter, lack of predators and restrictions in hunting and trapping.

A raccoon’s diet is also adaptable. Being opportunistic feeders, they’ll munch on anything from nuts and fruits to insects, reptiles, fish, birds and eggs—even worms, bird seed, pet food and garbage. 

You’ll likely catch raccoons “washing” their food, but they’re actually feeling it with their very sensitive fingers, removing unwanted parts in the process. (Raccoons have poor eyesight but have well-developed sensory nerves at the bottom of their feet.)

Raccoon Damages and Diseases

A threat to a homeowner’s peace and wellbeing, raccoons leave telltale signs, so depending on where you live, look out for these common indicators that a raccoon has been in your premises.

• Damage to shingles, walls, insulation, electrical wiring or other parts of your house or building
• Droppings, urine stains or a nest made from built-up materials
• Dispersed thrash and/or raided and tipped trash bins
• Raccoon paw prints 
• a lot of holes in your lawn or mulch pile
• wrecked garden
• injured or dead chickens or birds, missing or eaten eggs and disturbed nests
• toppled stalks and ripped or half-eaten ears of corn (or other crop)
• empty bird feeders
• devoured pet food

In addition to causing damage, contact with raccoons or their waste also spreads diseases that pose serious health risks to people and their pets. Raccoons are a primary carrier of rabies in the U.S. and are responsible for 60% of the rabies cases in Maryland. In 2018 alone, the Maryland Department of Health recorded 704 rabies cases. They can also transmit parvovirus and canine distemper to domestic dogs, plus roundworm, leptospirosis and Salmonella or E. Coli.

Long-term Raccoon Control and Removal

Because racoons are not only a nuisance but also a potential health hazard, it’s understandable why homeowners are itching to remove these pests from their properties. However, dealing with these nocturnal pests requires proper training, protection and equipment. (If you do this on your own, you could be bitten, scratched or worse, exposed to diseases.)

Your best bet for a long-term solution would be to contact a pest control professional. 

Are raccoons wracking your nerves tonight? Contact On The Fly Pest Solutions so you can sleep soundly again.

           Every summer Baltimore natives are forced to deal with different kinds of pests that the warmer weather brings forth. However one of the biggest, problem making, pests are squirrels! While some may not think of a squirrel as an issue, they can be some of the most innovative and difficult pests to get rid of. Squirrels are responsible for multiple types of issues: from getting stuck in your home, chewing through spots on homes, and disrupting bird feeders. Fear not, below are a few tips and tricks on how to prevent squirrel problems this summer.

Prevent squirrels from getting in your house

           Squirrels are often the most happy when living in trees, however due to the fewer trees available to them, they have adapted and will use anything they can to make their lives as happy as possible with what they have to work with. This leads them straight to your home for shelter.

•        Inspect your home to make for any existing entry points, squirrels san use as their way in, that lead through your walls or toward the attic
•        Repair any holes and entryways you discover, after you’ve made sure there are no squirrels currently using that entrance
•        Spray entries with taste-adversive repellent
•        Seal holes with  ½” or ¼” hardware cloth

Prevent Squirrels from Gaining Easy Access to Attics

           In order to help keep your home squirrel free, you can create measures to keep squirrels from being able to climb a tree to get into your attic. Get rid of the possibility of them being able to climb trees to get into your attic, keeps them out of your home.

•        Wrap the tree in sheet metal to prevent the ability to crawl up the tree
•        Keep the metal 4 feet above the ground and at least 3 feet wide to prevent squirrels jumping over the metal

How to Get Squirrels Out of Your Attic

           Squirrels that stay in your attic for an extended period of time are most likely to be a mother and babies, especially in the summer as this is the time of year that they tend to have their litters. If this is the case there are a few things you can do to get the squirrels out and keep them out.

•        Make sure babies are following the mother on daily outings and then install a one way door trap, allowing them all to leave and not regain access
•        Seal the entrance with ½” or ¼” hardware cloth once they are all gone
•        Soak rags in household cleaning products to place in the attic, the smell will encourage them to leave
•        Shine a light on the nest
•        Play loud music in the attic to drive the squirrels away

Get a Loose Squirrel Out Of the House

           With squirrels so active during the summer months, it is possible that they accidently enter your home. Once this happens, the squirrel will frantically search for a way to escape the unfamiliar environment. In order to help get them out of the home follow these tips:

•        Close all other doors leading to the rest of the house to offer a clear path out
•        Turn lights off and cover windows that are not the one you want to leave the squirrel out of, as they will follow the light out after being left alone
•        Provide something for the squirrel to be able to reach their exit space; Think of a chair to climb or knotted sheets to climb down for a higher level exit
•        Set a live trap batted with peanut butter, leave alone for a few hours, set them free outside

Stop Squirrels from Creating Holes in Your House

           Squirrels tend to chew on the trim of houses, this cam cause issues with the look of the exterior to your house. Once they have caused this damaged it can be difficult to fix and match to the rest of the trim. In order to prevent this from happening:

•        Spray the trim of your home with taste-adversive repellent
•        Make sure to spray a patch test to make sure it does not affect your paint before using it on the entire house

Keep Away from Bird Feeders

           Squirrels hunt out any food source they can, one of the easiest things for them to find and use are bird feeders. Once they discover this source of constant food, they are not likely to go anywhere else in search of food. The best way to keep squirrels away from bird feeders is to keep them from accessing bird feeders as a source of food.

•        Keep feeders away from trees and jumping off points which are easily accessible
•        Use “Anti squirrel” feeders designed so they cannot get to the food itself

During the summer while all kinds of pests are out and about, you can use these tips to make sure one pest you won’t have to deal with are squirrels.

Rodents. You think you know them, but do you really? Or are you holding on to fictitious beliefs rather than facts?

Comprising 40% of mammal species, rodents aren’t just composed of mice and rats; they also include squirrels, guinea pigs, hamsters, gophers, beavers, gerbils, porcupines, and chipmunks. (But since mice and rats are the most common rodent pests, we’ll focus on them in this article.)

Humans have long considered rodents to be pests, and we’re still struggling on how to deal with them today. It can be frustrating to get rid of them, even more so if your solution is based on a myth. So, let’s debunk the most common rodent myths asap!

Here are five myths about rodents that you should eradicate right now:

Myth 1: Cats will take care of your rodent problem.

The truth: Unfortunately, cats aren’t very effective at eliminating rodents, specifically rats. A study funded by the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) found that cats don’t successfully kill and control rat populations. The researchers observed that “less than 1% of cat and rat encounters resulted in a rat being killed; despite stalking behavior being observed 20 times.”

Scientists also found that, indeed, when the cat is away, the mice—in this case, rats—will play. For every cat sighting, the researchers observed, rats were nearly 20% more likely to move toward a shelter. But while the sight of a cat might get rats hiding initially, “the rodents will patiently wait them out and return undeterred once the cats lose interest and leave the scene.”

Myth 2: Rodents love cheese.

The truth: Despite what “Tom and Jerry” and other cartoons might have us believe, mice—and other rodents—aren’t tempted by cheese.

A 2006 study found that a mouse’s diet consists primarily of grains and fruit. So if you’re thinking about what to put in that mousetrap to attract mice, Procter Rodent Control, a family firm which has been producing Britain’s best-selling mousetrap since 1897, suggests peanut butter and chocolate.

Myth 3: Rodents eat anything and everything.

The truth: Sorry, but rodent’s aren’t nature’s living garbage disposal. Like humans, they do have a diet, and it consists of what can be found in their environment.

In a 2018 study, researchers studied the bones of rats and found that those living in the city had “a higher-quality and more stable diet than rural rats did,” while rats in the country ate whatever food they could find—confirming Aesop’s “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” story.

“Rats are really interesting, because their diets are a reflection of foods people leave lying around,” said Eric Guiry, an archaeologist at Trent University in Ontario and lead author of the study. For example, city rats ate a lot more meat than rural rats.

Meanwhile, homeowners might mistake chewed up books, papers, wires, and insulation as getting eaten by mice. But in reality, female mice use these shredded materials to build a nest.

Myth 4: Rodents that ingest poison get dehydrated and go outside to look for water.

The truth: Rodent baits, or rodenticides, can take effect as quickly as two days or up to 10 days, depending on how fast-acting or lethal it is. The poison works by reducing the rodent’s blood-clotting ability, which damages its capillaries and causes internal hemorrhage. So the rodent dies of internal bleeding—not dehydration—but the delay can mean that the rodent can die in its nest, inside your property or outside.

Myth 5: Seeing rodents during the day means you have a rodent infestation.

The truth: While rats and mice are nocturnal, that doesn’t mean they don’t come out during the day. These rodents are just so good at keeping out of sight that you might only notice a mouse or rat scampering in your house or commercial building when there’s already a severe infestation. Telltale signs of rodent infestation include droppings, stale smells, chewed holes in walls or floors, and shredded materials.

Don’t let it come to this!

Now that we’ve debunked myths about rodents, you’re one step closer to getting rid of those pesky rodents more effectively.

Don’t wait for a severe infestation. Contact us to schedule an appointment today.

Animal removal can be tricky at times. Being able to pinpoint the location, identify the source of the noise and remove the animal is one of the harder aspects of wildlife control. Our wildlife experts use the latest in technology to help them.

How On The Fly Pest Solutions humanely removes animals in the Baltimore area.

No, it’s not an oxymoron. Although animal removal and sustainability seem opposite of each other, the two can certainly live together… (see what we did there?)

Man has been battling wild creatures over resources and living space since the beginning of time. And while it’s safe to say that we’ve won that battle, only recently have we begun to realize the consequences of fighting.

Right here in Maryland, we’ve seen the Grey Wolf, American elk, snowshoe hare, and several other species disappear from the wild completely!

Our Sustainable Wildlife Removal Solution

We now understand that we need to work with Mother Nature and focus on more humane methods of animal removal.

Humane animal removal and humane animal control mean that the relocation of animals is made as comfortable as possible for the creature in question.

Here at On the Fly Pest Solutions, we work to ensure that critters can’t make their way back into your solar powered home. As part of our humane animal removal service, we use things like one-way doors and excluders while sealing up points of entry.

These sustainable methods are so effective that we warranty our seal ups for up to two years.

Wild animals are fascinating and necessary for the balance of our ecosystem. But as much as we want to keep these animals within our environment, it’s unrealistic to share our homes with them (for their safety just as much as our own.)

What to do When You Need Wildlife Removal Services

If you’re ever faced with an uninvited guest (of the animal kind, of course), give us a call, and we’d be happy to relocate it back to an appropriate habitat.

Check out some of the creatures we’ve been called to relocate here and find out more about what we do and how we do it!

Watch as our wildlife team begins a flying squirrel removal! Flying Squirrels are actually quite common in Maryland, although they are not often seen due to their nocturnal nature. They get their name from the webbed skin that stretches from their front to their rear legs that enables them to glide distances of up to 200 feet! Their size enables them to fit into holes the size of a dime and, in this case, take refuge in an Owings Mills customer’s attic. Flying squirrels are a colonizing species and will live together in groups of up to 15 members. This creates quite a racket and quite a mess. Our wildlife team found the entry point, trapped the squirrels and sealed up the attic to prevent any future intrusions.

Watch as our wildlife technicians release a groundhog they had caught!