How To Keep Rats And Mice Out Of Your Warehouse

Is it possible to maintain a rodent-free warehouse? While the task might seem impossible, you can’t let your warehouse turn into a resort where rodents check in and make themselves at home. Thankfully, there are some methods that you can use to keep your facilities as rodent free as possible.

Today’s business world relies on warehouses to keep inventory. The size of the building doesn’t matter, as anything with pallets and tall metal racks can be considered a warehouse. These facilities keep goods that will be shipped to various retailers around the country, which includes food and other merchandise.

1. Watch for Pallet Mice

It’s not enough of an issue that mice can wander in from the outside, but you can bring them in on the inventory you receive. Mice colonies can live on a pallet, especially if there’s food in it. Be especially careful of any seed or grain products, as these have the highest chances of such an occurrence. Infested pallets are a big problem in transporting goods. Any facility that ships your products with such issues should be notified so they can eliminate the problem and keep rats and mice out of their supply chain.

2. Reduce The Attraction

You might not turn on your porch light on muggy evenings since it will attract every bug in the neighborhood. Bugs, insects, and vermin alike all have things that lure them to your building. An essential step to keep rats and mice out is to ensure that you lower the temptation.

Here are some things that are attractive to rodents:

• Not properly emptying trash or dumpsters promptly
• Piles of debris scattered throughout the facility
• Stacks of pallets or other rubbish that’s not being utilized
• Lackluster drainage within the building
• Allow spilled food items to go days without cleanup

These are just a few things that increase the likelihood of an infestation and can easily happen in a warehouse full of people. The more rodents around your area, the greater the chances of such an issue. So if you have a cornfield across the street and a creek behind you, you must take proper steps to control what you can to keep your building out of harm’s way.

3. Seal the Building

The best way to keep rats and mice out is to seal off their entry points. This is a big job, especially if your facility is on the larger side, but it must be done. Any opening larger than one-quarter of an inch must be closed off or sealed. It’s easy to overlook these small openings or ignore them thinking they’re not big enough to cause a problem.

One common issue is the weather stripping at the bottom of the doors. It’s easy for these to become worn and stop providing an adequate seal. Check the bathrooms and kitchen areas around plumbing, as this is always a hotspot of activity. Walk the building from the inside and out, and identify any areas that can be a potential problem. Remember, if a rodent can get in through this space, so can roaches, spiders, or other insects.

4. Use Defensive Measures at the Fence Line

You may do everything right in the warehouse, but the outside might still be attractive to mice. It would help if you also reduced the attractions outside to prevent an inside problem. If places like grain or corn fields are adjacent to your property, it may seem like you’re fighting a losing battle. The ample ability to find food is something you can’t control, so you need to fight things within your power to keep rats and mice out of your property.

Using rodent control devices on the outside can help you to monitor the issue. These devices can also help reduce the number of rats and mice that can make it inside. We recommend you start your control efforts at the property or fence lines, whichever is closer. You want to intercept the possibility of rodents coming into the warehouse.

Tamper-resistant bait stations are excellent to place near the fence lines around your property. If the bait is being eaten, you know you have an issue. If you detect activity that needs to be controlled, then using snap traps or other methods to capture the mice can help to reduce the numbers and keep them on the outside. However, it might seem like a dream to have a rodent-free facility, but doing things like this can help keep rats and mice out.

5. Stop Them at Their Entry Points

We know that rodents enter frequently through the overhead doors. So, if you want to capture them as soon as they enter your building, it’s best to keep traps in this location. Why not get them before they have time to get into your food supply?

Remember, they come into your facility hungry and looking for food. A mouse will have no problem finding a delicious treat as soon as they enter. If you can stop even a tiny fraction from getting too far into the building, you can prevent them from multiplying and becoming an infestation inside your warehouse.

6. Use Rodent Control Devices

You may keep your building spotless, monitor the grounds, put up weatherstripping, and seal gaps, but rodents may still elude all your defenses. The next best thing to do is to use control gadgets. You can choose from many different methods and varieties on the market.

The most common are snap or glue traps, which can be helpful. Catch traps are other valuable tools that allure the rodent into a box and allow you to avoid dealing with snap traps that can leave a mess. You might catch a mouse with these products due to their curiosity, but the rat will usually avoid such things as they’re cautious. However, it’s easier to use traps to keep rats and mice out if you know the most commonly traveled pathways. They have poor eyesight and rely on memorized trails. If the problem cannot be resolved with preventative measures, it’s time to get professional help from Kapture Pest Control.

7. Analyze Past Activity

The best predictor of future issues is to look at the past. It’s essential to keep data on such matters, especially if you have an expensive inventory to consider. By keeping a chart of certain timeframes, foods, or situations that cause an increase in rodent activity, you can use this information to be more proactive.

For instance, one of our commercial clients has a large cornfield in front of the warehouse. They also have miles of crops all down the road. All these things are beyond their control. However, using the data, they found that when the fields are cut down in September, their activity increases exponentially.

Rodents feed in these fields during the growing season, but they scrounge for nourishment when the areas are cut down. Learning little habits like this can help you be more proactive when you’re at war with nature to keep rats and mice out.

Why Mice Are a Bigger Concern Than Rats

You might be surprised that mice threaten your facilities more than rats. Their smaller size allows them to maneuver through the smallest spaces to get in and out of your warehouse without being noticed. Rats can get into small areas too, but they’re significantly larger than a mouse, which gives them a disadvantage.

Mice also reproduce much quicker than rats, so the high reproduction rates allow their population and frequency of infestation to increase. Mice in your city and across the country outnumber rats, so it’s only natural that you’re more apt to have a run-in with them versus the rat. A mouse will eat different things than a rat, and they don’t need water to survive. Rats, on the other hand, require water and are pickier about what they eat. Most warehouses aren’t in the middle of town; they go to the outskirts where there’s room to build and expand.

There may be woods, fields, rivers, creeks, and other areas for rodents to run wild near your facility. Corn and other vegetation draw such critters, as do the wide-open fields and access to water, so it’s reasonable that you could have a problem with these pests year-round. The degree of favorable surroundings near your building increases the risk of an invasion and the challenge to keep rats and mice out of your warehouse becomes more difficult.

A Rodent Pest Control Plan is Essential

Keeping rats and mice out of your warehouse might be difficult, but it’s not rocket science. You must use persistence in your methods and add a touch of creativity to outsmart these vermin. It helps if you use numerous regulation methods to keep things under control.

Once you have an infestation in your facility, it will not go away overnight. You’ll need to be more proactive and always stay one step ahead in order to keep rats and mice out. If you need help devising a plan or eradicating an infestation, Kapture Pest Control wants to help.

At Kapture, we can work with you to create a plan and take immediate action to keep rats and mice out of your warehouse. Having knowledgeable pest control professionals by your side makes all the difference. Every box, bag, or pallet destroyed by rodent invasions costs you money. Don’t delay; call Kapture Pest Control for a pest control plan today.