4 Things that will Attract Rodents to your Home

The sense of smell is an immensely powerful thing.  Smells can set off a wide range of emotions from the sensual to the outright frightening.  A scent can trigger a memory or alert you to danger.  Some restaurants and grocery stores use machines to create smells of different foods to attract people as they walk by.  Without your sense of smell, life would be incredibly dull.

For some animals, their sense of smell is their most important sense.  When it comes to rodents, it is their sense of smell that will bring them to your home.  Unlike the smell machines that create an aroma of freshly cooked steak seasoned to perfection, the smells that attract rodents are far less appetizing to humans.  To a rodent, the smell of decaying food and garbage is a smorgasbord of epic proportions.

What smells are Rodents really attracted to?

Barbecue grills

We love a good barbecue.  There is nothing like steak, chicken, or veggies cooked on a grill.  However, when you use a grill, all of the fat and grease that drips off the food settles into the grill's bottom or in a tray designed to catch the fat and grease.  If your grill is not cleaned regularly, that fat, grease, and smell of past feasts are going to get caught in the breeze and advertise rodents far and wide that dinner is still being served.

Poorly Covered Garbage Containers

As a homeowner, there are things that make you happy that others might not consider and may even laugh at your excitement.  The feeling of having new garbage cans is one of those things that people who do not own a home might not fully understand.  The smell of new plastic, a cover that fits perfectly, and if you are so inclined, the act of stenciling your home address on the can and cover just in case, a wind blows can down the street.  Seriously, who hasn't this happened to?

However, that excitedly fades, and the new garbage can becomes part of the house.  They get banged around, treated roughly, and thrown down.  Covers get dropped into the street and run over by a car, and you have to reform the lid.  The problem is that now it doesn't fit as snug as when it was new.  Over time, this poorly sealing cover and holes in the plastic let the smell of garbage get into the air.  While you put "clean garbage cans" on your list of things to do, the smell of the trash gets into the air and acts as a beacon leading directly to your home.  Rodents don't need to see the address stenciled on the side to know where the garbage-goodness is.

Untended Fruit and Vegetable Garden

Nothing beats freshly grown fruits and vegetables.  For many people, their gardens are a matter of pride.  Some people invite their neighbors over and puff up their chests with the pride of a well-tended and prosperous garden.  Anyone who plants a garden knows that not everything that grows is perfect, and for some things (We're looking at you, fig tree), you have a very short window where the bounty goes from perfectly ripe to rotten.  Many people will pick the good stuff and leave the rest.  The fruit or vegetables quickly decompose and become something that rodents are going to flock to.

For people who do composting, you also know that if you do not treat the post bin or pile properly, the stink can be quite strong.  It is an area that needs to be taken care of.

Pet Waste

People who have any sort of property or backyard and have a dog or other pet as a member of their family know that you must step carefully when you step foot in your yard.  Even the most cautious pet-parent sometimes misses the presents left by a pet who has done their business in the grass.

Sometimes it is found by an unwatched step, and sometimes the nose picks it up, and you are then on the mad search for the source of that vile stench.  Regardless of the old saying about flies, which pet waste will also attract, rodents also smell it and know that there is some good stuff in that yard.  Yum.

The observant reader might think that these are outdoor issues and wonder what that has to do with having rodents in the home.

Once rodents are in the area and have a steady supply of food, they will not look to leave any time soon.  Once they are on your property, they will look for other necessities, such as warmth, and a place to hide, and a place to reproduce.  When you have things like garbage, pet waste, and barbecue odors, you have rodents who are now scurrying around, and they will then find the tree that might be a little too close to your home or the shingle that is pulled away from the side of the house.  They will find the broken screen on the window or the space between the garage door and frame caused by your home settling over time.

As a homeowner, you might not be aware of these issues or might not think about them. A problem such as a settling home is one that you might not be able to fix, but the space left between the door and frame is an issue that needs to be addressed.  Much like the chore of cleaning the garbage cans, we all have a long list of things that need to be done, however, we might not prioritize these things properly and right now even know that these issues are leaving your home vulnerable to being invaded by rodents, which leads to more serious issues than cleaning your garbage cans.

Call Pinnacle Pest Control.  Our Rodent Exclusion Services will find the issues you might not be aware of, and our Rodent Control and Integrated Pest Management services will keep your family safe.