Why Mice Move Into Akron Homes Before the First Snow

Mice move into Akron homes in the fall because the cold forces them to. They spend the summer outside in tall grass, garden edges, woodpiles and brush, and when nights start dipping toward freezing, usually some time in October, they go looking for warmth. A house with a furnace, a pantry and a basement full of boxes is the best deal around.

Akron makes the move easy. A lot of the city's homes were built in the 1910s and 1920s and sit on foundations that have shifted through a century of hard winters. Even newer homes in Ellet or Stow have attached garages and utility holes that wear over time. The mice don't need much: a gap about a quarter inch wide will do.

The calendar, more or less

Every year is a little different, but the pattern in Summit County holds up pretty well. Late September and early October bring the first cold nights, and the first mice show up in garages and basements. By November, with the leaves down and the first real freeze behind us, they're in the walls and the kitchen. December through February, when snow sits on the ground and the lake-effect bands roll through, they stay put and breed. A pair that got in in October can be a crowd by March.

That's why September is the best month to work on it. The gaps are easy to see, the weather is decent for outdoor work, and nothing has moved in yet.

A Saturday walk-around before October

Grab a flashlight and walk the outside of the house slowly. Then do the basement and the garage. Look for these:

• Gaps along the sill line where the framing meets the top of the foundation
• Crumbled mortar between foundation stones or blocks
• Holes around the gas line, water line, cable and AC lines
• A dryer vent flap that's missing or stuck open
• Daylight under the garage door or at its bottom corners
• Old coal chutes and basement windows that don't close tight
• Woodpiles, leaf piles or thick shrubs right against the house

What to seal with, and what to skip

Mice chew through foam, caulk, rubber and wood without much trouble. Pack copper or stainless mesh into small gaps and cover it with sealant or mortar. Use hardware cloth or sheet metal for bigger holes. Replace a worn garage door seal and add a door sweep to the door between the garage and the house. Expanding foam on its own is a waste of a Saturday. They'll be through it in a night.

Some gaps are too high, too hidden or too big to handle yourself, and a stone foundation with a lot of open joints may need a mason to repoint it. That's when a rodent exclusion job makes sense. For houses in older neighborhoods like Firestone Park and Goodyear Heights' early streets, the sill line usually needs the most work. In newer places like Ellet and Stow, it's usually the garage.

If you're already hearing them

Set snap traps along the walls where you've seen droppings, with the trigger end touching the wall, and keep them where kids and pets can't reach. Peanut butter works fine as bait. Skip the loose poison from the hardware store. Mice that eat it often die inside the walls, and the smell lasts for weeks. If bait is used at all, it should be in locked, tamper-resistant stations.

Clean droppings wet, not dry. Gloves on, spray with disinfectant or a bleach mix, wait a few minutes, wipe up and bag it. And if you keep catching mice after you've done the sealing, there's a gap you haven't found. That's a good time to have a tech handle mouse control and look at the basement and crawl space with fresh eyes.

See also: Mouse Control, Rodent Exclusion and Sealing, Basement and Crawl Space Rodents