Getting Your Murray Home Ready for Winter Pests: A November Checklist
Published Updated
By John Stopka, Co-Founder & CEO · Reviewed by John Stopka
Once the first real cold snap rolls through Calloway County, our phones start ringing with the same few calls. Scratching in the ceiling at night. Droppings in the bottom kitchen drawer. A big spider sitting in the bathtub that wasn't there in August. None of it is a coincidence. When the nights drop into the 30s, everything living around your house starts looking for a warmer place to spend the winter, and your house is the warmest thing on the block.
The good news is that November is a great month to get ahead of it. Most of what keeps pests out over the winter is stuff you can do yourself in an afternoon or two. Here's the checklist we'd walk through on our own homes in Murray, Hazel, Benton or Mayfield.
1. Walk the outside of the house at ground level
Start outside, and start low. Get down to about knee height and walk the whole foundation slowly. You're looking for gaps where pipes, wires and the AC line go into the house, cracks in the foundation, missing mortar, and the corners of garage doors where the rubber seal has worn down.
A mouse can fit through a gap about the width of a pencil, so if a hole looks too small to matter, it probably isn't. Steel wool packed in tight and covered with caulk works well for small holes. For bigger openings, hardware cloth (the stiff metal mesh you can find at any hardware store in Murray) holds up better than foam by itself, because mice will chew right through foam.
2. Fix the garage door seal
The garage is the front door for a lot of the mice we see around here. If you can see daylight under the door when it's closed, so can a mouse. A new bottom seal doesn't cost much and takes about 20 minutes to put on. While you're out there, look at the side seals too, since those usually wear out at the corners first.
3. Check the door sweeps and weatherstripping
Same idea on your outside doors. Slide a sheet of paper under the closed door. If it goes through easy, add a door sweep. Spiders, crickets and roaches will walk right in through that gap once it gets cold.
4. Clean up the yard near the house
Mice and spiders love cover. Firewood stacked against the house, leaf piles along the foundation, shrubs touching the siding and stuff stored along an outside wall all give pests a place to hide right up against your walls. Keep firewood about 20 feet from the house and up off the ground if you can, rake leaves away from the foundation, and trim shrubs back so there's a little air between them and the siding.
5. Take a look in the attic and crawl space
Grab a flashlight and pop your head up into the attic. You're looking for droppings along the edges, chewed insulation, little tunnels in blown-in insulation, or shredded paper and fabric balled up in a corner. Do the same thing in the crawl space if you have one. A lot of the older homes near Murray State and around downtown Mayfield have crawl spaces with gaps around the access door and vents that are easy to miss.
If the crawl space is damp, that's worth dealing with too. Moisture pulls in camel crickets, silverfish and roaches, and it makes the space a lot more comfortable for everything else.
6. Store food like you're expecting company
Inside, the easiest win is food. Move cereal, pet food, birdseed and anything in a paper bag into hard plastic or glass containers with tight lids. Wipe up the crumbs under the toaster and around the stove. Don't leave the dog's bowl full overnight. Mice will go a long way for an easy meal, and once they find one, they keep coming back to it.
7. Cut down on clutter in storage spaces
Boxes sitting on the floor of a basement, closet or garage are perfect hiding spots for mice and brown recluse spiders. Move what you can onto shelves, swap cardboard boxes for plastic bins with lids, and leave a little gap between your stored stuff and the walls so you can actually see along the baseboards.
8. Put out a few traps as an early warning
Even if you haven't seen anything yet, set a couple of snap traps in the garage, the basement and under the kitchen sink. Push them flush against the wall, since mice like to run along edges. Check them every couple of days. If you catch something, you know there's a gap somewhere. If you keep catching mice week after week, that's a sign there's more going on than one stray that wandered in.
When it's more than a weekend project
A lot of this is easy to handle on your own, and plenty of folks in Calloway and Graves County do it every fall. But if you're finding droppings in more than one room, hearing noises in the walls at night, or you've sealed everything you can find and the mice keep showing up anyway, it's usually time to have someone take a look.
Every rodent job we do starts with a free inspection. One of our techs will walk the outside and inside of your home, show you where the mice are getting in and where they're spending their time, and talk through what it'll take to fix it. No pressure either way.
We work all over the Murray area, including Hazel, Kirksey, Almo, Dexter, Benton and Mayfield, and up to Paducah. We're out in Hopkinsville and Bowling Green too.
If you've got questions about something you're seeing, or you'd like to set up that free rodent inspection, call or text 270-564-8077.
When to call a professional
At Liberty Pest Control, all rodent problems start with a free inspection. More on how we handle mice is on our rodent control page and our mice and rats page, and our Murray pest control page covers the Murray area.
Keep reading: How to Get Rid of Mice: A Guide for Western Kentucky, DIY Mouse Traps That Work, Signs You Need a Pro for Rodents, Brown Recluse Spiders in Kentucky and Crawl Space Moisture Problems Are Pest Problems.
Common questions
How small a gap can a mouse fit through?
A mouse can fit through a gap about the width of a pencil, so if a hole looks too small to matter, it probably isn't.
What should I look for in the attic and crawl space?
Droppings along the edges, chewed insulation, little tunnels in blown-in insulation, or shredded paper and fabric balled up in a corner.
When is it time to call a pro?
If you're finding droppings in more than one room, hearing noises in the walls at night, or you've sealed everything you can find and the mice keep showing up anyway, it's usually time to have someone take a look. Every rodent job we do starts with a free inspection.
Sources
- University of Kentucky Entomology. Michael F. Potter. "How to Pest-Proof Your Home" (ENTFACT-641). https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef641 (opens in a new tab)
- University of Kentucky Entomology. Michael F. Potter. "Control of Mice" (ENTFACT-617). https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef617 (opens in a new tab)