Mice prefer living in homes and outbuildings rather than at yards, fields, or forests. They like to live near people who likely give them protection from predators and easy access to water and foods. Dr Thomas Cucchi of Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, believe that mice live alongside humans for 15,000 years, while other experts believe they exist around 75 million years ago.
Inside the homes, rodents live in small spaces and get in through tiny gaps in foundations, around doorways, garages, attics, wall voids, under cabinets, and or inside crawl spaces. Once inside, they build nests in hidden areas near food sources. To build their habitats perfect, mice gnaw on wires and woods.
In kitchens and pantries, mice contaminate the surface they touch and the food they consume. They chew on plastics and packaging to get into stored goods, polluting whatever they find with bacteria, fur, and droppings. Their waste can spread infectious pathogens and causes odors as well as stains. Mice carry diseases that transfer to humans, namely hantavirus—when dust particles inhaled while cleaning up or when coming up into direct contact with droppings and urine, salmonellosis—a stomach upset in humans that is caused by feces or urine, leptospirosis—a disease leads to kidney damage and liver failure that is caused by urine, LCM—a condition can lead anything from a fever and headache to brain damage that is caused from direct contact with waste or inhaling waste tainted dust.
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