Rodent Control & Extermination in NEPA

How to Identify Mice & Rats — and Why DIY Falls Short

Telling mice from rats changes the treatment plan. House mice are small — two to four inches of body — with large ears and quarter-inch droppings; Norway rats, the common NEPA rat, are heavy-bodied with blunt noses and capsule-shaped droppings up to three-quarters of an inch. Mice nest indoors year-round; rats usually burrow outside and commute in. Droppings, gnaw marks, and greasy rub marks tell our technicians which species you have and where they travel.

Every October, as temperatures fall across the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys, house mice and Norway rats move from fields and outbuildings into homes. Older housing stock in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and the surrounding boroughs — fieldstone foundations, settled sill plates, aging utility penetrations — gives rodents plenty of ways inside. A pair of mice can produce dozens of offspring over a single winter, so a faint scratching in November can become a full infestation by February.

Rodents are more than a nuisance. They contaminate far more food than they eat, their droppings and urine can carry pathogens such as hantavirus and salmonella, and their constant gnawing on electrical wiring is a documented fire risk in older homes. Traps from the hardware store catch individual animals but do nothing about the entry points that let the next generation in.

Effective rodent control is a three-part job: remove the current population, seal the structure, and reduce the conditions attracting them. Our technicians handle all three, from snap-trap programs in finished basements to full perimeter exclusion with chew-proof materials. We also offer recurring monitoring plans for homes near open fields, waterways, and wooded lots — the highest-pressure areas in NEPA.