Mice droppings found in Monmouth Beach, NJ garage

Recently, a homeowner contacted Cowleys after an unexpected discovery during her spring cleaning. If finding mouse droppings were like playing Lotto, this homeowner hit the jackpot! While cleaning out the garage, she found thousands of mouse droppings hidden behind boxes that had not been moved for several years.

 A single adult house mouse can produce 50 to 75 droppings per day. It does not take too much multiplication to understand that mice droppings can easily number in the thousands if the infestation goes undetected.

Here, the homeowner failed to notice the mice in the garage because of the hidden garage area from all the boxes. When you start using garages and basements as full-fledged storage units, you run the risk of undetected pest activity — especially mice and roaches. These pests just love to use boxes and other clutter as their private areas. 

As soon as the homeowner discovered the droppings, she immediately contacted Cowleys. I was dispatched to take care of the problem. Upon arrival, she led me to the garage where the droppings had accumulated. I immediately noticed a hole in the garage wall as well as several other rodent entry points. To resolve the problem, I installed interior and exterior bait stations around the interior and exterior perimeter, respectively. I did not want to seal the entry points quite yet. Why? After the mice take the bait, I want them to have a way out of the garage. Otherwise, this homeowner could find herself with dozens of mouse carcasses in her garage. Perhaps the only thing worse than finding mouse droppings in your home is finding a bunch of rotting, smelly mice carcasses all over! 

I scheduled a two-week follow up where I’ll use a HEPA vacuum to remove the rodent droppings. We want to keep droppings in the area to give the mice a false sense of security where they will feel comfortable returning to the same spots where my bait stations were set up. I informed the homeowner to stay out of the garage. Mouse droppings are a toxic biohazard that can contain many pathogens and parasites. When these droppings are dried out or disturbed, dangerous particles can be released into the air. Cowleys has an experienced contractor crew that will come in later to seal up the holes and make the garage look as good as new. I look forward to my return visit where I’’m confident that there will be a dramatic headway made in resolving this heavy mouse infestation.