Mice in bread drawer in Spring Lake, NJ

Recently, I was sent to a home in Spring Lake, NJ, to resolve a mouse issue in the kitchen. This was an older home that had an old-fashioned bread drawer (breadbox) with a tin cover. For those of us who have been around awhile, they were once commonly found in kitchens. Now, with breads being made commercially with food preservatives and wrapped in plastic, we rarely see them installed in modern kitchens. 

According to the homeowner, the bread drawer cover had rusted away, giving mice easy access to the bread. There were holes chewed through the dread bag and mouse droppings in the drawer. Any time there is a mice infestation in the kitchen, there is a risk of food contamination from their waste, and it is important to resolve this health hazard quickly. I inspected the other parts of the kitchen cabinet, but mouse activity was limited to the bread drawer. Apparently, with a ready and accessible supply of food in that drawer, there was no need for them to forage elsewhere. 

Usually, rodents enter a home around the foundation.They find gaps and cracks, often around gas or water pipes entering the home where the sealant has deteriorated. Once inside the basement or crawl space, the wall run along the sill plate (the wood closest to the ground on the top of the foundation walls) until they find a way to gain access to the living spaces of the home up above. Here, I found a gap around the sink drain under the cover plate (escutcheon plate), the base plate disc around water pipe at the wall penetration. These plates are visible around faucets and tub or shower fixtures, but plumbers also use them around sink drains. I sealed the gap with a chew-proof copper mesh. I also found mouse droppings on a ceiling tile.

I set up mouse bait stations under the kitchen sink as well as several points on the basement sill plate where there were signs on rodent activity. I scheduled a two-week follow-up inspection in two weeks to re-inspect and determine additional treatments as needed to get this mouse problem resolved.