Mice are common household pests. The critters can enter properties through small holes and cracks. The critters also enter properties through chimneys. It’s important to prevent mice before it’s too late. Inspect your property for entry points and have a professional company like Master Caps inspect your chimney to make sure it is properly sealed.
Mice are both nuisance and hazardous critters. They constitute a nuisance in that they can cause extensive structural destruction. Mice infestations can cause homeowners to incur huge extermination costs. They can also spread serious diseases.
This article focuses on the health risk that mice infestations pose. We highlight the diseases that mice spread. Read on and click here to learn more.
Hantavirus
Hantavirus is a potentially fatal viral disease that is spread through mouse feces, urine, and saliva. The white-footed deer mouse is particularly responsible for the spread of hantavirus. Persons living in areas with an active mouse infestation are bound to contract the disease.
Humans contract hantavirus through direct contact with droppings, saliva, and urine. Consumption of contaminated food can also lead to the disease. Hantavirus presents with different symptoms at the early and late stages.
The early symptoms of hantavirus include fatigue, muscle aches, and fever. Other symptoms of this viral disease include chills, fever, abdominal problems, and headaches.
Rat-bite fever
Mice spread rat-bite fever to humans through contaminated food and water. The causative agent of the disease is in a mouse’s urine and droppings. The disease is potentially fatal and presents with serious symptoms such as headaches, fever, rash, vomiting, and muscle pain.
The symptoms of rat-bite fever typically develop within a week. Complications could result from rat-bite fever too and lead to death. Since mice spread lethal diseases, it’s vital that you control a mouse infestation before it spreads. Learn more about mice control at mousecontrol.org.
Salmonellosis
This is a type of food poisoning that could result from a mouse infestation. This mouse disease is spread through contaminated food and water. The critters release the pathogens in their feces and urine that can contaminate water and food.
Common symptoms of this mouse disease include abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fever. Salmonellosis has been described as a common disease in the U.S., with about 40,000 cases yearly.
Leptospirosis
Mice are responsible for the spread of leptospirosis. The critters spread this disease through direct contact with the droppings and urine of the critters. The infective agents could also be inhaled into the mucous membranes of the nose.
The symptoms of leptospirosis include headache, vomiting, high fever, chills, and muscle aches. The disease can occur in its mild form. Leptospirosis can also present in a severe form, and cause kidney and liver failure as well as meningitis.
Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM)
This disease is spread through direct contact with biological matter such as droppings and urine. Although it is not a fatal disease, LCM causes serious symptoms such as chest pain, coughing, and joint pain. Testicular pain and sore throat are other symptoms of LCM.
The diseases highlighted above are those that mice carry directly. They carry the causative agents of these diseases and can spread them through their feces and urine. A mouse infestation in your home can threaten your health because of the pathogens that the critters carry.
Mice are also involved in the spread of diseases that they carry externally. For example, ticks, which can be externally attached to rodents spread different diseases. Thus, mice are responsible for the indirect spread of the diseases that ticks spread.
These diseases include Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesiosis, relapsing fever, and Lyme disease. These diseases typically result from the bite of the ticks. These diseases can present with serious symptoms such as chills, fever, and skin lesions.
Mouse infestations are serious issues that should be managed effectively. The critters directly or indirectly spread different diseases, including potentially fatal diseases.
Since mice are both nuisance and hazardous critters, you should work towards making your home and property inaccessible to the critters.
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