Home Invaders

• home journal
• animals

Bats: As far as the animal hit list is concerned, bats may be the most unfairly maligned. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that most human rabies cases are due to bat bites, wildlife experts say the presence of the virus in bats is rare. Still, the threat is not to be taken lightly. Bats can't pry or gnaw their way in, so they exploit unscreened attic and gable vents, as well as small openings where the roof and dormer meet.

The defense: Install a steel window screen over vent openings. Batproof your home in the fall and winter after the bats have left to hibernate.

Rats and mice: No offense, but mice scampering in the kitchen is an indictment of your housekeeping. "A mouse problem links back to a house in disrepair: broken windows, windows and doors that don't shut all the way, dishes not cleaned, trash not put out, or pet food out on a constant basis," Fasoldt says. And if you think rats are restricted to blighted inner-city neighborhoods, guess again. "However many dogs you see in your neighborhood, multiply that by five, and that's your rat population," he says.

The defense: Housekeeping, gap sealing and food removal thwart rats and mice-and don't discount the snap trap. Invented in 1895, it's "simple, cheap and deadly," Fasoldt says. Because mice have poor eyesight, they travel a room's perimeter, so that's where you should put the traps. Deploy at least six traps per room, spaced at 6-ft. intervals. Place some perpendicular to the baseboard, triggers toward the wall. Pair up other traps, back to back and parallel to baseboards with triggers outward. Although rats sometimes fall for a snap trap, Fasoldt recommends poison placed safely away from pets and children.

Woodchucks: These creatures don't want to get into your house, just burrow under your deck. Those tunnels can undermine a post footing that carries the weight of the deck, and they can also act as a conduit for surface water, leading it directly to the foundation wall, causing leaks.

The defense: If you can't keep woodchucks out, send them to the great veggie patch in the sky with a gas cartridge (fine to use under sheds, but not near your house). Drop one of these specially designed smoke bombs into the burrow and seal off the exits-the CO does the rest.

Click to enlarge.

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