Open Doors in Summer? What Could Come Inside?

After a long, cold and damp winter, the first thing you want to do at the mere hint of a warm day is to throw open the back door and feel as though you are back in touch with the outside.

However, when you do this, you are making it easier for all kinds of things to come in. Since it is likely to be your back door you keep open, you could end up with more than just flies coming in and hassling you. If there are mice nearby, or even rats, you could be unlucky and have one walk inside when you’re not looking. And if you then shut the door…. Well, you can see that it would then be trapped inside.

Of course, few people would be prepared to keep their doors and windows shut during the entire summer. We want to appreciate the outdoors and having our doors and windows open does a grand job of keeping the property nice and cool. But while you can’t prevent a lone field mouse wandering in and taking advantage of a good opportunity to nose around, you can make sure it doesn’t find anything appealing to encourage it to stay.

Use a disinfectant on every surface

Keeping surfaces clean is a must in the kitchen anyway, but there is even more reason to do so if you want to keep mice at bay. If you offer them food, they will come and they will stay. Now you may not imagine a mouse hitting the motherlode by finding your kitchen full of great food sources, but in reality, this could happen. It only takes some crumbs for it to happen too, and that’s it. It could end up being encouraged to stay when all it did was to walk through an enticingly-open door. And if it gets the chance to alert its family, it may well do so.

Make sure you don’t drop crumbs

We all do, of course, but getting into the habit of cleaning them up will help. This is the time of year when you’re likely to have barbecues and al fresco dinners. When you do, make sure no food is dropped on the floor, either inside or outside. If it is, clean it up and make sure it’s binned.

In the end, an open door is a big invitation. While it’s unlikely a mouse will use it, you never know.