Keeping Wild Mice Out Of Your Wine Cellar

Man has been enjoying fine wine for thousands of years — unfortunately, so have mice. A wild mice infestation in your wine cellar can become a serious health hazard, whether you keep a small home wine cellar or run an expansive, commercial wine storage facility.

Mice in your wine cellar can cause a serious health hazard, and some particularly tenacious rodents can even chew through corks, potentially causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. If you spot the signs of a mouse infestation in your cellar, you should call in a professional mice removal service as quickly as possible.

How Can You Tell If Mice Have Infested Your Wine Cellar?

Mice are primarily attracted to wine cellars because they are dark, warm, and easy to hide in. You are unlikely to spot the mice themselves unless you catch them by surprise, but it is relatively easy to spot other signs of a mouse infestation.

The most obvious sign of an infestation is visible gnawing and bite marks on organic materials, such as bottle corks, labels, and untreated timber fixtures. If your wine cellar doubles as a pantry, look for signs of damage on food packaging. Make sure to dispose of any bottles with severely damaged corks, no matter how expensive they may be.

Look for small, pellet-like droppings in sheltered areas of the cellar, such as underneath racks, shelving, and washbasins. You may also spot small bunches of fibrous material, such as wood fibers, scraps of fabric, or loose-fill materials taken from bottle packaging. Mice frequently take these materials to use as nesting, so if you find any, the mice themselves probably aren't too far away.

You should also check for any holes, cracks, or gaps in the walls, flooring, and ceiling of your cellar. Mice can chew through surprisingly thick materials to gain access to cellars, and will readily exploit any pre-existing gaps in your cellar's defenses. If you spot droppings or nesting materials close to one of these gaps, you almost certainly have some kind of rodent infestation.

How Can You Keep Mice Out Of Your Wine Cellar?

The most effective way to keep mice away from your prized vintages is to block their access routes. Seal any gaps in floors, walls, and ceilings with a polyurethane-based expanding foam or quick-dry cement. Don't bother with caulk or rubber-based gap fillers, as mice can chew through these sealants easily. Ideally, this task should be handled professionally, as trying to find every possible access point can be very difficult.

Once your cellar is thoroughly sealed, you will have to tackle the mice that have already made it into your cellar, and this is a job that should be left to a professional mouse control service. Trying to capture or kill mice yourself puts you at risk of injury, as well as a variety of nasty rodent-borne illnesses.

With smaller infestations, it may be possible to use humane, live-capture methods to remove the infestation. Your mouse control service can use bait stations that capture living mice, and then release the mice in suitable locations far away from your property. 

If you are dealing with a serious infestation, extermination may be the most viable approach. Traditional mouse traps are unreliable and pose a contamination risk, so your service may deploy electronic mouse traps. These traps are baited to attract the mice and deliver a lethal electric shock that instantly and humanely destroys the pests.

Poisoned rodenticidal baits can also be useful, and will completely destroy most mouse infestations within a few days. Professional mouse control services use commercial-grade baits that are far more effective and reliable than basic hardware store baits and know exactly where to place them so that they attract and kill mice as quickly as possible. 

For more information on mice removal, contact a professional near you.