Our Pest Problem

We have a problem. For some reason the mice have decided to move indoors during the summer instead of during the winter this year. It makes no sense to me with the beautiful weather we're having and the ample supply of food outdoors. But no, they are making themselves at home right here in my home. Last week I purchased some traps and set out four of them in the kitchen and two in the basement. We just caught our third mouse in a week. I don't understand it.

The sad part here is that the mice aren't the only pest problem we're having. I've mentioned here that we have cockatiels. Six of them in a large aviary like bird cage. I got a large bag of cockatiel seed last fall with the hopes of it lasting longer than the small bags I purchase every other week. What I failed to understand is that when seed doesn't get eaten quickly, moths take over. I've researched it and found that most seed has larvae in it when it's purchased and it's up to you to use it quickly. Well needless to say I couldn't use a large 50 pound bag of seed quickly enough and the moths hatched. They took over the bird room upstairs. They are Indian Meal Moths. Moths that feed on seed, some people find them in their pantries where flour and other such food is kept. Luckily they seem contained in the bird room, we rarely find them out in the rest of the house. So for the past two months now I go upstairs right before Wesley's bath and use the ShopVac to suck up as many moths as I can see. In the beginning I was sucking up around 150-200 moths a night. Yeah a night! They were reproducing faster than I could suck them up. The thought occurred to us to hire an exterminator but the thought of someone spraying chemicals all over a house that contains a two year old and a newborn kind of freaked me out. So I trudge up there nightly and suck away. I'm happy to report that I've officially broken their reproduction cycle and am only sucking up about 15-20 every other night now. I've also given that room a major cleaning to find all of their little nesting sites. I've also become better at cleaning up after the birds. If you've ever owned birds you know how messy they are, spreading seed and feathers all over the place. Anyways, that is our current pest problem. Luckily I believe both the mice and the moths are gone or almost gone and we can get on with our lives.