Creepy Crawlers...Rodents

Have you seen any mice or other unwelcome visitors in your home? We have. Several, in fact. It took me a long time to post about this because I was really upset and angry about this situation. We began seeing them the first weeks we were here. I was convinced there was a hole somewhere, but I was assured that my house was sealed. We hired pest control. We bought sticky traps. You name it, we tried it. The issue is. .... they kept coming. So after some screaming, yelling, sleepless nights and sanitizing my entire house over and over, we found the issue. There was an UNSEALED gas line under the fireplace. We kept seeing them around the fireplace, so this made sense. It was a good size hole. And it was open to the crawlspace. We sealed the hole. And guess what, no more rodents!

I'm frustrated because we hired pest control, spent a bunch of money on pest control products, and so on. I called Ryan Homes and their response was.... "We dont insure against pest." I understand that. But. ... this was no traditional pest issue. This was due to a hole. AFTER we found the hole, realized the insulation was falling under the house, and realized that the door to the crawl has been open for several months because it was broken  and accidently left open since our final walkthrough, some people from RH came to help fix it all. They sealed a hole or two they found under the crawl, temporarily fixed the door and put the insulation back up. I can appreciate that. I wish this had been done after I found the first mouse. I wish I had pushed harder to get them to come and look for holes before. They told me since i live in a construction zone, mice are common. I get that. I understand. But this was too common. We had about 7 in a short period of time.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to let you all know, if you have a fireplace, and field mice, double check the lines coming into your home, double check the crawl space doors and anywhere else that may be open to the outside. Other neighbors have had issues with mice too. I'll have to ask but I think the fireplace is where they found a hole too. The neighbors bought this stuff called Great Stuff with Pest Control. It works for the moment. Good luck. I hope you all dont have this issue but if you do, definitely look for the way they are getting in. Good luck! Hopefully this is the last of my major issues, and I can get on to the fun stuff.

Update: After speaking with the neighbors, it appears they had their hole in the same place. One of them also mentioned sealing the line behind the stove better too. Just check and double check these places so that you dont have to go through this  sort of situation.