When you bought your home insurance policy, did you take the time to read through all the fine print? More importantly (especially with winter right around the corner), did you take the time to read through their policies on uninvited guests? Nobody wants to sleep outside in the winter time.
We give hundreds of thousands of dollars to shelters to help keep our nation's homeless from having to do just that.
We sympathize completely with their plight, and encourage them to find any soft, warm, welcoming place they can to spend the night out of the elements.
Yet it continues to amaze us when the local rodent population does just that! Mice don't like being cold and miserable any more than you would.
Regardless of what you may or may not have seen on the Discovery Channel, mice would much rather settle in to your home than spend the winter in their cold, frozen dens.
Your house is warm.
It's inviting.
And it comes complete with a huge variety of nesting materials.
Usually your drywall and insulation.
Now, in theory this isn't such a bad thing.
Totally understandable, in fact.
The problem is, mice are nastier visitors than the relatives that end up camping on your couch every Christmas! They carry disease.
Chew holes in your walls.
Can completely destroy your electrical systems by chewing through the wires.
And they wreak havoc in your pantry.
If you've got friends and relatives that do that every Christmas it's time to take a second look at the company you're keeping! Getting rid of them once they've moved in isn't usually as simple as telling them to get out.
They can live for days on crumbs of food, so even the cleanest kitchen is a prime spot for infestation.
And between calling in an exterminator, plugging the holes they've been slipping through and fixing the damage they've cost, you can be in the hole for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
And your home insurance isn't going to cover any of it.
Now, whoever came up with the rules used by most homeowners insurance companies obviously wasn't well acquainted with the local mice.
Why? Because they figure that if you take good care of your house, keep up on your maintenance and clean regularly your uninvited guests aren't going to want to slip in and set up shop.
Reality doesn't quite work like that! Regardless, they're going to tell you it's your own fault and leave you to pick up the pieces.
Since your home insurance isn't going to help you out it's up to you to try and stay two steps ahead of them.
Keep your kitchen clean, don't let the kids eat in the living room, and check regularly for holes in your exterior walls.
Consider investing in a cat or two-cats will hunt the mice, and the smell is usually enough to convince mice a little higher up on Darwin's survival scale that this isn't a place they want to call home.
You pay your homeowners insurance rates regularly on the assumption that you're going to be covered if something happens.
Keeping three steps ahead of the mice is the only way you're going to be able to ensure it stays that way!
We give hundreds of thousands of dollars to shelters to help keep our nation's homeless from having to do just that.
We sympathize completely with their plight, and encourage them to find any soft, warm, welcoming place they can to spend the night out of the elements.
Yet it continues to amaze us when the local rodent population does just that! Mice don't like being cold and miserable any more than you would.
Regardless of what you may or may not have seen on the Discovery Channel, mice would much rather settle in to your home than spend the winter in their cold, frozen dens.
Your house is warm.
It's inviting.
And it comes complete with a huge variety of nesting materials.
Usually your drywall and insulation.
Now, in theory this isn't such a bad thing.
Totally understandable, in fact.
The problem is, mice are nastier visitors than the relatives that end up camping on your couch every Christmas! They carry disease.
Chew holes in your walls.
Can completely destroy your electrical systems by chewing through the wires.
And they wreak havoc in your pantry.
If you've got friends and relatives that do that every Christmas it's time to take a second look at the company you're keeping! Getting rid of them once they've moved in isn't usually as simple as telling them to get out.
They can live for days on crumbs of food, so even the cleanest kitchen is a prime spot for infestation.
And between calling in an exterminator, plugging the holes they've been slipping through and fixing the damage they've cost, you can be in the hole for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
And your home insurance isn't going to cover any of it.
Now, whoever came up with the rules used by most homeowners insurance companies obviously wasn't well acquainted with the local mice.
Why? Because they figure that if you take good care of your house, keep up on your maintenance and clean regularly your uninvited guests aren't going to want to slip in and set up shop.
Reality doesn't quite work like that! Regardless, they're going to tell you it's your own fault and leave you to pick up the pieces.
Since your home insurance isn't going to help you out it's up to you to try and stay two steps ahead of them.
Keep your kitchen clean, don't let the kids eat in the living room, and check regularly for holes in your exterior walls.
Consider investing in a cat or two-cats will hunt the mice, and the smell is usually enough to convince mice a little higher up on Darwin's survival scale that this isn't a place they want to call home.
You pay your homeowners insurance rates regularly on the assumption that you're going to be covered if something happens.
Keeping three steps ahead of the mice is the only way you're going to be able to ensure it stays that way!
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