Weapons of “Mouse Destruction”

Over the years, as I added to my Indianapolis rental portfolio, I came across a myriad of pests that found their way into my units … ants, fleas, bedbugs a couple of times, cockroaches, and mice.

I’m not afraid of any of these, but I certainly don’t want my tenants to share their space with them! So, I’ve done lots of research on eradicating all kind of infestations.

20 years ago, I purchased a fourplex that had been empty for quite a while. There had been squatters in the second floor unit, and they had left all kinds of drug paraphernalia and a toilet full of human waste and dirt. Utilities had been turned off for months.

I ventured into the basement apartment with my flashlight. There was quite a bit of standing water down there, and I could hear several critters skittering around. I caught a couple with my light — RATS. The basement was full of them. Babies, teenagers, moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas. Ick!

So I went to Lowe’s and purchased six rat traps. The next day, I loaded them with peanut butter and scattered them around down there. I unloaded them the following day. And reloaded. It took me about two weeks, but I got rid of those freeloaders. Here is the house today … I have great tenants there and the ROI on it is incredible. I recently replaced the roof and had it painted.

Formerly the rat house

Since then, I’ve found a much easier solution to mice/rats. I’ve never seen another rat in any of my rentals, but there are little field mice that somehow manage to get in when the weather gets cold.

The product is Final Blox. It can be bought on line. It’s a red pellet, about 1″x3″, and I just put one under the bath sink, behind the stove or frig, etc. (You wouldn’t want any pet or child to get to it.) A much easier solution than traps!

This product, and many others, have streamlined my journey into real estate investing!

 

Cockroach Buffet

This is a picture of a Sunday afternoon cockroach buffet.  The only item on the menu was Max Force bait gel, a spiffy little product made by Bayer.

I had evicted my tenants from this house. They left before the court date and when I went in the duplex I was greeted by several hundred fleas and cockroaches.  Nice.

Initially, these tenants were pretty decent — I do apartment checks and theirs looked good — but things went downhill over a couple months.  There were loud arguments with relatives in the front yard, resulting in calls to the police.  Then they brought a dog onto the property.  When I discovered this I filed eviction immediately, but the dog had already been inside (thus, the fleas) and their lives were coming apart at the seams (thus, the cockroaches).

So, back to the Max Force bait gel … cockroaches are so very hard to kill … they can live for nine days without their heads!  Ick.  They’ve been around for thousands of years, and they keep evolving their way out of every poison used to get rid of them.  But Max Force truly does the trick.

You put tiny dots of it in crevices and along the baseboards, under sinks, stoves and inside cabinets.  And they come for the buffet.  They eat it, get it on their feet, and take it back to the nest.  Their buddies ingest it too.  (They actually eat eachothers’ poop — am I giving you too much information here?)

Anyway, within a few days, you start seeing a lot of dead ones, and several who are moving slow, feeling sickly.  I love it!  Bombs don’t work.  They kill a few but don’t reach the ones who aren’t crawling around in the open.  Max Force reaches all of them.

The buffet crowd in the picture above gathered within a few minutes of me putting a small dot of Max Force in that spot.  I’m going back tomorrow and will be thrilled to see a cockroach graveyard in that duplex.

Oh, and I also sprayed for fleas, of course.  The product is Ultracide spray.  I buy both products from my pest control people here in Indianapolis, but you can get Max Force on line for about $10-12/tube.  I don’t leave home without it.

Onward and upward …..  🙂