We all know how annoying rodents can be when they get into our homes. They sneak into our walls and over our heads at night, raid our food and spoil it with their feces, and reproduce wildly, creating more and more inhabitants to worry about. Rats, mice, and squirrels also do a lot of damage to your home’s structure, insulation, plumbing, and even electrical wiring.
That’s where the biggest problem comes in. While you can repair obvious damage, it’s all too easy to overlook a gnawed piece of cable when faced with larger-scale problems like insulation used as nesting, floorboards contaminated with droppings, and gnawed support beams. However, a stray frayed cord can cause more damage than all other problems: it can cause an electrical fire in your home.
Why do they chew wires?
Considering that at least one rodent had to have died biting down on an electrical wire, it doesn’t make much sense that they took it. So why do rodents chew on cables? The answer is simple: rodents chew all. Rodents’ teeth are constantly growing, forcing them to bite down on anything they can get their paws on to file down their teeth. If they don’t bite often, their teeth can grow so large that they can no longer feed themselves and they will starve.
So electrical wires suffer the tragedy of being chewed up simply because they are there. Rats, squirrels and mice will chew on anything, even metal pipes, so the soft insulating exterior of electrical cables is a palatable treat in comparison.
how fires start
The plastic insulation that surrounds electrical wiring exists because electricity is quite hot when it passes through the wires. Insulation protects nearby objects from overheating. However, when a rat or other rodent has been chasing your wires, they leave nothing behind but hot, exposed metal. From there, it’s only a matter of time before the wire shorts out and causes a spark, or heats up and causes something nearby to ignite. Usually it’s household insulation or other debris stirred up by rodents that catches fire, but sometimes it can just be the cable being propped up against a wooden support.
Prevention of home fires related to rodents
Experts believe that nearly a quarter of fires with unknown causes are caused by rodent damage.
The easiest way to prevent rodent-related home fires is to prevent rodents from entering your home in the first place. Because mice can get into holes as small as 1/4 inch, you should call a wildlife exclusion team to make sure rodents can’t get into your home. These kits can find and seal any problem areas to keep your home rodent free.
If you already have rodents, you should call a professional pest control team right away. You may already have significant damage to your home from rodent squatters, so once you’ve removed them from your home, ask your pest control team about ways to check and repair rodent-created damage. rodents
As always, install and regularly test a smoke detector in your home, whether you have rodents or not. If a fire occurs, a smoke detector can save your life and the life of your family.