Pest Management Professional, November 2009
Deer Mouse continued from previous page Earlier this year a call was received by the Los Angeles Unified School Districts call center regarding a mouse problem at the facility The technician assigned to the school had responded to calls of house mice trouble at the location recently and his initial reaction was that it was simply another house mouse call When he visited again he interviewed occupants of the classroom including the teacher and inspected the room He found no evidence of mice activity in the classroom although the teacher was emphatic in reporting a mouse running across the room when she was working at her desk the previous day In response to the teachers concerns the technician deployed a number of mouse snap traps in corners and various protected areas of the room The next day the technician returned to the facility on a followup visit and discovered an adult female deer mouse caught on a trap that was placed in a narrow runway area created by the base of a large sloping iron beam and the wall of the room The trap and mouse was treated with a 10 percent hypochlorite solution allowed to soak for about 10 minutes and then placed in a plastic bag which was sealed and removed as per Centers for Disease Control CDC and Prevention recommendations The affected room was subsequently cleaned and disinfected also per CDC recommendations This was obviously a situation of concern as deer mice are hosts of SNV the primary causative agent of HPS CDC reported that although prevalence of this malady varies temporally and geographically on average 10 percent of deer mice tested positive throughout the range of the species show evidence of infection with SNV With respect to this situation the question of interest is what is a country mouse doing in downtown Los Angeles The habitat around this school is not an obvious place for supporting continued on page 56 Circle 121 54 PEST MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL NOVEMBER 2009 www mypmp net
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