I have a mouse that is getting in some way and only eats the edge of my freshly painted cabinet shelves. There are lots of food in there that they usually eat like stuffing, bread crumbs etc, but they don’t bother any of the food only eats the outer edge of my cabinet shelf.
Why is the mouse eating the cabinet shelves only
mice
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Generally, house mice don't carry hantavirus. However, it sounds like your property may be semi-rural, so there might be deer mice, which may carry it.
I found this Center for Disease Control PDF. Interestingly enough, it doesn't talk about respiratory protection at all. It seems that all you need to do is spray down the old nests/etc. with disinfectant or a bleach/water solution and bag it.
While I don't claim to be more knowledgeable on the subject than the CDC, I would certainly wear a mask.
Summary from PDF for posterity:
How to clean out cabins, sheds, barns, or other outbuildings:
- Open all doors and windows. Leave them open for 30 minutes before cleaning.
Wear rubber or plastic gloves.
Clean up all rodent urine, droppings, nests, or dead mice or rats by using a disinfectant or a mixture of bleach and water.
- Air out cabins
- Mop floors or spray dirt floors with a disinfectant or mixture of bleach and water.
- Clean countertops, cabinets, and drawers with a disinfectant or a mixture of bleach and water.
- Steam clean, shampoo, or spray upholstered furniture with a detergent, disinfectant, or a mixture of bleach and water.
Expanding foam can get messy but it may be your best bet, if you can keep it in place and they do not chew through it.
You may want to either incorporate a heavy gauge metal mesh wire, neatly cut around or into the place the mice go through. You might could even "bed" the wire mesh in the foam as it is expanding to lock in place that way. Doing this will make a potentially messy task and make it even messier.
This will not look nice in any sense of the word on the larger holes but it will certainly slow them down for a while. Otherwise a cat, as mentioned in the comments section, will also take care of the problem.
Thin sheet metal screwed in place will work as well without the foam too. You could try nailing it down, but in the cabinet it will bounce a bunch, screws are better here.
Best Answer
I asked my cat about this and she says she knows how mice operate and doesn't even need to see pictures of the damaged cabinets.
She says no doubt the mouse is entering the cabinet in a shelf that has no food on it, and is trying to chew his way from that shelf to another, where the stuffing, bread crumbs, etc. are stored.
If you leave the cabinet doors open overnight, the mouse will leave your shelves alone and confine his depredations to more traditional fare.
Of course, cats are supremely arrogant and often present mere guesses as qualified opinion, so she could be wrong.