Home Rodent Infestations and Your Health

When rodents work their way into your home, they will do more than just serve as a nuisance. Rats, mice, and other rodents will also pose a serious health threat to you, your family, and even your pets, which is why if you have a rodent control problem in Long Island, NYC, you should contact a professional to limit the effect they have on your health and home. If you fail to have rodent control performed, here are just a few of the diseases rodents can pass along to humans and animals living in your house.

Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome

HPS is a disease that was identified back in 1993 and, since then, more than 200 people in America have died from it, according to the CDC. You can catch the disease as a result of a rodent bite, but you don’t necessarily need to come into contact with a rodent to catch HPS. You can also catch HPS by inhaling feces or urine from a rodent infected with HPS, and when you do, it will often result in a potentially-fatal infection within your body. The threat of HPS should be enough to force you to seek rodent control or wildlife control services.

Rat Bite Fever
While its name might suggest that you can only catch it by being bitten by a rat, you can actually catch rat bite fever from mice and other rodents, too. Rat bite fever causes a person to suffer from a headache, chills, fever, and muscle pain. A rash will also usually start to show up on a person’s skin about four days after a bite takes place. Should you fail to seek treatment right away, you could be forced to deal with long-term effects of this disease.

Leptospirosis

There are many different types of animals that can carry this kind of disease, but rodents are the most common ones. You can catch leptospirosis by coming into contact with the saliva of an infected rodent or experiencing a rodent bite. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, and more, and liver failure, respiratory issues, and even death can occur if you don’t seek medical attention.