Deer Mice In Western Mass. Can Carry Hantavirus

I was taking the trash out the other day when I lifted the bag and found a dead mouse underneath it, maggots and all. Not exactly how I wanted to start my morning but at least I figured out the "something's dead smell".

But it got me thinking about the Hantavirus headlines recently and the correlation to rodents. Most of us have had mice in the house at some point, especially living here in the Berkshires. And most of us probably figure, yeah, it's gross, but no big deal. Right?

Here's something worth knowing. The common house mouse, the gray one living in your walls, is generally not considered a major health threat. But there's another mouse that's very much at home in Western Mass., and that one is a different story. It's called the deer mouse. Brownish on top, white belly, and a two-toned tail. And deer mice are one of the primary carriers of Hantavirus in North America. -cdc

Now before you panic, Hantavirus is rare. But it is serious. There's no specific treatment once symptoms develop, and the fatality rate is roughly 35 to 40 percent. It spreads not through bites, but through contact with infected rodent droppings, urine, or nesting material, and especially through breathing in contaminated dust. So if you go into a barn, a camp, a garage, or a cabin that's been closed up all winter and you start dry sweeping mouse droppings, that's where your risk goes up.

We live in exactly the kind of wooded, rural terrain where deer mice thrive. That means if you've got mice in your home, you can't just assume they're the harmless garden variety.

When you clean up a mouse mess, wet it down first with a bleach and water solution, wear gloves, and don't sweep it dry. That one step makes a big difference and it's certainly what I did with my trash barrel.