“And stay out!” How to keep mice from ever returning to your home.

The war against mice in the house can be exasperating. You can’t help but come to know your enemy during the many battles you might fight over the years, because eradicating them from the premises requires understanding their behavior. For example:

• They can scamper at 7.5 miles per hour, quickly evading sight or capture. Along with setting track records, they contaminate eating surfaces and leave droppings every place they go.

• They have a high metabolism, requiring them to constantly search for food.

• Like all rodents, their teeth never stop growing. They simply must destroy what they can get their incisors on.

• One mouse attracts more mice with pheromones, body language, and ultrasounds to share information about food, danger and romance. Males court females with an ultrasonic love song.

• Distinct types of mice build different nests. They’re cool outside, but in your home, they could start a fire by chewing through electrical wires, block a dryer vent, or gnaw through furniture.

• Left unattended, disease and illnesses are not out of the question.

While these facts may help you run a category on “Jeopardy!”, for most people they lead to the not-so-fascinating results of costly, unsanitary damage and an agitated dog that keeps barking at the wall.

But for Thomas Tripp, General Manager of Modern Pest in Portland, everything about mice is important. These behaviors are all part of the bigger picture that help him track them down in each unique space he visits.

“Once you have mice, you’re focused on getting them out,” said Tripp. “But you also need to be thinking about how to keep them from getting inside in the first place. It’s a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces fit together when done correctly.”

When done correctly, it’s work for a professional. Here’s what Modern Pest does:

Step 1: Analyze and Plan

The entire home is inspected inside and out by an inquisitive technician. If available, blueprints are reviewed. An analysis with customized recommendations for continued monitoring and removal will be made.

Step 2: Seal It Up

Every detectable quarter-inch hole or crack is sealed, using copper mesh which they will not chew. Ladders, knees, awkward neck angles and a lot of fine motor skills are involved. Someone must get dirty when crawling into an attic or basement. Safely accessing areas and pipes where electric, gas and sewer utilities enter the home takes serious expertise.

Step 3: Install and Connect

Modern Pest completes the jigsaw in a proprietary way with Anticimex SMART technology that identifies hotspots and can eventually incorporate ultra-effective traps:

Smart Connect Eyes are waterproof, dust-proof infrared sensors that offer solid clues about where to find an entry point and place traps. It can detect changes in movement and temperatures from up to 6.5′ away.

Smart Snaps are waterproof, dust-proof traps that report back to the company when a mouse has been caught.

A central “brain” called the Smart Connect Mini has a constant, direct connection with the company via mesh network (again, no cameras). That means ongoing service can quickly relocate, remove and empty traps or seal up more egresses.

“With 24/7 monitoring, we are on every front of the mice battle: finding, trapping, removing them and keeping them out,” Tripp said. Still, it often takes more time than people think to get the job done. At the rate mice move and reproduce, Tripp said it requires up to a year and possibly more to complete the process.

To do just that, Modern Pest offers different service contracts recommending scheduled maintenance on top of coming to your home for alert visitations. Based upon what we’ve learned about mice and how to catch them, a long-term commitment to winning the war over the mouse battle is SMART.