An elementary school in Saint-Liboire, a municipality in the Montérégie region neighbouring Saint-Hyacinthe, was confronted with an infestation of field mice detected at the start of the school year in September. The school building, built in the 1970s and surrounded by a large wooded courtyard adjoining a wooded area, offered field mice many nesting opportunities in the old walls and poorly ventilated attic spaces. Poop had been found in the teachers’ room, in the teaching materials warehouse and in the cafeteria kitchen. The school board’s principal and building department called on our team to intervene quickly while respecting the strict requirements of a school environment.
School Inspection and Planning
Our exterminator in Saint-Liboire coordinated his intervention with management to ensure that all inspections and work took place outside of school hours. The full building inspection lasted a full day and covered the classrooms, technical rooms, cafeteria, library, accessible attic and the entire outdoor perimeter. The field mice had set up galleries in the insulation of the flat roof of the original wing of the building and were moving through the false ceilings to reach the cafeteria and the teachers’ room. Several exterior entry points were identified, including two cracks in the foundation of the north façade and a gap around an exhaust duct at the rear of the building.
The inspection documentation was sent to the school board along with a health risk analysis and a detailed response plan. In a school, transparent communication with the responsible authorities is as important as the technical quality of the treatment. To consult our service offer in this area, visit our page on field mice extermination.
Differentiated treatment according to the areas of the building
The intervention plan has distinguished three zones with distinct protocols. In the attic and false ceilings, professional mechanical traps with multiple capture have been installed to target individuals circulating in these spaces inaccessible to the occupants. In the cafeteria and teachers’ room, simple mechanical traps have been placed in places inaccessible to students, with clear identification and daily monitoring logs. Outside, locked bait stations have been positioned along the foundation walls and in the service areas, exclusively in areas inaccessible to children during recess. No chemical treatment was applied in the spaces frequented by the students, in accordance with the policy for the reduction of pesticides in schools in Quebec.
The exclusion work was carried out during the first weekend following the start of the treatment: sealing of the foundation cracks, sealing of the drainage ducts and installation of metal grilles at the access points to the attic. These interventions were carried out by our team in collaboration with the school’s maintenance staff. A thorough caulking intervention made it possible to treat all the gaps identified in the exterior walls.
Assessment and prevention for schools
The treatment was conclusive in less than three weeks. Follow-up inspections no longer detected any active activity in the building. A final report was submitted to the school board with recommendations for the following years: annual preventive inspection before the start of the school year in September, keeping vegetation away from walls, and rigorous management of cafeteria waste. Schools located on the edge of wooded areas and agricultural land such as those in Saint-Liboire and neighbouring municipalities must be particularly vigilant as autumn approaches. Our work in a comparable school and our record of field mice , in an educational environment, testify to our experience in this field. At Nova Extermination, we put our expertise at the service of institutions that have the responsibility to protect the youngest.
Prevention in schools also requires the mobilization of staff. Janitors and cooks are often the first to detect signs of intrusion, and their training to recognize signs of rodent presence is a valuable asset. Our team facilitated a short briefing for maintenance staff to show them what to look for during cleaning rounds. This participatory approach complements the technical measures and strengthens the protection of the institution in the long term, without generating significant additional costs.