Pest control in Minnesota follows the cold indoors. Mice enter at the rim joist when the furnace starts and stay for the winter. Squirrels and raccoons use soffits that also leak heat and worsen ice dams. Cluster flies and lady beetles crowd sunny upper rooms in fall. Carpenter ants appear in spring in fascia that stayed wet under snow. Ticks take the woods in the short summer. What you saw, and whether it was night, opens the call.
Droppings along the same rim where pipes run, a torn soffit, and a rub mark at the garage sweep are the map. Attic noise may be a mouse, a squirrel, or a raccoon, and the holes are not the same size. Bats in a lake cabin use a gap you will not see from the yard. Carpenter ants in soft wood mean the board is wet; a treatment in the kitchen does not dry it. Say which floor holds the evidence.
A damp crawl or a cabin opened musty in May is a moisture complaint as much as a pest complaint. Farm grain keeps rodents close. If you have seen wings, say wings. Frass that looks like sawdust is not a mouse report. Pets and children share the rooms, so say that before baits enter the story. Activity that lasts until spring is an entry problem, not a single cold night.
Tell the call whether this is a year-round house, a cabin, or a house plus outbuildings. Usual doors are the rim, the dryer vent, the garage sweep, and gaps where piping leaves. If you plugged one hole and they returned, name it. A return means another opening. Sealing a soffit vent shut to stop flies can trap moisture and feed the next ice dam, so say if the attic is already part of that fight.
Lead with the animal or insect and the room. Say whether the building is heated every night. Do not wait for a second winter of droppings in the rim. Call the number on this page.