Put your mothballs and steel wool away. They don't deter mice, no matter what you've read on the Internet. Here I lay out what you really need to do to keep mice out of your house and how to get rid of them if they're already in there.
I speak from experience.
They've always arrived without invitation roaming around as if they pay the mortgage, eating stuff I leave on the counter, going to the bathroom behind the stove. I've spent a lot of time researching how to get rid of my family members but neither poison, bait or traps work. They keep showing up.
Mice? Now, those I know how to get rid of.
I also know how to get rid of flies outside using this simple bottle trap and the best fly bait.
If you have mice in your house you're not gross, or dirty or living in a hovel - you just aren't as smart as a mouse.
The BEST way to deal with mice is to not allow them in in the first place. They start looking for a cozy indoor home when nighttime temperatures start to dip in the fall so you need to get your house prepared by late summer.
Table of Contents
Quick Steps to Keep Mice Out of the House
- Seal cracks and holes with hardware cloth + spray foam
- Check vents, pipes, and foundations for gaps
- Store food in sealed containers
- Keep your yard free of clutter
- Use traps inside if mice get in
This structure makes it easier for Google to pull as a snippet.
Full Instructions
The best thing you can do to get rid of mice is to not let them in your house in the first place. Duh.
Let me say you're probably never going to make your house 100% mouse proof, but you can at least make it a challenge for them to get in.
For instance I found a big crack under the parging of my house beside a window. It was big enough that a pig could squeeze in, let alone a mouse.
To keep mice out you need to go around the house looking for holes and cracks. And then ... you need to FILL THEM PROPERLY.
Mice can chew through concrete if they want to so steel wool is like a palate cleanser to them. It won't even faze them.
Find Mouse Entry Points
Mice can enter your home through a hole smaller than a dime.
Rats can enter your home through a hole the size of a quarter.
- Check the foundation for cracks.
- Rodents are greasy and when they squeeze into holes over and over they leave a dark mark around the hole or crack. Watch for that.
- Mouse poop around the windows and doors.
- Check for spaces around pipes and wires that enter your home.
- Stove and air conditioning vents both off the side of the house and the roof are often entry points for rodents.
- If you hear running around in your attic, chances are the nice are coming from somewhere on the roof. Check it.
- Look for gnaw marks. Both mice and rats will chew through wood to gain access to your house. Because they're complete a$$heads.
- Urine stains. Mice pee ALL the time and leave a trail. These pee stains can be seen with a black light. Buy a strong blacklight (UV) flashlight, turn the lights off and get ready to be horrified. Finding where the pee leads to can help you find where mice are coming in.
To Fill Foundation Cracks
How small of a hole can a mouse get through? If you can stick a pencil into it, a mouse can get into it too.
Here's what you need to do.
- Push a piece of metal (rod or crumpled wire) into smaller holes and then fill them with expandable spray foam like Great Stuff.
- Fill larger cracks with ¼" hardware cloth and then use the spray foam.
Handy Tip: Use gloves that are slightly more resilient than latex gloves.
3. After filling the crack with hardware cloth and spray foam, cut the excess foam off with a sharp knife when it's dried.
4. Do the same around pipes and cables.
Keep your yard clean. Remove any garbage, leaves or clutter especially around your foundation. Just doing this - making your yard less habitable for mice - will go a long way to keeping them out of your home.
How to Get Rid of Mice
If you already have mice in the house you're going to have to deal with them.
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- Poison
- Traps
- A Cat
- Poison is effective but it's also a slow, painful death for the animal. Plus there's a danger if you use open poison and have kids or pets in your house. Kids won't eat broccoli but they'll sure as shit eat mouse poison if you leave it out. I personally once drank an entire bottle of motor oil when I was a a kid. Yup.
What if your pet eats a poisoned mouse? The chances are low but know that your pet could become poisoned after eating a poisoned mouse. Mice can only eat a few grams of poison a day. Even if your pet ate the entire poisoned mouse it still wouldn't be enough to poison even the smallest dog. Around 56 grams of poison would need to be consumed by a very small dog to poison it.
**secondary poisoning like this is more common if you have barn cats that have to actually hunt for their food and might eat several mice in a day. House cats prefer to get their food in a bowl.**
- Traps are your best choice for eliminating mice that are in your house. You just have to decide which type of trap to use.
- Getting a cat REALLY will help your mouse problem. It will scare them from coming into your house, plus cats are natural mousers. A lot of dogs are as well.
Best Mouse Traps for Getting Rid of Mice
- ELECTRONIC MOUSE TRAPS
**Best Choice**
These Viktor electronic mouse traps are my favourite. They electrocute the mouse instantly and there is a 0% chance that it will only be maimed or hurt. Of all the kill traps, these are the most humane. - CLASSIC SNAP TRAP
**Best Choice**
If you don't want to put out the money for an electronic mouse trap, your next best bet is the classic, wood snap trap. They work better than anything else but they're also the most difficult to set and use. Don't worry about it though, I'm going to show you how to properly set a mouse trap.
- PLASTIC SNAP TRAPS
There are a few different new fangled plastic snap traps on the market. They're easier to set but I have found them less effective.
- LIVE TRAPS
Live traps like this are little Hotel Californias. The mouse goes in but it can't get out. They work, but require more commitment from you. Check traps often and road trip any you catch at least a mile from your house. GLUE TRAPS
**Worst Choice**
Avoid these at all costs. They're gross, sticky, messy and completely inhumane. These pads covered in ultra sticky glue trap render the mouse immobile until it either dies of thirst and starvation or until they struggle to get away, breaking their little feet or legs off. They're awful inventions.
So now you know that if you have mice you're going to need to either put down a contained bait station, or set a mouse trap.
What Bait to Use
Electronic traps work well with a bit of peanut butter smeared onto the back of it. Around the size of a pea is all you need.
Snap traps can take a multitude of baits. In order of effectiveness:
- A peanut wedged in the bait holder so the mouse has to work to get it out.
- A dried kernel of corn wedged into the bait holder. Put a dab of peanut butter on it too.
- Peanut Butter
- Jam
- Deli meat
- Soft stinky cheese - blue cheese for instance
How to Set a Mouse Trap
- Wear latex gloves when handling mouse traps and food to keep human scent off of them.
- Slightly bend the hook on the bait holder that holds the pin so it just barely holds the pin in place without setting off the trap. Be CAREFUL and keep your fingers out of the way. Doing this to your trap will give it a hair trigger to better catch mice. And fingers.
- Bait the trap with a *small* amount of bait. No food bigger than pea sized. The best bait is half of a peanut or a kernel of corn wedged under the teeth of the bait holder. Peanut butter can be your 3rd choice but the others are better because the mouse can't just lick it off and run away. With corn or a peanut they have to work on pulling it out which is more likely to set off the trap.
- Mice run along backs of cupboards and walls because it's dark and they feel safe there. Place the trap with the baited end against a wall so the mouse can only get at it from the left or right as it runs along the wall. This helps make sure the mouse is killed instantly because it's coming at the trap from the ideal direction.
- Put out a LOT of traps. Not just one or two. Put them everywhere you see mouse poop but away from where pets and kids can get at them.
Video of Setting a Mouse Trap
Are Mice Dangerous?
Yep.
Mice like chewing on things: wood, wires, food, cushions, heirloom vegetable seeds lovingly gathered and carefully stored in paper envelopes for future generations to come. Also noses. I have no actual proof but if presented with a nose I'm sure a mouse would chew on that as well.
- When mice chew on wood, drywall and electrical wires in your house. That means you'll either have an expensive repair in your future, or worse, a fire inside your walls.
- Mice mark their territory by peeing and pooping all over your house. Which is gross. But also a danger in terms of the viruses and diseases they carry.
- Mice have parasites on them because of their filthy habit of being mice. Ticks, fleas, and other parasites all come into your home with the mice.
If you do get a tick here's how to properly identify and remove it. Since we're talking about pests and all.
Final Tip on Mouse Control.
O.K., so 30% of all homes have mice in them. Some of them even have rats. I'm guessing you want to get rid of them.
Don't rely on only one method for controlling mice. Use everything you've got. Your whole arsenal. And don't let your guard down.
Your goal is to keep mice out of the house.
Mice are super suspicious but not of the opposite sex. Ever. They are constantly having mouse sex and making babies. Like, non-stop. So as long as there are mice in this world, there's going to be a chance that one or worse, TWO will get into your house and claim it as their love pad. By using two or three of these methods you'll have a good shot at keeping the population in your house down.
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Karyn Smith
I purchased the uv light and seeing all kinds things. What colour does the pee pee/poo poo show up as?
Jodie
After a horrible experience trying to release a mouse that had been caught by its paw in a snap trap (I actually cried and apologized when I lost my grip and snapped the same paw, I started live trapping them. Then guess what—I read in two reliable places that mice can’t survive after being relocated. If they aren’t killed by the local predators (no worse than by my barn cats) they starve to death. Sigh. So it’s back to snap traps for me. That electronic trap looks interesting though…
Lorrie
I have found the that the "plastic boulder" poison stations are an additional defense around the exterior foundation. There are also interior options. The idea is that the poison is activated by water: have a poison snack, go outside for water, then die before gaining (re)entry into the house. I don't know if the poison would hurt your "Mr. Snacks".
Melissa
Do not use poison to kill rodents or anything else around your house that potentially a bird or other animal might eat. Owls eat mice correct? So if you poison a mouse and it goes back outside and an owl eats it......😵😵😵
Karen
I know, that's the right thing to say. But the truth is sometimes people do have to use poison to get rid of mice and rats. ~ karen!
Dorothy Borders
My go-to for wooden snap traps is a small piece of caramel. The mice can't pull the caramel off. It sticks to their teeth just like it does to ours, so they have to tug a bit, and then, snap! It works every time.
Mary W
I have always wanted to use a black light to find the dang tomato caterpillars so I ordered one the minute I saw your link. In two days, I'll be out there with my grandson searching for the little devils. THANKS!
Karen
I was only able to find 1 hornworm this year up at my garden. It was the size of a Slinky. ~ karen!
Babs
If storing a car, dryer sheets in the engine compartment and inside the car if you wish. My mechanic said they work to keep the critters out. In our home, Irish Spring soap works great. A few bars in the basement and garage and we don't have any visitors.
Scotty Crawford
!Do as Karen says, Everybody. Yes, Mice ARE dangerous. I got Lyme Disease from Mice FIVE TIMES inside my new house, and had to reluctantly become an expert on the subject, so I'll weigh in with an attempt to help as well. I'll try to be brief with some important info most people don't have, and then, further down the page, I'll add my own best advice.
1) Every mouse drops filthy, disease-transmitting poop fifty to seventy-five times a day. So do rats.
2) Mice are suddenly infecting us with new and truly terrible diseases. Why? They now carry a hundred times more Human-infecting Ticks. Those Ticks now infect us with many new, different,and awful diseases.
2) There is no treatment AND no cure for at least one of these terrible diseases ("Powassen Virus", which first appeared just down the road from Karen's town), and there's no vaccine or medicine that will make you safe and healthy. This is also true of Lyme Disease.
3) Annual new cases of Lyme Disease in U.S. alone: Six hundred thousand victims a year. That's fifty million innocent victims who frequently have their lives completely destroyed over the course of a U.S. lifetime. Only 37,000 cases a year are studied in pathology labs and officially counted, so we don't realize Lyme as bad as it is.
WHAT TO DO:
Karen's advice is very good. Do that. Don't just sit and stare at screens. Do that. Other important steps:
Get rid of the smell rodents leave, or hundreds more will join the rodents you already had.
Use safety gear and gently wipe up all of those thousands of little black rice-grain-looking Mouse "droppings". They're not droppings, they're ... 'Fecal Matter", aka filthy, horrible, dangerous Shit, and it can make you, no kiddin', die.
Do NOT use a Dust Mop or sweep it up unless you want to wind up like Gene Hackman and his wife just wound up.
Do not use any chemicals to clean Mouse poop up, including mild soap. FIRST, wipe it gently with wet rags, then go outside and put them in the outside garbage bin immediately.
Then, wipe those areas and also spray them with an enzyme-type, urine-destroying liquid.
You can also get special UV blacklights that make Urine you've failed to clean up glow in bright Yellow-Green. Use those, and you can be truly sure you got rid of the smell.
After each little cleaning session, wash all the clothes you wore to do this job with bleach IMMEDIATELY. They are full of disease ... your new disease ... until you do.
Hardware cloth" is a term for steel mesh, and it's super-duper in keeping rodents out of your house. Get the 1/4"/6mm size, not anything bigger, or you'll fail.
You'll cut it much more easily with "Tin Snips", Sheet Metal Cutting Pliers.
USE WASHERS under your hold-down screws; the wider the better.
If you need to keep Mice out of many holes in Masonry, keep it simple for little jobs, but do the work differently for big jobs (many holes). So for big Masonry hole repair jobs, here's the fastest technique, by far: Use these unique screws from Tapcon (Also known as Climaseal). Get the Tapcon screws with the little protruding ribs under the head, not the screws without them. Why? You can drive the ribbed-head version right into brick and concrete without drilling a hole first ... and the ribbed heads don't break off when you do. Use an IMPACT drill, not a plain-Vanilla drill,set it to the Iazens with great speed.
You can combine hardware cloth with foam, btw. Why? Because Mice and rats gnaw through the foam sometimes. You can get an anti-rodent version of the foam, but I believe it doesn't work in some cases, especially after the pasage of a long time (because the pepper they put in it ceases to taste really bad when it gets old). So instead, fasten your Hardware Cloth down securely, and then spray the foam into it for a much better seal.
I know I talked too much here, but this issue is causing so much suffering, and people don't even know it because it's mushroomed so quickly in such a short time. This is the end of my short and sweet message. If you want to know why things are as they are, I'm inserting a brief explanation below.
......................
This terrible problem is our own fault. We've killed off or driven away most of the predator animals who used to control the mouse population, so all brush is teeming with numbers of mice that didn't use to exist. More mice, more disease.
Experts say that the #1 cause of our exploding Rat population is the plastic garbage bag. Mice thrive in them too. Don't use them. Use big "57#" or larger, paper bags ... I get them cheap after clicking on Karen's Amazon widget so she gets a little commission ... with some junk mail flyers or cardboard underneath them and inside at the bottom, then put them in a outside garbage bin that has a lid on it when they're full.
Man, being more and more mobile, has transported mouse-transmitted diseases out of formerly isolated areas.
Man has also transmitted individual species of ticks that transmit those diseases. That fact REALLY MATTERS, because a each kind of tick cannot transmit some diseases but can transmit others.
Karen
Agreed, lol. ~ karen!
Scotty Crawford
Thanks for discreetly declining to comment on the weirdness in my little comment... like this one: "... set it to the Iazens".
You may take it on faith that I didn't write those words. I wrote my reply in my word processing program, then copied and pasted it into your comment box. When I did so, some software inflicted some sort of artefactal weirdness on my already-bad prose.
I originally wrote, "Use an IMPACT drill, not a plain-Vanilla drill,set it to the IMPACT setting, and you'll drill dozens(of holes) with great speed."
Well, gottago. There's a special on lazens at the hardware store, and I'm gonna load up on 'em.
Karen
LOL. Lazens rarely go on sale so I hope you stocked up ~ karen!
Hettie
We bought an abandoned farmhouse in the midst of farmers' fields; it was infested with generations of mice and rats. What a war! We managed to get rid of the rats first; they're very clever, and once they realized we weren't going to let up, they moved on. The mice were trickier. They never seemed to get the message that we were serious. Perhaps there were just so many and they breed so fast that we simply couldn't keep up.
Just when I was beginning to consider moving again, our house was hit by a derecho. We were out for a year while the whole place was stripped to the studs. Decades of rodent excrement got vacuumed away, and every hole was sealed in the way you mentioned, Karen. We took the extra precaution of having the earth all around the house excavated and had sharp gravel dumped to prevent critters from digging next to the foundation. (We have a lot of digging critters around us.)
I'm almost afraid to say that we've solved the mouse problem, because it smacks of hubris, and Nature always seems to 'hear' that and take revenge. But we've been back in the house for three years now, and we haven't seen or heard mice. Fingers crossed that we've seen the last of them.
Karen
I don't think there will be a any mice in your future. ~ karen!
Suel
Thank you once again Karen! It's almost that time of year here in Western North Carolina to be on guarded for these little rascals. I plan on a full plan of action based on your recommendations. I would share that I had a terrible time a few years ago with mice in my Prius, (I know, they must have liked my music). What I discovered, with a lot of help, was peppermint oil mixed with 91% isopropyl alcohol. 1 whole bottle (15mL) of oil with a pint of the isopropyl. Place in a good sprayer & go to town. I touch up the Prius every couple of months, haven't seen sign of the little rascals since. This seems to work well in the basement too.
Colleen
Okay, now do spiders. Big black wolf spiders.
Karen
Oh god. If I thought I could get away with it I'd poison bomb my whole house JUST to deal with the centipedes. Spider elimination would be a happy byproduct of it. ~ karen!
Scotty Crawford
Centipedes in your area are good (albeit really creepy to us). They kill all the other bugs in your house. They're better at it than we are.
Now, other areas have millipedes, and some of those are venemous, but you needn't worry about them where you are.
My personal ultimate creepout from centipedes is the sight of them gallopping along super-fast UPSIDE DOWN under chairs and stuff.
Lynne
My house is 120 years old. There are gaps in the gaps. I get mice occasionally. Mice are smart. They laugh at the peanut butter baited traps. They wait for the peanut butter to dry a bit then knock it off the trigger and have themselves a feast. They are also gross and I don't like seeing them alive or dead. I am smarter and less gross. I hot glue a pistachio (gold standard snack for the wee beasts) to the trigger of a snap trap and fill the shell opening with PB. I set the trap and carefully slide it into a brown paper lunch sack with the bait end out. Then I set it where I've seen the evidence. In the morning I check the bag for a tail sticking out and if I see one I just pick up the sack and roll it closed without having to see the rest of the remains and toss it in the bin. I have about a 99% success rate in 24 hours or less. I have a small storage container with pre-baited (minus the PB) traps ready to go for mouse season.
Karen
I like the paper bag technique, lol. ~ karen!
Scotty Crawford
Wow! I'm really good, and well-read too, at this, and I would never have thought of these techniques you created. You're a smart one in the killing arts.
I don't think I'd want to get on your bad side ...
Ms Mood
I read somewhere on the internet that if you live trap, you should take them 2-
5 miles away.
Kat - the other 1
Sealing cracks and ho's...
I'm definitely having some issues reading tonight. 😆
Jacqueline
Great advice! I had mice in my house 35 years ago and after getting a cat started to believe in the Tom and Jerry stories… After protecting all food they even started eating soap and candles. Life traps with fried bacon did the trick in the end.
But.
Do you have any solutions to get rid of carpenter ants who are looking for a new home in mine after their favorite old tree was taken down by a storm?!
CJ
Karen - I have found that mice do not in the slightest care about human scent - it must be an attractive scent to them because it means food and warmth. And if you set a number of traps, be sure to record all the locations and check regularly. It is NO FUN finding a sprung trap several days later or after the smell begins... Eeww.
Joan
My cats catch mice outside, bring them inside unharmed, and let them go. Once inside, they completely ignore them. I had one particularly bold, clever mouse that I could not catch until I baited the snap trap with a cheap piece of chocolate. My cats have also brought in a flying squirrel, a small rat snake, frogs, lizards, chipmunks, voles, and a crawdad. Only the crawdad did not survive.
CJ
Joan - Your house would be Heaven for some young kids - I would have LOVED it as a child. Not so much now, ha ha!!
Val Gordon
I found a few short-term ways of discouraging rodents by using mothballs/ Naphthalene, peppermint oil or dried peppermint leaves and an incense called anti-tobacco this one in particular they hate. Short-term methods are good when you hear them chewing on things in walls or ceilings
I also have recorded rats screaming, angry or in distress which they also hate and usually it will stop them chewing, they don’t seem bothered by electronic noise I’ve recorded
To safeguard vehicles I use peppermint oil spray with water inside the vehicle, rodents don’t like light, they like dark secret places so if your vehicle is parked for some time in the garage you can put the bonnet up. I also put mothballs or a scent deterrent on the ground underneath the parked vehicle especially near the motor where they are prone to chewing wiring
I’ve also noted two types of rats the common grey rat and a Norwegian rat the grey rat likes peanut butter and cheese the Norwegian rat tends to ignore those and prefers fruit or sweet things
If I clean surfaces where they have been I use hot water with some eucalyptus and peppermint oil
Good luck with the anti rodenting