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
How to Keep Mice Out Of Your House
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
(once you have them)
- 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.
Types of Mouse Traps
- 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.
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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Maria Farr
Is that Spray Foam paintable? How do you disguise it?
Diana Endicott
I just found out I have a mouse under my kitchen sink and it's eating the magic eraser under there will he/she die from eating it?
Karen
I doubt it. My chickens ate almost a whole sheet of pink styrofoam insulation once and it didn't do a thing to them. If the magic eraser had chemicals on it, it might but otherwise, I think the mouse will continue to life a long mouse-like life. ~ karen!
Eileen H
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and we have many native Dusky Footed Woodrats. I haven't had them in the house but they have been in the attic it was thousands of dollars to repair damage. I often tear down their huge nests in the yard and use Victor electronic traps to keep them away from the house. Rat poison kills! Earlier this year a mountain lion died a few blocks away. The necropsy confirmed that he died from eating rodents that ate rat poison. Neighbors had had their pets die from eating rat poison.
Colleen
110 year old farmhouse + 5 acres = mice AND rats! We always have used snap traps, but I think we'll invest in a couple of electric ones too. P.S. Great Pyrenees like little creatures and make friends with them...
Elaine Senko
We have been using original scent Bounce Sheets in our attached garage & garden shed. Mice do not like the smell and stay away.
michele wilks
Thank you for repelling and not killing them. I love this idea.
Lynneo
I think I win a prize! 14 so far this year. They're in the ceiling on my 3 season porch. Think when they replaced my gutters, they opened up a hole. Sh!t and pee all over my ceiling tiles. Disgusting!
The plastic snap traps work fine...but you still have to dispose of the creature...and you can see it and it's tail waving in the breeze. Can't stand seeing them...so found the dcon bait, twist, and set. The mouse goes in and you'll never have to see it again!
No poison ever...once saw a poisoned mouse crawl along the floor. Can't do that to a living thing 🐁! Also, don't even think about peppermint oil or those sonic thingys. Worthless! So is my little rat terrier. Even card can't get into the ceiling can they? Hmmmmm
Joe
Great video. Wondering if possible in future what we can use for moles and voles or does the mouse video work on voles also? Just hoping.
Yolanda Baird
During a home visit, the mom and I heard a small squeaking noise, very pathetic. She said that her husband had put down the glue pads for the mice that had showed up. When we couldn’t stand it any longer, we pulled the mouse & pad out and worked to get the mouse off. It took two of us gently working with warm water and a knife, but we did it. We took it out to the backyard and put it under a tree. The mom said she didn’t know what her husband was going to say, but she wasn’t having another one of those traps again.
Ann
You won't be using the glue traps again, but for any others here, I understand oil (vegetable types) will release a mouse or also from your skin if you get stuck with it.
Vikki
We don't have mice in the house but once in a while there will be a little field mouse in the garage. I can live with that but---have you seen the videos of the rats in people's toilets?!?!? Wish I could get those pictures out of my brain!!
Paula
If you really loved me you would tell me how to get rid of the moles chewing up my backyard.
Barb
I've used the poison worms that you push down into the trail (with pencil...don't touch). Or, once I stomp down the trails, I check every 20 minutes or so for movement and using my trusty garden fork does the job. I didn't want to do that but it became more a matter of "survival of the fittest"! Good luck as they can do a lot of damage quickly.
mirjam roos
my cats always bring the mice in alive, to show off their great hunting skills...most of them get still eaten in the end though.
Karen
I stopped counting at 7 mice last winter. They came up through the wall, through the opening in the wall for the water pipes and into the cupboard under the laundry sink. Then made their way to the bucket of cat food! How ironical I thought. Initially I was terrified because I thought maybe it was rats gnawing away at the bucket and it's lid. How could a tiny mouse chew away such thick hard material? TG it was only a mouse. But that mouse sent out a memo to all his mouse buddies and that's when the party started. I was given the sticky pads by my pest removal company. Oh God! How quickly those work! But no one comes back to take it away for you! One day two were on there at once. Jeezus it looked like an episode of Dateline in there! Sadly my cat (named Dog) died this summer.... he was 23....a -great long life. So no more cat food under the laundry sink. And hopefully no more mice. I did shove steel wool into all the brick gaps just in case though!
judy
I spent $70.00 on the electric traps long ago-10 years? I caught 1 mouse. The snap traps seem to work-but now I have a small dog and I wonder if she could be hurt sticking her nosy nose into a trap? She chases the mouse around the house but I don't believe she ever caught it.
Grant
Don't forget about sonic mouse and rat repellent. These things plug into any wall socket and emit a high-pitched sound that humans can't hear but mice and rats can. We used it to great effect in our house in Saskatchewan. The drawback is that they use electricity and take up a wall socket that you may want to use for something else. But they work very well. Living next to a farm was always an adventure with rodents, but two of these little items solved our problem.
janet
You can do all this.....or you can spray around the area with Peppermint Oil. I put it on cotton balls in one little place where they used to come in my house. NO MORE MOUSE!! They simply hate peppermint oil. Works for ants too! Just spray across their path. They will go somewhere else.
Katey
Sounds great for getting rid of mice and ants. But our bears would just love, love, love the smell of that peppermint oil, so I'll stick with mice and ants.
Suzanne Gilmour
Thank you for the mouse information. Now can you PLEASE help me with getting my windows clean. The inside windows are fine and easy to clean but the outside are awful. We have used windex ,vinegar, magic eraser & oven spray ( not all at once) with no results at all. I can't figure out the people on the internet that have tried all of these with GREAT RESULTS. Who are these people?
Valerie
Try using a razor scraper...usually in the paint section of the hardware store. Ordinary alcohol to remove any smears afterward.
Jill Hill
I use Ultimate Cloths on all of my windows, glass and mirrors. Available on-line. A little pricey but so worth it. All you do is soak them in warm water, squeeze out as much of the water as you can, clean your window and walk away. No mess, no streaks, no nothing. They are amazing!!! My windows and mirrors have never been cleaner and no chemicals!
Suzanne
Thank you for the mouse information. Now can you PLEASE help me with getting my windows clean. The inside windows are fine and easy to clean but the outside are awful. We have used windex ,vinegar, magic eraser & oven spray ( not all at once) with no results at all. I can't figure out the people on the internet that have tried all of these with GREAT RESULTS. Who are these people?
Brandi G.
Any ideas on how to keep them from making warm homes under the hood of my car and then chewing up wires in there?
BOB
leave the hood open, those are NOT mice they are rats I am still repairing wire damage to my PU that I had parked with the hood down! some have used the kind clothes dryer sheets that go in when drying clothes must be changed every so often to keep the smell, also moth balls are good the kind you buy in the bag for mice, NOT the balls you would like to remove from the ones that you trapped! LOL
Beth
They sell tape that has pepper taste. Wrap the hoses in the tape.
Drawn Dog
My neighbor used a glue trap and poured boiling water over one of the mice she caught!
I was appalled!
The next one she caught she called me to kill it. I set it in the road upsidedown and drove my truck over it.
Kat
Holy shit your neighbor sounds like a sadist. Something is seriously wrong with anyone that would do that to a living thing...
Laurie
lol - Good hack for keeping your tires clean ;-)
Susan
My house is like yours. Ancient. I did my best to mouse proof but the little stinkers are still getting in somewhere in the spring and fall and I can't figure out where. But since buying one of those electronic mouse thingys that you plug in, instead of a semi-annual party house for mice, it's just been one or two. Once they were caught, it seemed to be the end of them. The little gizmo that you plug in is supposed to emit a high-pitched frequency that only mice can hear and it drives them crazy. Two of them are all I'm using and now that I know they work so well, I'd have them in every room of the house if I had enough plugs for them and my electronics. They don't bother the dogs and the only caveat is making sure you buy them from a trusted source. Something you can't hear and have no idea if it's actually doing anything is awfully easy to knock off and fake.
KMC
I use the plug-in devices and they work well.
Simone
What brand/website do you get yours ultrasonic repellents from?
susan
I got one of mine from Home Hardware and another from Amazon.