No matter how hospitable your spirit is, there’s definitely one set of guests you would never want to welcome—the mice. These creatures might sure look adorable in cartoons, but in real life, they are known for their notorious attitude.
In fact, apart from causing chaos at your home, mice also carry certain diseases, ranging from leptospirosis to the bubonic plague.
How can one miss their compulsive biting habits! If they bite you, you may even need immediate treatment and injections.
Luckily, getting rid of these troublesome pests gets a lot easier if you are familiar with the right techniques.
In this article, we will share a bunch of great tips on how to get rid of mice and tricks that will keep your home safe and secure from this group of wild brats! Let’s begin.
How to Get Rid of Mice?
Some of the most effective methods to control mice infestation include mice population reduction and prevention.
Additionally, you can also adopt certain measures, such as installing live traps, dehumidifiers, sanitizing your home, filling access holes, and more.
What Do Mice Look Like?
House mice are one of the most commonly found mammals in the world. They are inhabitants of Central Asia but reached the American subcontinent through the first European ships to ever touch the mainland.
Today, they thrive across every North American state. The adult mouse bears a slender, small body that weighs around 0.5 to 1 ounce, and is characterized by its large and almost hairless ears. Its elongated tail is sparsely furred and is covered in scales.
The life expectancy of these light brown or gray-colored rodents is two years. But, wild mice generally live for around 9 to 18 months. Mice are highly agile and adaptable creatures.
The fact that they can jump 12 inches or higher enables them to creep into the smallest corners of your home. They are known for their excellent sense of touch and smell.
While their eyesight is quite poor, their acute peripheral vision allows them to detect movement, making it difficult for us to catch them.
How Do I Know If My House Is Infested With Mice?
Mice are very tiny animals, but they tend to leave certain noticeable clues on their way back to their den.
Look out for the following signs that will help you identify a rodent infestation:
- If your pet is unusually scratching, barking, or pawing at or under appliances or household items, then it’s likely that they’re aware of infestation and probably trying to indicate that.
- Hearing strange noises such as squeaking or scratching during nighttime.
- Locating nests made with shredded material, string, pet hair, torn paper, or fabrics.
- Finding mouse droppings, which look like oblong, small pellets. You can easily come across such stains in well-used sinks, in the backs of drawers, or the corners of a room.
- Traces of debris or food crumbs on the floor, in the pantry, or shelves.
- Presence of scratch marks, especially around food packaging, racks, and dustbins.
Foolproof Strategies Of Getting Rid Of Mice Naturally
No matter how challenging it seems, there are ways to eliminate mice without having to kill them. Have a look:
1. Clear Out All Food Sources
Mice only require a small quantity of food every day, but gluttony is definitely one of their sins! To get rid of house mice, remove all the food items that they like to feed on.
It’s also recommended that you store grains, lentils, dry goods, and pet food in metal or glass containers since mice are unable to chew through these materials.
To avoid welcoming these unsolicited guests to your home, make sure to seal all potential sources of food. Use tamper-proof compost pits and dustbins, and never leave food over the counter for a long period.
If you have accidentally dropped food on the table or floor, and your home is vulnerable to mice attacks, then always clean up the spills immediately.
2. Make Use Of Sound
Installing ultrasonic devices works like a charm when it comes to keeping mice at bay. Needless to say, such deterrent units are kid, animal, and pet-friendly.
You can easily purchase one of these from any local hardware store.
Lastly, make sure to set them up in areas where you spot mice activity the most.
3. Install Live Traps
Live traps efficiently help you dodge mice infestation, without having to inhumanely poison them. These devices catch mice by trapping them in a large box that doesn’t have any pathway to go out once they get in.
Once you have caught a mouse, make sure to release it at least a mile away from your home. Otherwise, it might come back again.
4. Raise a Cat
This idea probably sounds far too extreme, but cats serve as some of the most excellent mice deterrents out there. If it is convenient for you, adopting a cat will certainly help keep your mouse population down.
In a case raising a cat is not possible, then arranging tubs of used kitty litter and placing them at the entrance of your home also helps.
The odor of cat urine warns mice of the presence of cats, and so, they may vacate your space.
Alternatively, you can get some pure ammonia, that’s known to smell like the urine of a predator. Leaving ammonia-soaked cotton pads at the most frequently-visited mice spots will compel mice to leave.
5. Get Natural Mice Repellent
You can use mice’s heightened sense of smell to get rid of them with the help of the following natural mice repellents:
- Fabric softener sheets – Place these sheets at all the entry points of your house to evade any mice traffic.
- Apple cider and water – Mix both these liquids, transfer them in a spray bottle, and spray the mixture across the boundaries of your house. You can also use it indoors.
- Essential oils – Mice are serial chillers, but they hate the smell of cloves, pepper, cayenne, and peppermint oil. These are readily available at any local health food store. Soak some cotton balls in these oils and set them up anywhere you’ve had issues with mice. Alternatively, materials such as vinegar, bleach, and toothpaste also do the job.
6. Seal All Entry Points
Once the temperature dips, rodents would want to crawl inside your home’s cozy corners. You can obstruct their entry by using weather-stripping or caulk to seal small holes in the doorways, siding, and foundation.
Additionally, you can also push steel wool into vent outlets to prevent their entry without limiting airflow.
Preventive Measures To Keep Mice Out Of Your House
The good old epigram teaches us that prevention is always better than cure, and we agree!
Rather than running around, finding workable ideas of coping with mice infestation once their army has invaded your fort, you can keep caution from the beginning.
So, listed below are some tips to keep these troublemakers out of your home in the first place:
1. Maintain Proper Hygiene Standards Across Your Landscape
Always store all firewood approximately 20 feet away from your home. Remember to trim shrubs, trees, and other landscaping in a timely manner.
2. Be Mindful of All The Objects You Bring Indoors
Before carrying the last season’s ski gear or pre-used holiday decoration to your home, carefully inspect all the items to ensure that mice aren’t inhabiting any of them.
3. Keep All The Exterior Doors Shut
Make sure to keep your exterior doors tightly shut at all times to avert the entry of mice. As an alternative, you can also install a screen door.
4. Set Up a Dehumidifier
Secure your home against mouse invasion by making it less appealing for them. You can do this by keeping basements, crawl spaces, and attics well-ventilated and dry with the help of a dehumidifier.
5. Look After Your Weather Stripping
Tattered weatherstripping is an invitation for mice to barge into your house. So, make sure that you replace loose weather stripping throughout the basement foundation, doors, and windows of your home.
Final Takeaways– How to Get Rid of Mice?
So, this was all about some of the best ways to get rid of mice. We hope that our round-up has equipped you with all the strategies to fend yourself off these mammals.
Remember, in the case of mice infestation, it’s important to act quickly as it’s highly likely for them to spread diseases.
Their high reproduction rate makes it even more difficult to restrict their invasion, so don’t wait any longer.
