Get Rid of Mice Fast
Mice can be cute, but not when they are invading your house. If you need to get rid of mice fast, read this article to learn how.
Contents
10 Second Summary
1. Clean your house thoroughly.
2. Seal all food sources, including trash bins.
3. Seal all possible mouse entrances.
4. Try natural repellents, such as cats, peppermint oil, or snake feces.
5. Consider chemical extermination, glue traps, or calling an exterminator.
Steps
Cleaning and Sealing Off Your Place of Residence
- Keep your food sources in metal or glass containers with secure lids. Mice can eat through cardboard, certain plastics, and other forms of containers to get at food. In order to cut down the mice's food supply, make sure that you don't leave any food out, or if you do, to put it in something that mice cannot get at.
- Don't leave out pet food. Remove any food that your pet hasn't eaten immediately after its meal.
- Mice are terrific climbers; even the top of your refrigerator is not a safe place for food storage.
- Seal your trash in a can with a tight lid. The less food there is to eat, the fewer mice you'll have, even if your trash can is outside. For indoor trash cans, make sure they have an adjustable, sealable lid that is closed if not being used. Mice will eat food that is thrown away by humans.
- Keep all counters, sinks, and kitchen surfaces clean. Don't leave your dirty dishes out overnight, and take care to wipe off all your regularly-used counters with household cleaner and disinfectant.
- Seal off any possible entry points to your place of residence. Entry points should be sealed off so that mice cannot get into your place of residence to begin with. Make sure you:
- Seal off cracks, holes or crevices with something sturdy, like steel or concrete. Check your place of residence fastidiously for anything the mice could get into.
- Seal off pipes, gas lines, and drier vents. Mice can use these entry points as highways to get into your house.
- Consider putting steel wool inside the pipe or vent before you seal it off. Steel wool pads will prevent mice from using the hole to get back into your house. It will add an extra element of protection if your mice are persistent and resilient.
- Seal off anything else that could possibly invite mice into your place of residence. Mice can enter breaks or holes as small as a pencil eraser, meaning that total coverage of any breaks is necessary to create an effective seal.
Natural Extermination Methods
- Consider getting a cat. By far the most natural way to let your mice population know they are not welcome is to get a cat. Cats love to catch mice. Cats love to eat mice. Mice don't like to be eaten by cats. A good mouser will clean out your mouse population in no time and discourage any new mice from moving in.
- If you choose to get a cat, remove all traps, baits, and poisons from your home and keep them locked away - they can make your cat very sick or seriously injure them.
- Use old fashioned snap traps. The mice will have a quick end, and you can throw the trap away with the mouse, since they are so cheap. Although they seem cruel, they kill the mouse quickly and without a doubt are safer than poison if you have small children or pets. An additional benefit is that the dying mouse can not crawl into your walls and die, causing a horrible smell that can last for weeks.
- Snap traps do present some small danger to humans and pets, however. They can also leave unsightly messes when they trap and kill the mice.
- Experiment with peppermint oil as a repellent. Try soaking a cotton ball in the strong scent of peppermint oil and placing the cotton balls in strategic areas in your place of residence. Mice are reported to hate the smell of peppermint oil. Peppermint oil is not a poison; it is a repellent. Mice will try to avoid it.
- Try out cat urine and snake feces. This sounds bizarre, but it actually works. Mice are naturally afraid of both cats and snakes, and so it's only natural that their feces sends the fear of God into their tiny little hearts.
- Place litter boxes in strategic areas of your home. Encourage your cat(s) to actually use it; a litter box without urine isn't much use.
- Visit a pet store and ask the owner for some snake scat. S/he may not have any available, but if you ask politely, you may be able to set up a partnership for future retrieval. The owner should be more than happy to let you take feces off their hands.
- Try ultrasonic repellent machines. Ultrasonic mice repellents use small beeps to annoy and scare off mice, and are safe to use with other pets, such as cats and dogs. There is some controversy about their effectiveness, however. Some experts contend that mice get used to the beep after a short while, making them effective only for a short time.
Chemical Extermination Methods
- Use an electric zapper trap. Electric traps works by luring the mice over to the trap and then zapping them with a powerful electrical shock. The downside of these traps is that they are expensive (costing up to $40) and will use up energy very quickly (batteries are not inexpensive either).
- Use glue boards. Glue boards will catch mice effectively, but they are less popular than other methods because they cause the mouse to die of stress or starvation and also may catch other pets or animals.
- Consult an exterminator. An exterminator will be able to deploy a range of natural and chemical methods to get rid of a mouse colony. Especially if your mouse problem is an infestation (not a couple stragglers bothering you occasionally), exterminators will probably be more effective than home measures.
- Use poison-laced bait as a last resort. Mice have to eat; this means that you can buy poison-laced mouse- and rat bait at most hardware stores. Once they've eaten, they become very thirsty and will go out side for looking for water.
- Prior to 1990, strychnine was used. However, since 1990, zinc phosphide Zn3P2 has been used. The odor of the bait attracts rats and mice but generally repels other animals.
- Most dosages will kill the rodent in a single serving, although surviving mice may develop an aversion to the bait.
- Note: The downside to poison-laced bait is that it is toxic to humans (but will induce a vomiting response). You'll also have to deal with dead mice trapped in inaccessible places, which may attract other unwanted rodents.
Tips
- Mice can be fond of peanut butter, try using that to get them in traps.
- Keep your big bag of pet food in a metal trash can.
- You can also make some mice-friendly traps to capture the mice without killing them. You can release the mice into the wild far away from your house.
- Use vegetable oil to release mice from glue boards humanely without injury and release them into the wild.
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