How to Deter Mice Without Poison

Leaving food out encourages mice.

Mice scurrying through your closets and nibbling at your food is as unhygienic as it sounds. Mice leave droppings and urine behind them and may carry diseases. The rodent habit of gnawing things, including electrical cables, can be dangerous. Poison certainly kills the mice but carries its own problems. It is an inhumane way to kill a mouse. Poisoned mice also crawl into walls to die, leading to numerous decomposing mice in inaccessible places. The smell of dead mice adds little to the appeal of a home. Alternatives to poison exist, including a variety of deterrents, which are often effective in preventing a mouse problem developing at all.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Vacuum cleaner
• Glass or ceramic storage containers
• Spill-proof bird feeders
• Cotton balls
• Peppermint essential oil
• Building materials or wire wool
• Live or snap traps

1. Scrub your kitchen. Vacuum up any crumbs, including below and behind furniture and appliances. Examine your kitchen closets and transfer any dried food, such as pasta, to glass or ceramic storage containers. Mice can easily chew through plastic wraps.

2. Introduce meal times for pets. A bowl of dog kibble or cat food lying around all day attracts pests. If you have little pets in cages, such as birds or gerbils, acquire spill-proof feeders or sweep up any spilt seeds several times a day. Just moving a food bowl to the center of a cage makes spillages less likely.

3. Soak cotton bowls in peppermint oil and distribute throughout your house, especially alongside walls, in closets and in sheltered places, such as underneath the sink.

4. Borrow a friend's carnivore pet, such as a dog, cat or ferret, for an hour or two and let the animal investigate your home. The smell of a predator might deter mice.

5. Block mouse entrances. Examine your walls, with a flashlight if necessary, and block all gaps wider than 1/4 inch with the appropriate building materials. Wire wool is also effective -- mice cannot chew through it.

6. Employ live traps or snap traps in the event of a serious mouse infestation. Live traps don't hurt the mouse, although it might not survive long outside the home, while snap traps are effective and fast. If using live traps, release the mouse at least a mile from your home. The Humane Society says that live traps or snap traps are reasonably humane as a last resort, unlike poison or glue traps.

Tips & Warnings

• Moth balls also work to deter mice but it is critical to keep in mind that they are highly toxic to the environment. And while mice won't eat them, children may mistake them for treats, which can cause serious health problems. The chemicals in moth balls can be absorbed through the skin so if you handle them use caution.

• A common suggestion to deter mice is to use live traps, which catch the mice without harming them. However, this is usually an ineffective approach to deter mice. Mice will ultimately find their way back to your house unless you release them miles away, in which case their survival rate is very low. In addition mice will die very quickly without food or water in a live trap, so if you are concerned about their survival, you must check the trap every few hours. If you are going to use any sort of trap, a snap trap is the most humane since it kills virtually instantly and prevents the prolonged suffering of unattended live traps and the slow painful death of glue traps.

References

• Illinois Department of Public Health: House Mouse Prevention and Control
• Humane Society: Solving Problems With Wild Mice
• Mother Earth News; Peppermint Discourages Mice in Walls; Norm Noe; December 2010/January 2011