How to Rid Your Home of Mice

As with most pests, keeping mice out of your home in the first place is the best way to avoid infestation.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sheet Metal
• Work Gloves
• Work Gloves
• Metal Screens
• Metal Trash Containers
• Mouse Poisons
• Mousetraps
• Plastic Trash Containers
• Steel Wool
• Steel Wool
• Garbage Bags
• Cement
• Screen Wire
• Garbage bags

Protecting Your Home

1. Keep your lawn mowed. Mice do not like to travel through short grass.

2. Remove wood piles, trash and debris from your home's perimeter. Elevate wood piles 18 inches above ground level. To protect yourself when cleaning out wood piles, trash or debris, be sure to wear protective clothing: long-sleeved shirts, long pants, gloves and boots.

3. Check all vents and repair damaged screening with 16- to 20-gauge 1/4-inch hardware cloth. Check the crawl-space doors to ensure that they fit tightly. Check where pipes enter the building. In wooden walls, place sheet-metal collars around those entrances. In stucco, stone or brick walls, use cement fill.

4. Fill cracks and crevices around the foundation and eaves with caulk or foam. Steel wool can be used, although it rusts.

5. Remove food sources by placing all food items, including pet food and bird seed, in tightly sealed containers. Clean up fallen bird seed. Keep trash in containers with tight-fitting lids.

6. Avoid vacuuming or sweeping mouse droppings, due to the dangers of hantavirus, a deadly virus spread to humans through contact with rodents and rodent urine and droppings. Droppings should be misted with a strong household disinfectant (chlorine bleach) and wiped up with paper towels.

Trapping and Baiting

7. Place traps or poison pellets near holes and in places where you've seen mice. The trigger should be as near to the hole as possible.

8. Use fruit, candy or peanut butter as bait if your trap requires bait.

9. Check traps daily.

10. Put on thick gloves and remove the carcass from the trap once a mouse has been caught.

11. Wrap the carcass in newspaper or a plastic bag and place it in an outside garbage can.

Tips & Warnings

• Mice can carry diseases. Some of them - such as hantavirus - are potentially fatal.

[lagirl53]

on 8/8/2009 The reason I ask about the snake thing is because we had one to get in out central unit outside we thought our unit was tearing up but once hubby turned it off there was a headless snake in it. that was just to close to the house for me. WE DON'T HAVE HIGH GRASS AROUND OUR HOME AT ALL BUT SEEMS WE DID HAVE A SNAKE IN THE AIR UNIT.

[lagirl53]

on 8/8/2009 DO MOTH BALLS KEEP SNAKES AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE BY PUTTING THEM OUT SIDE UNDER YOUR HOUSE.

[mackcookie]

on 6/1/2009 peppermint works pretty good for mice. purchased from the natural food store, apply to cotton balls--place thru out strategically. replace monthly. i hate the critters---I have small kids

[snakewoman]

on 10/16/2008 i have had a couple of mice in my house now for several weeks to months!now i got up at five o clock to go to the bathroom and discovered i had caught a mouse with a sticky trap,but then i went to the bathroom and i was greatly shocked to find a snake across my toilet and trying to go up the shower curtain!!well i was so upset and crying because i'm deathly afraid of snakes no matter the size,i stood and thought if i leave the bathroom it will surely get away and hide,so i took my toilet plunger and emtyed my metal garbage can in the floor.i got the snake to come around my way,and i slapped the garbage can on it to hold it down,then took the plunger and plunged over it's head,then when i new the plunger was tight i took the can off and put the can up to it's tail and as soon as it was wiggling into the can i took the plunger from its head and pushed him in it the rest of the way''i had i

[tRoy]

on 7/19/2007 The bucket idea of Jessica Baldau's is a good one. I've used it for years but I do it a little different. I put about 2 gallons of a 50/50 mix of water & anti freeze in a 5 gallon bucket. I use a board about 3-4' long with a nail through one end. The nail sits inside the bucket and keeps the board from falling. I pour 1 cup of black sunflower seeds in the bucket. Mice LOVE sunflower seeds and the seeds float. The mice see what looks like a bucket 1/2 full of seeds and they jump right in. The water, of course, shortens their life expectancy alot! The reason I use the anti freeze is that I've found that with it the mice don't seem to rot and stink as they do with just water. Also, this works in the winter out in sheds & garages when just water would freeze.