How to Get Rid of Mice? 8 Tried & Tested Methods

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Like any other living organism striving to survive, even mice migrate to our homes searching for food, shelter, and warmth. However, when it comes to health and hygiene, letting mice run around the house can result in uncontrolled infestation, heightened risks of bacterial and viral spread, and all your belongings chewed to shreds.

When it comes to finding an answer for “How to Get Rid of Mice?” the answer can go either way. Do you want to choose the easier route and spend a few hundred dollars on pest control, or you want to try out a few tried and tested hacks to get rid of the rodent by yourself?

If you asked us, we’d recommend trying the latter first and then opting for professional help if nothing else works out. After a lot of research, we have shortlisted the best tips you can implement to get rid of mice from your home.

Also read: 10 Best Home Remedies to Get Rid of Lizards

List of Ways to Get Rid of Mice

1. Rodent-Proof Your Home

As weird as it sounds, it is likely the best way to handle the risks. After all, prevention is better than cure, right? When talking about rodent-proofing, we mean to target the common entry points of the mice. It can be through the cracks on the walls or an open face of a pipeline. If you have any such entry points that channel into your home, seal them with strong enclosures. 

Avoid using sealants, plastic, or wood to cover those entry points because mice can easily gnaw through those materials. The best way to check for entry points is to look around the utility pipes, bathroom entries, door cracks, etc. If you can fit a pencil through the crack, you need to seal that area off.

2. Seat Humane Traps

Mouse Trap
Image Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-mouse-inside-mouse-trap-during-daytime-69221/

Despite mice creating chaos in your home, the last thing you want to do is give them a terrible death. Most of the human-made traps end up torturing the creature. Instead, choose humane traps to catch the mice. These get hold of the rodents but keep them alive to ensure that you can release them out of the house later.

Always include some kind of treat or reward in the trap to lure the mice in. Some good treat options include cheese, peanut butter, bread, and even popcorn. Once the trap catches the mice, you can take them out to a secluded area and release them. Avoid coming in direct contact with the mice’s body since they can harbor many germs and diseases.

3. Focus On Your Home’s Sanitation

While it is true that cleaning your house following a mice infestation doesn’t guarantee that you will get rid of that, having an unsanitary home will attract the mice to migrate to your house in the first place. If you have a habit of leaving food crumbs here and there, the chances are that the rodents will scavenge for those little bits of food and survive in your home effortlessly.

Instead, take care of your home’s sanitation. Vacuum the carpets and the furniture regularly to get rid of crumbs or food particles. Keep your food stacked away in metal or glass containers since mice can easily chew through cardboard boxes. Also, make sure that you take out your trash regularly instead of waiting for the can to fill the brim.

Alternatively, focus on rooms that haven’t been inhabited for months, like a garage, storerooms, etc. These are the ideal breeding and infestation grounds for the mice. Instead of letting them have more space to hoard, clean out these congested spaces and declutter items you probably won’t use anymore. This is one of the most cost-effective answers to “How to get rid of mice?”

4. Try Hot Pepper Solution

If you have kids or pets at home, you know how risky placing poison baits can be. They are effective, but they come with their fair share of risks too. Hot pepper solution is one of the best non-poisonous and effective baits to help get the mice out of your house. However, even with this, you need to be mindful of your pet and kid’s health.

Try to spray them in areas where the mice frequently visit. As for the solution, keep the hot pepper to water ratio equal to ensure that the spray is concentrated. This way, you can impose the maximum impact on the mice’s health and drive them out of your home. 

5. Try Glue boards

If traps aren’t working for you, glue boards are another non-poisonous trap that can hold down the mice and keep them alive as well. You can find them readily available in grocery stores and retail outlets too.

However, glue boards can only work out well if you know where the mice frequently move around in your house. Placing the board in those areas can trap them down when they try to walk over the glue. This is a humane trap, which means that you can free them once you catch them in the glue board.

6. Use Essential Oils

Before you think we are talking complete non-sense, give it a go. Strong and concentrated essential oils are a complete no for mice. Not only is the smell too strong, but the texture of the oil is also an irritant to their skin. The strong smell of essential oils like peppermint and clove can easily drive mice out of the house. 

For the best results, take a few cotton balls and saturate them with essential oils and keep them around the spaces where the mice frequent the most. This way, you can repel them out of the house. However, remember that you might have to set up a glue board or other humane traps surrounding it to be able to catch the mice once they start running around frantically.

7. Get a Cat (?)

Cat
Image Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-and-black-cat-156934/

The reason why we have put a question mark is that not many people would consider doing it. However, getting a cat can help you get rid of the mice for good and out of the house. Cats are skilled enough to sense the presence of mice and catch and kill them. Make sure that no one in the house is allergic to cats before you end up getting one.

If getting a cat isn’t an option for you, try and switch out to getting cat litter instead. As gross as it sounds, it acts as a viable deterrent for the mice and drives them out of the house in no time.

8. Call an Exterminator

Since mice have a higher growth and reproduction rate, they infest a home very quickly. So, even when you are trying your best to get rid of all the small and larger mice out of the house, sometimes it becomes extremely tedious. Getting professional help can finally get rid of all the remnant mice infestation in your home without you having to worry about it day in and out.

However, when you are getting an exterminator for mice, check their background and reputation in the market before hiring them for the job.

Also read: 10 Ways to Get Rid of Fruit Flies Instantly at Home

Minimal or severe, both kinds of mice infestation require immediate action. If you see one mouse traipsing around the house, and are wondering how to get rid of mice, set up baits and other ways to catch it before it doubles and further multiplies in number. Remember that more than these rodents destroying your house and things, they are a breeding ground for hundreds and thousands of types of diseases. So, the quicker action you take, the faster you can improve your living condition.

By James Edwards

James Edwards is a writer & editor with almost 15 years of experience from Murphys, California. He earned his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University.

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