How To Get Rid Of Mice And Keep Them Away From Your Home, According To An Expert

Despite our legendary Southern hospitality, there’s one houseguest that’s never welcome: mice! These rodents can infest a home, garage, attic, shed, or even lawn mowers, automobiles, and barbecue grills. They make no distinction about where they’ll set up, as long as it’s cozy, warm, and dry.

Mice contaminate food, chew up everything in sight, and spread illnesses through their urine, saliva, and droppings. “They transmit diseases such as hantavirus and leptospirosis,” says Sheldon Owen, PhD, wildlife extension specialist at West Virginia University. “A buildup of their feces in attic insulation, for example, may lead illnesses such as histoplasmosis. Or they may be carrying Lyme disease-infected ticks, which can then bite you or your pets.”

Mice also are incredibly proficient at reproducing: Gestation takes just a few weeks, with 6 to 12 pups per litter and up to 8 litters per year. Babies are mature enough to have their own babies in six to 10 weeks. (You do the math! ) Under the right conditions in your home, a few rodents can become a lot of rodents in a relatively short time, says Owen.

Mouse Types

The common house mouse (Mus musculus) isn’t the only type of rodent that will take up residence indoors in the South, says Owen. Other types that may come indoors include:

· Black, or roof rat (Rattus rattus) and Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), which typically are found in more urban settings.

· White-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), which are found in more rural settings because their natural habitats are forests and fields.

Here's what else you need to know about how to get rid of mice and other rodents:

How To Keep Mice Out Of Your House

Keeping any type of rodent out starts with inspecting your home, garage, and shed. Look for easy access points. Mice are small (5 to 7 inches long) and can squeeze through openings about ¼-inch in width. Rats are larger (12 to 18 inches long) and can gain entry through crevices about ½-inch wide.

 “As much as possible, try to keep rodents out in the first place by limiting access and reducing potential attractants,” says Owen. A few steps you can take to make your home less welcoming include:

· Seal gaps and holes around windows, doors, fireplaces, pipes, dryer vents, and floor drains; use copper wool to plug large holes because it’s harder for them to chew through than steel wool. Avoid using screens, wood, or rubber, which they can gnaw.

· Make sure door sweeps and weather stripping are intact.

· Mice and rats are good climbers and jumpers, so trim back vegetation and shrubs so they’re not touching your house and providing shelter and easy access into your home.

· Reduce indoor and outdoor clutter, including brush piles and cardboard boxes, which can camouflage rodent activity.

· Keep firewood piles away from house, not stacked against your home.

· Seal dry goods, such as pet food and birdseed, in airtight containers in the pantry or garage.

· Hang bird feeders away from the house.

How To Identify Signs Of Mice Infestation

Mice and rats are nocturnal, so you may not necessarily witness them running across your kitchen floor–though that occasionally does happen! But there are a few other telltale signs they’re present, says Owen:

·  Droppings that resemble brownish or black grains of rice, especially in drawers, cabinets, under sinks, and in other areas not in plain view.

·  Chewed-up bits of insulation, paper, foam, and other materials used to line a nest.

·  Dirty smudges along walls and other surfaces, indicating a heavily-used pathway or entry point.

·  Nests, gnawed wires or droppings in grills and unused cars and outdoor machinery, such as lawnmowers in the garage or shed.

How To Get Rid Of Mice

Besides sealing entryways and practicing good sanitation in and around the house, you’ll also need to exterminate these freeloading visitors. “The most effective method is a simple snap trap,” says Owen. “It’s quick, humane, efficient, and inexpensive.”

Mice are inquisitive and will investigate anything new, says Owen. But there are specific pointers for ensuring your trap catches the intruder. First, mice prefer to travel up against walls and linear edges. Set your trap perpendicular to the wall with the trigger end against the vertical surface. In tight spaces, you can set two traps parallel to the wall, facing either direction.

Small traps work for mice, but use rat traps for the bigger guys and gals. Bait the trap with peanut butter, and use a small amount so the rodent has to work to remove it. You also can set out baited traps without setting the snap to allow the rodent to become comfortable with it before setting the snap, says Owen.

Live-catch traps are not recommended for a number of reasons. “Because what do you do once you catch it? You can’t release it outdoors or it will come back into your home, and it’s not legal in most states to relocate an animal on private or government property,” says Owen.

Glue traps, which have a sticky substance the animal gets mired in, also are not preferred because it’s not humane, and it may bring you in contact with a live animal, says Owen. And then what?

As for toxicants, or baits, they can be effective, but any animal—including cats and dogs—can get into them and be negatively impacted, says Owen. There’s also the fact that the rodent will eat the toxicant and then go away to die inside your walls, which leaves you with a terrible odor for some time. Or if the rodent doesn’t eat enough of the poison and just gets sick, it will become bait-shy and avoid the bait after that.

With trapping, once you have a successful catch, wear disposable gloves, and pick up the entire thing, and tie it up in a  plastic bag. Place the whole thing in the regular trash, and wash your hands. Keep setting traps until you no longer see signs of mice, says Owen.

This typically is a DIY project. However, if you don’t want to handle this yourself or if you suspect you have a serious infestation, hire a professional pest control company, says Owen. Besides extermination, these companies also may be able to assist with locating and sealing entry points or making other recommendations for exclusion.

Do Repellants Work?

No matter what you’ve read, repellants such as essential oils, cinnamon, putrescent eggs, blood meal, predator urine, and capsaicin don’t work well to keep rodents away. “There’s been a lot of research recently, but most of these products have low or no effectiveness,” says Owen.

Sonic and electromagnetic devices also don’t work. “The marketing is outpacing the research,” says Owen. “The science doesn’t support these claims. You’ve got to evaluate what you have to lose. A $30 bottle of repellant with iffy results or a $1 trap?”

How To Clean Up After Rodents

If you’ve gotten your invasion under control, it’s time to clean up their messes. Wear disposable gloves, and spray down urine and droppings with a bleach solution (1.5 cups of household bleach in 1 gallon of water) or a general-purpose household disinfectant (make sure it says “disinfectant” on the label).

Soak the area well, let it sit for five minutes, then clean up droppings with paper towels, and dispose. Clean the surface again with disinfectant, and wash your hands. You also can spray down the dead rodent or its nesting materials with disinfectant before disposing of them.