Rodent invaders are one of the most common and unwanted house guests in the world. This article will explain the process of getting rid of mice once and for all.

1. Mouse identification

Baits for wild mice are slightly different than those used for common house mice so you should make an effort to figure out which you have. Use the following two lists to determine the origin of your visitors. Wild mice prefer seeds, oats and unprocessed foods while house mice will eat nearly anything. If your rodents are larger than 5-6 inches in length (tail included) it’s likely that they are rats, not mice. If this is the case, read How to get rid of rats.

Common house mouse characteristics:

• Head and feet are proportional to body
• Tail is as long as head and body combined
• Back, feet and belly are all the same color (there are exceptions to this)
• Flat upper incisors (you know, the two mouse-teeth that always stick out in the cartoons)

Common wild mouse characteristics:

• Head and feet are disproportionately large for body (sewer rat)
• Short, hairy tail (meadow mouse)
• White belly and multi-colored tail (deer mouse)
• Grooved upper incisors (harvest mouse)
• Large ears and protruding eyes along with a dark brown back and silver belly (field mouse)

Signs of a mouse infestation include:

• Unexplained holes in walls or food containers. Mice have the ability to gnaw amazingly precise circles.
• Spherical droppings up to 1/4″ long. (Rat droppings range from 1/4″ - 3/4″ long)
• Scampering and rustling noises in the walls and ceilings (Pay attention, this could help identify a nest or point of entry!)
• Dirty smudges and urine dribbles on floors along walls. Mice have poor eyesight and tend to run along the sides of objects instead of charging out into the open.

If you’re still not sure if you’ve got ‘em, sprinkle some talcum powder or flour on surfaces along the walls where you think your infestation is centered and wait a few days. If you have rodents in that area you will see tracks appear in the powder. Mice leave tracks that are approximately 1/2″ wide while rats leave tracks up to 3″ wide.

2. Eliminate the source of the mouse infestation

This section will walk you though the process of determining what attracted the mice into your home in the first place, eliminating the attraction and then eliminating methods of entry into your home.

Remove mouse-friendly food sources

House mice will eat almost any available foods (including pet food) but they prefer nuts and grains. Some varieties of wild mice eat seeds, insects, and fruits. Start your food-search in the kitchen, beginning on one side and scouring every nook and cranny for unprotected food, crumbs, spills and trash. Keep your food elevated if possible, in metal or glass containers. Keep your trash in strong, odor-proof containers with tight-fitting lids. If you have animals, purchase elevated pet food dishes and keep an eye out for spills. If you come across anything you think may have been touched by mice, through it away. Even though it has not yet been proven that mice transmit diseases to humans, they are known carriers of several virii that are very dangerous to us. On top of that, their parasites do transmit diseases to us. Rat parasites are how the Bubonic Plague was believed to have been transmitted.
Work your way through your entire house in this fashion; closets, pantries, dining rooms, bars, living areas, children’s rooms, and anyplace that food is known to go. Take careful note of any areas that appear to have been visited by mice, they will steal insulating materials to build nests so check soft furniture for gnawing damage near the floor.
Next, go outside and search a 50ft radius around your home. Look in exterior storage closets and sheds for pet food, seeds, ripe or rotting fruit, and any organic material that shows signs of feeding. Move compost heaps away from the house. Seal up bags of pet food or sacks of seeds and elevate or store them in metal trash cans. Keep an eye out for bird feeder spills and refrain from leaving easily accessible food supplies for pets and other desirable animals.

Eradicate their shelter and cover

Mice will live anywhere warm, quiet and close to food. They have the ability to squeeze through openings the size of a US dime to get inside walls, ceilings, underneath fixtures, behind and under cabinets - you name it, they might be there. The goal of this step is to eliminate the easy possibilities. That’s right, spring cleaning’s come early this year! Clean out all the clutter - closets with cluttered floors, children’s rooms , basements and garages. The point is to eliminate shelter to contain any mice in a smaller area. The average mouse will only stray about 25 feet from it’s nest so this can effectively limit their foraging possibilities, making traps more effective.

Once you’ve finished cleaning out the inside of your house, it’s time once again to step outside. This time you’re hunting for anything that can be used as cover: high grass, weeds, wood piles, stacks of things and debris piles. If you can’t eliminate a cover, move it at least 50 feet away from your house to limit the possibility of rodents running from these places to your home. Create a no-mouse-land.

Block all methods of home entry

Tired yet? I’ll bet! Don’t worry though, you’re almost through the labor-intensive part of this process, so hang in there. This step will focus on securing your home in order to keep more mice from getting in. If you skip this step they’re likely to move in just as fast as you can catch or kill them so stay alert and be thorough.
As I stated earlier, mice can squeeze through openings as small as a dime, as you can imagine this can make a home that is secure to you or me look like grand central station to mighty mouse and his family. Starting outside of your home, assume the mind set of a mouse and examine every nook and cranny from one side of your house to the other with the question “Is this a possible point of entry for a mouse?”. If the answer is “yes” or even “maybe” then fill it in or plug it up with a material that is gnaw-proof - cement or mortar for the big holes, steel wool or metal plating for smaller crannies. Entry points can be as high as 2 feet off of the ground. (Note that there are a variety of rats that can scale trees and walls)
Now take a second look around the perimeter of you’re home for possible hiding places near doors where a mouse can make a run for it when someone is coming in or out of the house. Once the exterior meets your satisfaction, journey back inside and into the basement (if you have one). Look for cracks, holes, and crannies that may lead outside. Plumbing and wiring conduits are common culprits that are easily plugged with steel wool.

3. Eradicate the current mouse population

You now should have identified what was attracting them into your home in the first place and done away with it as best as possible. After all of the work you’ve done you probably have a pretty good idea of where Mickey and his buddies are hanging out and you’ll make good use of that information in this section which deals with eliminating the current mouse population from within your home. The better you performed the previous steps, the easier this will be.

Repellents

Mice have a natural aversion to mint, and will generally avoid it. Plant it around the exterior of your house as a deterrent as well as potting some around your home. Not only will they keep mice away, but they’ll freshen the air as well. Ahhh. Spearmint seeds can be had in garden centers or ordered online.

Catching mice with traps

This section will describe the most popular and efficient mouse traps in use today. Following are some guidelines for trap placement and strategy, then we will get into the specifics of each trap’s function and design.
When you first begin trapping, put out the baited traps but don’t set them. This will get the mice used to feeding from them and make elimination much easier. It may take the mice a few days to get used to the new traps before they are willing to take the bait so wait a while before you move the traps around and check them daily. Mice can detect even the faintest human-smells on traps, a light coating of bacon grease works well to cover this up while offering additional mouse-appeal. When you decide on an area to set up traps, do so in clusters of 5 or more. Remember, the goal is to eliminate the current population. This means killing them faster than they can breed. Just one happy couple can create over 100 offspring each year so don’t dawdle. Speed is the key.

What do mice eat? Effective baits include baked breads, peanut butter and oatmeal, peanuts in the shell, raw bacon, and cotton balls (attractive for nesting material).

Lethal traps: How to kill mice

DIY bucket trap
This mouse trap is constructed from a bucket half-filled with water. It works by baiting the mouse over the bucket’s opening and then causing it to fall into the water and drown.

Materials: 5-gallon bucket, wire clothes hanger, paper towel tube (or several toilet paper tubes taped together), something to use for a ramp, and bait. Assembly is as follows:

1. Remove the metal handle from the bucket.
2. Thread the wire hanger through one of the bucket’s handle holes, the cardboard tubes and then back out through the second handle hole. Bend the ends down securely. The tubes should almost reach from one end of the bucket to the other (leave a small gap near the edges so the mouse has to jump onto it).
3. Mix the bait with peanut butter or glue to make it sticky and generously smear it around the center of the tube.
4. Fill the 5-gallon bucket half way with water and place it in the area of infestation. Set up some ramps to help the mice up and you’re done.

Check your bucket every day or two and if the water starts getting stinky, a little cooking oil to coat the surface can keep the smell contained. Never touch a dead mouse and change the water after every kill.

Snap traps
Snap traps have been around for so long because they work, and they work well. Their draw backs are that they can be messy and they don’t always kill the mouse - meaning you may need to finish the job. More often then not they do provide an efficient and quick death and they can be purchased at any hardware store for less then a dollar each. Spring for the traps with wide trigger plates so the mouse only needs to step onto the trap to spring it.

Set these traps along the walls, with the trigger plates facing the wall so the mice are more likely to run into them (remember that mice run along the sides of things). If your mice are trap shy, you can hide these traps by burying them in trays of sawdust or corn meal.

Glue boards
Glue boards have the advantage of being able to catch many rodents simultaniously, but are unpopular because mice are left to die of stress or starvation. These traps can also catch non-target animals. Use them well away from pets and children. These can be found inexpensively in hardware stores and online.

Zapper traps
Zapper traps work by luring the mice inside a small structure and delivering a lethal electric shock. They work well and are easy to clean but are also fairly expensive and eat batteries like crazy, if you are trying to eliminate a family of mice they may be able to reproduce faster than you can catch them with a single one of these around. The most popular version is The Rat Zapper, but Victor makes a less expensive model that seems to work just as well.

Non-lethal (live) traps

If you are planning on releasing trapped mice, do so at least a mile away from your home because they have a knack for finding their way back to their nests. Also be wary of handling them as they can carry parasites that would be more than happy to live on you or the family pet.

DIY bowl trap
This easy-to-make trap baits the mouse into a large metal bowl with a tasty tid-bit and prevents it from escaping because its inside surface is coated with butter, grease or oil. If you place it out with a cardboard ramp, the mice will jump in to get the food but will be unable to escape.

Catch traps
Catch traps are usually made from plastic or metal and work by luring the mouse inside with bait and then snapping shut behind them. They work reasonably well but mice seem to get used to these and learn how to circumvent their mechanisms shortly after they’re introduced.

Ultrasonic (plug in) devices
The federal trade commission has stated that these devices are ineffective in controlling rodents, that they do not cover the advertised area, and that they do not prevent rodents from entering an area. Furthermore there have been no studies that prove these devices work. While an ultrasonic device may provide some deterrence it is likely that the rodents will get used to the sounds it makes and eventually ignore it. Just read some of the experiences people have had with these.

Poisons

If you decide to go the poison route, stick with the poisons that come in tamper-proof bait stations and do not put them anywhere a pet, child, or non-target animal can get to them. It is generally advised that poison be used as a last resort because you will have mice dying all around your house - even in very hard to reach places. Rotting mice mean horrible smells, and decomposing flesh attracts many other pests. Why trade one problem for another? If traps aren’t working, consult an exterminator before filling your home with poison.

Predators

• Dogs - Contrary to popular belief, dogs can be better at killing mice than cats. That’s actually how rat terriers got their name.
• Cats - Yes, cats injure rodents too, and then they play with them and kick them around your house before killing them and presenting them to you as a gift. awwwww, how cute. Cat’s trained to hunt rodents are called mousers. Neither cats nor dogs are completely effective by themselves.
• Barn Owls - Barn owls are extremely efficient at getting rid of mice. One family of barn owls can eat up to 15 mice every night! Consider erecting a nesting box to attract them onto your property.