How to Get Rid of Mice?: You’ve been seeing mice scurrying across your kitchen floor a bit too much that it probably gave your nightmares. In that case, if you’ve been wondering on home remedies to get rid of mice, you have landed on the right page. Because we have just the list of remedies you need to eliminate these pesky pests in no time!
How Mice Enters the Home?
Mice use several entry points to come into your home. They include cracks and holes in the walls and foundation, open doors, cracks or gaps in the windows, vents and chimneys and broken or cracked utility pipes.
Before you call in the professionals to eliminate the mice in your home, you might want to try the following methods first:
How to Get Rid of Mice with Home Remedies?
1. Get rid of entry points: To get rid of mice infestations in your home, one good way of doing so is to stop mice from developing and growing in your home. Block all the entry and exit points that mice could possibly use so that they remain blocked in your home. To do this, seal all the cracks in the foundation of your home, and in the walls and where the water pipes and vents are. Use steel wool and caulking but do not use rubber, plastic or anything that mice can easily gnaw and enter.
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2. Mousetraps: The most practical solution to getting rid of mice is to set a mousetrap at home. This is the quickest and most effective way of eliminating mice from home. You can also use different types of traps like bait traps, glue traps and multiple-capture live traps along with wooden traps. The variety will give you a higher chance of catching all the mice in your home, as some can be smart enough to know how certain kinds of traps work, and avoid going near them.
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3. Choose the best bait for mouse traps: Whatever food the mice have been eating at your home would serve very well as bait for the mice. It can be bacon, dried fruit, chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal, etc. When you want to set the trap, tie the bait to the trigger using a dental floss or fishing line. This will encourage the mice to enter the trap and get the bait. Every alternate day, change the bait.
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4. Bait stations: Bait packages or stations are sealed packets that contain meal pellets. They are usually covered in plastic or paper so that the mice can easily get to the bait and gnaw at it. And when they eat the bait, they die. This is however best handled by pest control professionals so that your children, pets and you are safe.
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5. Peppermint Essential Oil: Mice have a very sharp sense of smell. Hence, they find the smell of peppermint disturbing. Add 20 drops of peppermint oil on cotton balls and lay them in different parts of your home where you’ve noticed mice. Change them every week or whenever you find the aroma of peppermint oil dipping a bit.
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6. Poison: By using poison baits, you can achieve full success in getting rid of mice completely. To use poison baits, place them wherever in your home you see mice. Follow the instructions that come with traps and ensure that they remain out of the reach of pets and little children. Once each one dies, remove it immediately. Wear gloves for prompt removal.
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7. Ammonia: Apart from being very good cleaning agent, ammonia is a wonderful rodent repellent. A mix of 2 cups of ammonia, 100 ml of water and 2 spoons of detergent can be placed in a bowl where rats appear most often. The smell is very repulsive for the rats and this is enough to drive them away for years to come.
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8. Beep ultrasonic sounds: Rodents hate the sound of electronic units that give a loud beeping sound. They work on one line of sight, so it’s important to know the precise path the mice take. However, these units may work for only a short period because mice can quickly get used to them.
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9. Cloves: Cloves have strong smell that mice find distasteful and irritating. So, to get rid of mice, simply use whole cloves or cotton balls dipped in clove essential oil. Take about 20 cotton balls and put a drop of clove essential oil on each of it, and put it in all those areas of your home where mice frequent appear. Keep pets and kids away from these areas and let cloves do their job.
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10. Onions: Mice hate the pungent smell of onions, making it another effective natural remedy to get rid of mice at home. This may be a little difficult to maintain though, because onions rot if left out for several days and animals like dogs and cats can find onions toxic. Place the onions out of the reach of pets and small children. Every alternate day, change the onion until the problem of mice infestation goes away completely.
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Dos and Don’ts of Getting Rid of Mice
- Keep your home clean if you don’t want mice to enter to be your guest. Like all other pests, mice are more likely to hide and nest in cluttered homes, while they get enough food from food spills and scraps.
- An easy way of keeping mice out of your home is to keep it clean and decluttered. This means that you should not leave food uncovered. Ensure to store all your food, cooked or packaged and pet food, in airtight boxes so that nothing remains on the countertops.
- Also, remove any food crumbs from the floor or dining table immediately as this can attract mice.
- Clean your home often and thoroughly, so that mice don’t make any cracks and nooks their home. Keeping a clean home includes vacuuming it often and wiping all spills immediately so that your home always remains clean.
If you would like to have a hygienic home, it’s essential that you keep all kinds of rodents at bay. If it means calling in pest control professionals, then go ahead and do it. Nonetheless, try these natural remedies to get rid of mice and let us know how they worked for you!
