Mice have come close to humans only in fictions. Stuart Little and Jerry are two of the most loved and celebrated characters for children and adults alike. In real life however, the scenario is completely different. Here the daily subtle attacks of mice pushes us to our limits and turn our beautiful abode into a very unhygienic place. To send them off without spending much money, follow the tricks described below and let your loved ones continue having a wonderful time!
The Tricks
- Prevent them from entering
Since mice are very small creatures, they have the freedom to enter your house from any corner or through any gap. So to stop them from doing so, the first step is a bit arduous in nature. You need to give a thorough look throughout the house to figure out which openings they are using to serve the purpose. They can also hide themselves in the tangles of utility lines, electronic cables and vents.
- Block the gaps: If you find any crack or opening around the windows, doors and roof areas, seal them up using caulk or stainless steel pads depending on the size of the gap.
- Keep doors shut tight: Whatever you are doing, never leave the doors open. Specially during gardening, make sure you shut the door tightly as soon as you leave. Otherwise, the mice can run from the open ground right into your safe abode in a second. Take help of weather-stripping if you feel the need to.
Use electronic pet doors: We all love our pets. So in order to let them move inside and outside of our home freely, we often install pet doors. But little do we realize, these are the very doors mice utilize as a free and safe way to enter the house. A way to do justice to both of these situations is to replace the usual pet door with an electronic one. These doors are usually insulated and open themselves up in response to the electronic chip embedded into your pet’s collar.
- Let them starve
Once you have detected their presence, a pretty obvious but effective solution is to stop allowing them any kind of food and then adding a smell unpleasant to them for a faster result.
Deprive them of food: Don’t let even the smallest pieces or crumbs of food lay around your place. Sweep them off the floor or surface as soon as they get dropped. Besides, make arrangements to keep the food in its place. Keep items like rice, flour, cereals etc. inside air-tight boxes.
Also, whenever you and your family are done with meals, clean up the dirty plates and utensils right away. Do the same to your kitchen counters after preparing the food.
Handle the mealtimes of your pet with same caution and pick up what they haven’t finished within a minute.
Pull out their beds: Usually mice use papers from old newspapers and magazines as their bed. So avoid piling them up and practice throwing them away on a regular basis.- Use peppermint oil: Mice cannot stand the smell of peppermint oil and thus it can be a very effective weapon in your fight! Next time you clean the house, put in some peppermint oil into the cleaning mixture and its residue will automatically spread out throughout the house. For some extra measure, put some of it onto a cotton ball and rub it in the corners of your kitchen shelves.
- Camphor also helps: Since us humans are also a tad bit unimpressed with camphor, it’s probably not a good option for areas we often spend time at like the living room, bedrooms etc. However, for spaces outside the house which seem to be the potential safe-houses to mice, you can hang it up there inside socks or something similar. This will ensure that the children are safe from accidentally coming in contact with it and at the same time, those places will be free of the harmful rodents.
- Stop them from living inside your walls
Apart from the old papers, mice also love to spend some quality time inside the walls where no light can touch them and thus they can find more comfort. To catch them red-handed (or dead, if you have already followed the steps mentioned above), place some classic mousetraps along those walls. Remember to use rubber gloves while setting the traps up so that they cannot catch a scent of you. Otherwise they will avoid those areas specifically detecting that smell of a human.
Further steps
- Adopt a cat
We all know how Tom and Jerry ended up in the cartoon. So get yourself a cat who is not just cute and strong, but also smart and brave! If he loves you enough, he might even bring you a “gift” of dead mice from time to time.
- Keep your home clean
This is a no-brainer, but still many people avoid it. A filthy room or an entire house full of such rooms is the heaven a mouse looks for all his life. Thus, make sure your house is not their next target by keeping every part of the house as clean as possible.
- Put your trash cans far from home
The amount of negative reaction humans have for trash cans, is equal to the amount of love mice have for these things. They can smell these cans from a mile away and get lured into your house. So remember to place the cans far from your home to keep them wondering their source.
- Let preying birds be your guests
If possible, build a shelter box without any protruding nails and put it in your garden for natural mouse hunters. There are many birds like owls who would love to prey on them on a regular basis.
There you go! Follow any of these methods and wait for two to three days. All instances of these beings will vanish and allow you to have a healthy lifestyle.