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How to Get Rid of Mice Naturally

how to get rid of mice naturally

Do you suffer from musophobia or the fear of mice? Well, you’re not alone; this is one of the commonest phobias! It’s, however, prudent that you overcome the fear and find ways of solving the problem immediately you identify the initial signs to avoid a full-blown infestation. Oftentimes, you’ll not require an exterminator unless there’re signs of severe infestation. Instead, you should just pick a natural method that limits your interaction with the rodent as well as ensures your family’s safety. This article will guide you through different natural methods that will help you rise above your fear and overcome stubborn rodents permanently!

Simple and Natural Ways to Get Rid of Mice

An ideal natural method for successful elimination of mice from your house should include two crucial elements: the ability to prevent the rodents from entering the house as well as to exterminate those already inside the house. This technique can take a relatively long period before tangible success is achieved. You need to be thorough in sealing all the entry points used by these curious rodents and devise highly reliable natural methods to drive the ones inside the house away.

If you still have no idea of what is expected from you, then apply the techniques below to the letter:

  1. Block Entry into Your House. Mice can devise entry routes even where you didn’t expect it to happen. As such, it’s critical that you identify all the openings that exceed 1/4 inch and block them. Make sure that the siding of your windows and doors do not leave any space. Also, you should be very keen on regions where electric cables enter your house since they present a high likelihood of gaps large enough to allow the mice into the house.
    Cooper Mesh pest stopper
  2. Clean the yard! Before entering your house, mice spend time in the yard trying to find a safe and reliable entry route. You should, therefore, ensure that the area around your house is free from overgrown landscaping including tall grasses, fallen leaves, compost, scrap piles and other messy conditions. If you maintain a clean environment, the mice will not be attracted to your house because the excessive exposure threatens their security.
  3. Declutter Your House. While mice can cleverly devise their way into the cleanest house, it becomes difficult for them to survive if they can’t get food, water, and materials to construct their nests. Decluttering your house ensures that you starve them which consequently leads to reduced chances of infestation. You should ensure that there are no food debris, standing water, pieces of papers as well as old clothes and newspapers.

If you follow the three recommendations, you will reduce the chances of infestation by more than 75%. However, it’s critical to note that all your efforts to eliminate mice would be futile if you fail to seal their entry points. You should ensure that your house is entirely mouse-proof which offers surety that the rodents cannot find their way back into your home.

Why do you rush to your house during winter? You ideally go there because the environment is ideal and it’ll provide your immediate need (warmth), right? The same case applies to mice, they migrate to escape environmental and other harsh conditions they encounter in their natural habitat. If they can’t get their needs in your home, then you can be sure that you’ll never complain of mice menace! But how can you achieve this?

Well, follow the following simple guidelines to prevent mice infestation:

  • Use air-tight containers to store all your food and cereals. Never store rice, flour, and cereals in an open cabinet because the mice will easily access them and enjoy the coziness of your home thus becoming extremely difficult to chase them away.
  • Wash dirty dishes after every meal. Do not allow used dishes and food remains to sit on your sink. Always clean them immediately after having your meals.

  • Sweep the floor and wipe counters after every meal. Mice will remain inside your house even when there are only a few snack crumbs as they hope for more! If you fail to keep your counters and floor crumb-free, your mice-elimination efforts will be futile.
  • Empty the Trash Bins daily. Your intention should be to ensure that the mice do not get any food traces. As such, you should empty and clean the bin daily!

The above criteria not only prevent mice from entering your house but also starves the mice inside your house forcing them to migrate to more friendly zones.

In Your House

Mice are highly curious and they exhibit top-notch creativity. They can wiggle their way into your house despite the level of orderliness and cleanliness you maintain. As such, you should devise an efficient natural system to curb them. Apart from ensuring that your home does not offer a conducive environment for the rodents, you can also use natural substances that repel the mice.

What’s best about natural mice extermination methods is the fact that you can apply items that you commonly use inside your house as natural mouse repellents. This ensures that their application affects only the target thus boosting the safety of the entire family. Recently, there has been much debate regarding the use of poisonous traps and baits due to the numerous poisoning cases reported to various emergency bodies!

The natural techniques will avoid such ugly scenarios, ensure that you abide by the recommended pest elimination guidelines among other numerous benefits as summarized below:

  1. The technique applies readily available materials that will neither require much money nor too much time to prepare. What’s best about it is the fact that its affordability does not, in any way, compromise the efficiency of the product in mice elimination.
  2. Natural substances present a Do-It-Yourself opportunity to repel the mice. You’ll turn some of the items that you require for your household duties into a strong weapon against these rodents.
  3. Guaranteed safety. There exist minimal risks of poisoning as opposed to other forms of poisonous baits and traps.

Are There Some Natural Solutions I Can Use?

There are plenty of natural ways to keep mice away from your house. One of the primary methods is to catch the mice inside your house and then release them into their natural habitat. You can find more details by visiting this link. Also, you can use natural repellents to chase away the mice and prevent re-infestation.

Infographic: Natural mice repellents

They include:

  • Baking Soda
  • Kitty Litter

These substances produce a pungent smell that mice cannot tolerate. As a result, they migrate into areas with cleaner and friendlier air.

It’s possible to deter mice by allowing nature to do its thing. This is not only environmentally friendly but also effortless to implement. Just like any other pest control technique, some natural deterrent methods work better than others do. Here are some options that are worth giving a try:

Go Green with Peppermint

One of the best ways to use Mother Nature as an ally in your fight against mice is by growing peppermint around your house, especially near the exterior entry points to the house. Mice hate the smell of this plant. If they get a whiff of it, they’ll want to turn right around and go the other way.

Apart from acting as a barrier to these unwelcome guests, peppermint smells great and compliments your garden. As an added advantage, you can incorporate it into your cooking once it matures.

The oil derived from the plant has been touted as an excellent mouse control tool. Does peppermint oil get rid of mice? Find out by visiting this link.

Make a Natural Deterrent Spray

Mice may not be a problem in your entire home and may only frequent specific areas such as water pipes and your car’s engine compartment. You can treat such areas with a natural spray. Fortunately, you can whip up your own potent concoction.

You’ll need the following ingredients:

  • 1 gallon (16 cups) of fresh water.
  • 2 tablespoons of hot pepper flakes.

  • 1/2 cup of chopped habaneros.
  • 2 large buckets.
  • Cheesecloth.

  • Large pot.
  • Gallon jug.
  • Spray bottle.

Wear gloves and goggles when preparing and applying deterrent spray.

Making sprayFollow the steps below:

  1. Boil water in a large pot.
  2. Blend the habaneros and hot pepper flakes in a food processor until the point they’ve been chopped up roughly a little more. You could also do that by hand.
  3. Pour the blend into a bucket.
  4. Next, pour the boiling water into the bucket.
  5. Cover this mixture and let it sit for one day.
  6. Pour the mixture into a different bucket while straining out the bits of pepper using cheesecloth.
  7. Fill the spray bottle and apply it wherever required, paying particular attention to entrances. Don’t spray your carpets because the solution may discolor them.

You can choose to apply the spray to your home’s exterior perimeter. If you want to use it indoors, make sure you wipe up the old spray with water and reapply the new spray after one or two days.

Use Kitty Litter

Put used kitty litter around the perimeter of your home and any other mouse-prone areas. Mice will stay away from the area when they detect cat waste.Used kitty litter

Snake poop will also work. You can get it from a zoo or pet store.

Natural remedies are usually inexpensive and safer than other pest control techniques. Get to know what a natural mouse repellent has to offer in this article.

Natural Remedies for Mice Control

When a mouse checks out your home and finds it to be okay, it will gladly move in. What’s worse, it could move in with some of its friends.

You don’t want mice making a home out of yours, so it’s critical to deter them from making the initial visit. The internet is awash with all kinds of rodent deterrents. Unfortunately, most of them are ineffective.

So which mice deterrents work then? There’re several ways to keep mice away from your house.

They include:

  • Deterrent lights
  • Ultrasonic devices

  • Poison-free traps
  • Commercial repellents

Deterrent Lights

Due to their nocturnal nature, mice tend to avoid light. That’s why you’ll hear a pet mouse clattering around its cage or a house mouse scampering in the rafters while you’re trying to catch some shuteye. Researchers claim mice behave more aggressively on dark winter nights than the light summer days because light helps curb aggression by activating the hormone estrogen.

Artificial lights like sodium street lights and bug lights seem to discourage beach mice from looking for food around lit areas at night. A study found that exposure to continually alternating pulses of light resulted in sluggishness and difficulty in learning in mice.

With the above in mind, several manufacturers have developed devices that emit strobe light or bright LED flashes, which mice and other rodents find extremely annoying.

Below are some deterrent lights that you can purchase:

1. Solar Rodent Deterrent

With 30 bright LEDs, it emits 105 flashes per minute to deter mice. Its battery requires just a few hours of indirect sunlight to be fully restored.

Cost: $127.75 (MODEL# SLX-10-C-SM-RD)

Where to buy: www.lumastrobe.com

Where to use: Outdoors

Solar mice deterrent

2. The Gatekeeper Rodent Repellent Strobe

Every minute, the Gatekeeper emits more than 240 bursts of light. It comes with a 15-foot cord and a 2-prong plug for easy connection to your outlet. It withstands the elements thanks to its weatherproof plastic enclosure.

Cost: $298.55 (MODEL# The Gatekeeper)

Where to buy: www.lumastrobe.com

Where to use: Both indoors and outdoors. You can place it in your attic, on your roof, near outdoor bins, and virtually any other place you wish to deter rodents.

The GateKeeper

Strength in numbers
One deterrent light is usually enough to cover one room. However, using one unit in a room that has personal belongings, beams, and other structures that block the light will only make mice move to the areas of the room not affected by the deterrent.
Make sure you use more than one unit in such cases to ensure the lights fully cover all parts of the room.

Ultrasonic Deterrents

Anti-mice ultrasonic deterrentThese are electronic units that you place inside your house to scare the mice. They emit high-frequency ultrasonic sound waves that disturb mice without affecting pets and people. They aim to create an environment that these rodents can’t tolerate. As a result, they will migrate away from the noise enabling a mouse-free house.

This method, however, presents a limitation since the rodents can become used to the noise!

For more information, go to this article that expounds on the functioning of the electronic mouse deterrent.

Using Poison-Free Traps

There are several humane traps that you can use to keep the mouse away. You can purchase the catch-release traps or make homemade traps that will help you catch the rodents.

Humanic poison-free traps

You can also acquire electric mouse traps from your nearest pest control shop. Read more here.

Read more about home remedies to get rid of mice here.

Other Commercial Repellents

There are several other commercially available repellent products that help you tackle rodent problems. They have special ingredients in combinations that are deterrent to rodent invasions.

Let’s look at a few good examples:

1. Stay Away Botanical Rodent Repellent

The repellent comes in pouches that slowly release a smell that’s pleasant to people but offensive to mice. These nasty rodents don’t like nesting in a place where they’re unable to smell incoming danger, so the product will prevent mice from moving into your home while forcing existing ones to leave.

How to use: If you’re using the product for preventive purposes, place one pouch per every 125 square feet. The scent lasts for 90 days. If you’re using the product to deal with an infestation, place one pouch for every 8 square feet of floor space. Replace the pouches after 30 days.

2. Bobcat Urine

The product contains the scent of the urine of the bobcat, one of the mouse’s worst enemies. Once it detects this smell, the mouse will consider the area dangerous for occupancy.

How to use: Place the scent tags every 10-12 feet using the included ground stakes and twist ties.

How to Kill Them

You can achieve killing the mice naturally by ensuring the following:

  • It lacks sufficient food. The rodents require food to generate the energy necessary for all their metabolic and physiological activities. If you deny them this vital need, they will slowly die naturally.
  • Lacks water and shelter. When the mice cannot access a conducive place to establish their nests, they die from harsh environmental conditions. This is a common phenomenon during winter when the rodents are exposed to unbearably low temperatures. Also, water is crucial for their survival.
  • Upset in their normal biological and physiological processes. This happens when the mice ingest harmful substances which affect their functionality leading to a natural death.
A mouse require 3-5 milliliters of water daily.

If you want the mice to die, you should undertake all the necessary measures to ensure that the above factors are achieved.

This includes:

  1. Denying them food and water.
  2. Use of natural substances to upset their normal body functioning. These items include cow dung, plaster of Paris and instant potatoes as described in the section below.

Top 2 Killers

There are two natural predators that mice fear; cat and owl. The immense dislike of the predators makes this one of the most efficient methods to keep them at bay.

They work as detailed below:

  1. Cat. Most individuals keep cat as a pet. This agile mammal boosts your efforts of achieving a mouse-free house.
    Many cats have innate mouse-hunting abilities. The cat is an excellent hunter; it’ll move around your house and in your yard to hunt down rodents. This ensures that it kills all the existing mice while scaring away those that intended to enter your house. Even if a cat doesn’t attack mice, it will chase them away, helping you scare off the uninvited rodents.
    What’s more, mice can detect cats by their scent. When the mice detect the presence of the cat, they avoid entering your house. That implies the very presence of the domesticated felid can be a mouse deterrent. What are the best cats for catching mice? Read here.
    Mouse and cat
  2. Owls. Mouse and owlThe use of these creatures is a highly effective method of mice control. Most individuals prefer to keep the barn owls due to their ease of attracting and maintaining. You’ll just need to build nest box mounted 10-15 feet from the ground. They can devour as high as fifteen mice in a single night making it highly efficient.

While these natural killers remain the most effective way of keeping mice away from your home, it’s critical that you adequately feed them as well as provide them with all their basic needs.

Natural Mouse Poison I Can Use

There are some natural items that pose a significant danger to the lives of the mice. You should carefully apply the items to eliminate the rodents from your house.

They include:

  • Instant potatoes. Mashed PotatoesThis method guarantees a complete removal of the rodents. Ensure that sprinkle several tablespoons of the product in regions where the mice frequent. Once these creatures ingest the flakes, they expand in their stomach which creates a lot of discomforts and eventually leads to death.

    These natural poisons are not entirely safe for use in the presence of children and your pets. You should, therefore, take the necessary precautionary measures to avoid their poisoning! Also, avoid direct contact with these products by wearing protective latex or rubber gloves.
  • Plaster of Paris and cocoa powder. The technique is easy-to-prepare and use.

    You should follow the following procedure to the letter to prepare high-quality paste:

    • Scoop dry plaster of Paris and mix with several tablespoons of the cocoa powder. You can substitute the cocoa powder with chocolate milk powder in cases when it’s scarce.
    • When the mixture is dry, place it along the mice’s route. It’ll attract them quickly due to its appealing fragrance.
    • Ensure that the mice cannot access food debris or water inside your house to enhance the efficacy of the entire procedure.

    Immediately the mice eat the mixture, they’ll desperately start looking for water. During the frantic water search, they will move outside your house and eventually die.
    Natural mice poison recipe

Natural methods of eliminating mice are undisputedly the best due to their money saving and environment-friendly nature. As outlined in this article, you’ll significantly reduce the chances of poisoning among your family members without compromising the efficiency of the methods.

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