The toolboxes, summer toys, storage units, bicycles, vehicles and numerous disorganized boxes in your garage provide an ideal environment for mice to hide. While they love disorganized places, the rodent’s agility and creativity make it easy for them to infest even cleaner and more organized garages. The problem is prominent during winters when they are looking for warm places and food sources. In most cases, the mice will infest the garage before spreading into the house. As such, you should initiate immediate measures to eliminate the mice before it becomes a full-blown infestation menace. This article provides crucial information on eliminating the rodents from your garage and methods to use in keeping them away for good.
How to Keep Mice Out of the Garage
The garage attracts mice due to its warmth, dark corners and availability of materials to establish their nests. As such, it’s critical that you initiate elimination measures immediately you spot the initial signs including gnawing noise, nests and droppings. The fast action prevents the mischievous rodents from wreaking havoc inside your house.
There are various strategies that you can apply to keep them out of your garage completely including:
- Decongest the garage. The mice like hidden areas where they’re assured of safety. Such an environment offers them everything that they need to survive; warmth, food, water, and shelter. If your garage is full of disorganized boxes and old papers all over the floor, then you need to rearrange the place to achieve both orderliness and cleanliness. Ensure that the boxes are away from the walls since the mice like climbing up and down the wall into their nests.
- Remove all their food sources. Most individuals are fond of keeping dog feeds and other grains inside the garage. This habit will derail your efforts to eliminate mice. The bags of birdseed, cereals or dog food offers an invitation to these stubborn rodents. While you may not have much problem during other seasons, it’s winter that presents the chance for severe infestation. During this season, there is a severe shortage of food sources which drives the mice to migrate to any other location that offers the much-needed food. The phenomenon explains why you have an increased mice population in your garage! You need to clean the place and remove all these food sources to eliminate mice effectively.
- Inspect your garage’s perimeter. You should always check around your garage to identify loopholes that may help the mice to access it. Immediately you identify these weaknesses, you should seal them using a hardy substance that cannot be chewed easily by the rodents.
Apart from the preventive measures, it’s paramount that you devise methods to eliminate the mice that are already inside the garage.
You can apply the following techniques to achieve this:
- Use traps to catch the mice.
There are numerous devices that you can use in the mice-extermination process. The best mouse traps will capture them alive, which allows you to transfer them to their natural habitat without killing them. For more information click here. - Use of poison.
You can place poisonous baits around various regions in your garage. Once these rodents ingest the bait, they will die. Read about the best mouse poison here.
While using this method, you should be careful to place the poisonous bait away from areas accessible to your children and pets. Also, the dead mouse can produce a stench if you do not take measures to ensure that you remove it from the trap immediately it dies. Click this to find out how to get rid of dead mouse smell. -
Use of repellents. These are substances that make the mice uncomfortable inside the garage pushing them to migrate to better areas. There are numerous repellents that you can use to perform the duty effectively. Some of these products are commercially sold in pest stores while others are prepared at home. If you find the time, you can prepare at home to save on cost.
Some of the commonly used repellents include:
- Bay leaves,
- Mothballs,
- Rotten onions,
- Peppermint essential oils,
- Cloves,
- Ammonia.
The repelling fragrance fades away with time. When this happens, ensure that you replace them with freshly prepared repellents to enhance efficiency. Further details can be found here.
What About Field Mice?
Field mice like untrimmed bushes where they can hide and access their food easily. Read more about where do mice hide here. If you have overhanging trees and bushy shrubs around your garage, then you’re likely to experience a severe field mice infestation. You should, therefore, regularly landscape your compound. If you’re too busy to achieve this, then you’ll have to choose between living with these rodents and hiring a professional landscaping company to clear the long grasses and bushes!
Also, you can use traps to catch the field mice. There are various glue traps for mice that you can utilize in your extermination efforts. The humane devices catch the rodents alive while some other forms kill the mouse. If you need to kill them, you can opt to use mouse poison pellets. Set them in an ideal place and ensure that there are no water sources near the site. The field mice will die immediately it ingests the poison. To learn more about it, visit this link. You can also use electric ultrasonic repellents.
Mouse-Proof Tips: How to Prevent Them
Follow the following simple steps to achieve a mouse-proof garage:
- Ensure damage-free weather stripping.
Mice are very creative creatures that will devise incredible means to gain access to your garage. You should exercise extreme caution to ensure that your garage’s weather stripping isn’t damaged. It does not matter how much effort you put into the extermination process, if you don’t seal this loophole, the mice will always come back! It’s prudent that you repair or replace the damaged weather stripping to achieve a mouse-proof garage. -
Seal all the access points.
You should perform a thorough cleaning process for your garage. The process will help you to identify areas that may offer access to the mice. Be particularly keen on regions around the windows, vents, doors, pipes, eaves of the roof, drains and air conditioners. It’s critical to note that these rodents can squeeze themselves through tiny openings. You should, therefore, seal these holes regardless of their size and location. The small creatures can successfully climb the stiffest of walls and you should, therefore, never ignore openings on the roof. Use strong materials since mice can cunningly chew their way in!Crucial Point
Mice lack the collarbone and can squeeze through holes as small as 1/4 inch in diameter. You should, therefore, fill all the openings to achieve a mouse-proof garage. Ensure that you use strong, rust-resistant filler materials since the mice can chew caulk and foam. - Eliminate all food and watering points. Just like any other animal, a mouse will move around to look for food and water. If they don’t find sources of the two basic necessities in your garage, they will migrate to other areas thus keeping them away. Also, the mice inside the garage will move away when you starve them.
Getting Rid of Mice In Shed
Sheds are characterized by a high number of pests, key among them being mice. However, proper precautions will entirely take away your mice-infestation fear. The first step involves driving away the mice from the shed. This can be achieved using traps or repellents. You should place traps in strategic places to increase the chances of catching a mouse. When using traps, you should ensure that you use an attractive bait such as the peanut butter. Alternatively, you can use substances that repel the mice including mothball, peppermint, and ammonia. The mice will move away from these items leading to a mouse-free shed.
After eliminating the mice in the shed, you should now embark on instituting measures to ensure that the mice do not come back. You’ll only achieve this if you ensure that the shed is unattractive to the rodents. Trim the bushes and cut the overgrown grass to eliminate their hideouts. Also, ensure that you starve the rodents by keeping away all the grains and other substances that may provide food to the rodents. If you achieve the two steps, you’ll have done away with the mice menace completely.
Cleaning Up Mouse Droppings
Mice droppings are the clearest sign that your garage is infested with the rodents. Even after completing the extermination process, you’ll find mouse poop inside the house. These droppings potentially carry Hantavirus which can cause a life-threatening illness. As such, you should exercise care when cleaning the droppings.
Follow the procedure below to the letter for a quick and safe cleaning process:
- Ensure plenty air supply in the garage. You should open the garage door approximately 30 minutes before you begin the cleaning process.
- Use a disinfectant. You should prepare a bleaching agent by mixing one cup of the bleach with ten cups of water to form a 10% bleach. Spray it uniformly on the droppings and allow them to soak for approximately ten minutes
- Ensure that you wear gloves when performing the exercise. Never touch the poop using your bare hands to avoid instances of infections. Scoop the droppings and place them in an airtight litter bin.
- After you’ve completed the process, remove the gloves and clean your hands using plenty of water and soap.
You should never use a vacuum cleaner when cleaning up the droppings. If you do, it’s likely that you will inhale the contaminated air and acquire the disease-causing agents!
What is Actually the Best Way?
The most effective way to achieve a mouse-free garage is by creating an unfavorable environment for them. While you can use traps to eliminate the already existing mice, your efforts would amount to nothing if you don’t seal the rodent’s entry points.
You should, therefore, eliminate the food sources, water sources as well as all the old papers and pieces of cloth in your garage.
Do not give up on the severe mouse infestation in your garage! You can take control of the situation and restore the mouse-free garage you once enjoyed. This article offers a myriad of solutions to the mice-infestation menace. Whether you want to kill or repel the rodents, the information herein will highly boost your efforts.
