How to Remove House Mice

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House mice are notorious for wreaking havoc in any house that they successfully infest. They are very sneaky and the homeowner would rarely see them while they continue to eat everything in sight. Their annoying, mumbling noise and faecal droppings will however evidence their presence sooner than later and motivate any home owner to swing into action.



The destructive activities of house mice include gnawing on and destruction of woods, papers and wires, littering of the whole house with their droppings and putting people at risk of diseases like salmonella, rat-bite fever etc. it is no wonder that getting rid of them is an urgent need for any home owner.

There are several ways to get rid of these rodents. Some of these methods are lethal while others do not kill. It is better to prevent and get rid of house mice without hurting them.

Prevention via fences
House mice can be fenced out of a building, thereby preventing them from entering at all. The fence must be high enough because house mice are good climbers. It should be durable and not rust easily. If wire fences are to be used, the wire spacing must be close enough to prevent the mice from squeezing through them.

Cleanliness
The main attraction for house mice to any house is food availability. If food is not readily available in a house, the rodents will move on and desist from visiting there. Store all grains, fruits and other foods away in covered glass jars.

Also clean out clutter and organize your rooms, kitchens, gutters and floors so they have nowhere to hide and breed to increase their population.

Home repairs
House mice enter a house through cracks and openings in pipes, walls, floors, windows, and doors. Ensure that you inspect, identify, and block all these openings with materials like steel or concrete that cannot be gnawed at by the mice. Do these checks regularly.

Exclusion
Get mice out of a mouse hole by installing a one-way exclusion funnel at the mouth of the hole. This will allow the mice to leave but not return into the hole. That way, they have been excluded and the hole can be blocked.

Live traps
Live traps effectively get rid of house mice without killing them. Box live traps are the most humane of all the live traps. It is a cage structure and the door shuts on any mouse that gets lured in by the bait inside the cage. The animal may then be relocated far away and released back to the wild. Traps can be baited with peanut butter, seeds, meats and so on.

Another type of live trap is the glue trap. Although the glue trap does not kill house mice, it is a torturous ordeal for any mouse caught and glued to it. The mechanism of this trap involves a really strong adhesive to which mice get stuck by their paws. A house mouse can stay stuck to the glue trap for hours, days or even weeks until it dies inhumanely of hunger and thirst, if it is not set free by the trapper.

Repellent
Repellents employ sounds, smell, vibration and smoke to get rid of house mice. There are a lot of natural and store-bought repellents with varying claims of their potency, but most of them are not very useful, they do not repel house mice at all.

Ultrasonic sound emitters are expensive store-bought repellents that supposedly use scary sound to repel house mice, but like most other repellents, it is often not effective.

Peppermint, ammonia, baking soda and bay leaves all use the same mechanism of producing bad odour to send these rodents away. However, house mice usually get used to the smell after some time and they simply continue to live with it.

Mothballs, mint plants and tubs of used kitty litter are also often used as repellents.

Lethal Means
Poisoning and lethal trapping are the common means of killing house mice.

Rodenticides and fumigants are often used but these poisons are also capable of hurting or killing humans, so they are best avoided when dealing with rodents. Or administered by an animal control professional.

Lethal trapping is another way to kill mice. They must also be handled with great caution. Traditional snap traps are commonly bought or hired to kill mice, they are cheap and easy to use. Electronic mouse traps can also be bought from stores; they kill mice with electrocution.

Even though house mice can be destructive, killing them should be a last resort after other methods have failed.

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