How To Eliminate Mice Inside The House: Tips From The Experts

Experts categorize mice as commensal rodents. Commensal means “sharing one’s table.” These rodents have evolved to live amongst our shadows. Although mice are low on the food chain, they still outsmart the people on top of it. They outwit us so much that we find excuses for why we have mice inside our homes. We say that our houses are old. People blame it on the neighbors doing construction on their homes. Or, we write it off as “Someone must have left the door open.”

We have left the door open for these commensal rodents. And now they are sharing our table. The following article will teach you how to eliminate mice inside your home. Don’t let these highly adaptable pests outsmart you.

Key Takeaways

• Learn Key Safety Concerns and Health Risks.
• Start from the Outside. See What Can Be Attracting Mice To Your Home.
• Keep Mice From Entering Your Home With Mouse-Proofing.
• Tips and Tricks. How To Eliminate Mice Inside and Out. 

Safety Concerns and Health Risks

Yes, mice are known to carry a plethora of pathogens. Where we are from in Ohio, our health department tells us that mice are not spreading any diseases to be concerned about. Although, mice can make you sick. Most zoonotic diseases (sickness spread from an animal origin) come across as flu-like symptoms. As a result, they can be hard to diagnose. You might have had one and written it off as the flu. Most illnesses from mice come from ingesting fecal matter or urine or inhaling contaminated dust. Yet you do not even have to inhale it. Most zoonotic diseases are contracted from absorbing the pathogen into the mucus membranes of our eyes. Viruses, in general, are like this.

You will always want to protect yourself when in contaminated areas. Wear a dust mask at a minimum when going into rodent-infested areas such as basements and attics. The National Wildlife Control Operators Association recommends wearing a full-face respirator with an organic vapor cartridge when entering areas inhabited by wildlife. You only get one body. It is best to protect it. Always follow CDC guidelines when cleaning rodent contamination. This includes using disinfectants and HEPA vacuums.

Food Poisoning

The most common health concern with mice is food poisoning. Mice release many microdroplets of urine along with the apparent dropping of fecal matter. Mice cover a lot of surface area each night while foraging for food. Hundreds of microdroplets of urine can be spread throughout your home overnight. Unlike other rodents, such as squirrels, they do not defecate in one specific latrine area. Mice poop all over the place. This makes it easy to contaminate your food. Contamination can occur at your home or before you even get the food. Manufacturing plants, warehouses, grocery stores, and restaurants all deal with mouse infestations. For this reason, food poisoning is mice’s most important health concern. 

Protect Your Kitchen By:

• Keep food in tamper-resistant containers.
• Do not leave dirty dishes in the sink.
• Keep the sink area dry.
• Clean food debris that falls on the floor and under appliances.
• Clean the crumb tray from the toaster.
• Take the garbage out at the end of the day.
• Wipe grease from the stove area.
• Disinfect food preparation surfaces before use.
• If you have baby bottles, do not leave them on the kitchen counter to dry.

Allergies

A report proved that children attending mouse-infested schools were likelier to develop allergies and asthma. Mouse urine has a protein in it that causes allergies. As previously mentioned, thousands of microdroplets can be deposited in an infested building every night. Once, we had a customer who sneezed when she entered her basement. Urine saturated her ceiling tiles. And she let out a sneeze whenever she went down there. Mice inhabit areas that are difficult to access. Nobody cleans these places. It is impractical to clean under your dishwasher or above a drop ceiling. When was the last time you cleaned under your stove? As a result, contamination builds up, causing allergens for occupants.

Take precautions when dealing with mice. Follow CDC recommendations for how to clean up after mice. 

Damage, Safety, And Other Concerns

Besides health risks, watch out for these other consequences of having mice inside the house.

• Mice will tamp down attic insulation, reducing its R-value.
• Mice will chew wires. While your house might not burn down, many people report large mechanic bills from car damage.
• Mousey odors get established when contamination gets to a certain level.
• A mouse can die in an inaccessible area, resulting in a fly infestation and a pungent smell.
• Well-traveled paths become stained with sebum. This dark, greasy residue can tell you where mice are active. It might help with trap placement. But it stains surfaces and is hard to remove.
• Gnawing causes damage. Everyone knows the classic Tom and Jerry mouse hole in the wall. Rodents chew to gain access and open up their runways.
• You can hear unsettling noises from mice in walls and ceilings. Somehow, sounds reverberate from drywall, making mice sound like a wildebeest stomping around. Opposed to other possible wildlife infesting your attic, mice are active throughout the night. Conversely, squirrels, raccoons, and bats are heard more often around dusk and dawn. Click here to learn how to diagnose attic sounds.

Inspecting For Mice Inside Your Home

Mouse infestations occur primarily in unfinished areas of the home. Crawlspaces, basements, attics, and walls all supply shelter. Insulation in these areas makes a great place for mice to call home. If you only notice mouse activity in the kitchen, it doesn’t mean this is where you should focus your control efforts. Most people place traps in the kitchen where they see the activity. There is nothing wrong with that. You could have some mice nesting around your appliances. But why not trap them before they get to your kitchen?

The best way to control mice inside your home is to track them as far back to their nest as possible and set control measures at those locations. If you have mice inside the living space, first travel to the unfinished portions and look for signs of mice.

• Droppings. This rice kernel-sized scat comes to a point on one or both ends.
• Sebum Markings. You will find Reddish-brown greasy stains on mouse pathways.
• Nests, burrows, and runways in insulation. Look for any disturbances like holes and tamped-down areas.

Once you track them back as far as possible inside, go outside to inspect for entry points. Focus on areas outside that are adjacent to the activity inside. Once you perform interior and exterior inspections, you will decide where to place your traps/ bait.

What Can Be Causing Mice Outside

Pest populations grow when there are adequate environmental conditions.

• There could be lots of ground cover/ debris for them to nest in.
• You could have a large oak tree that has dropped thousands of acorns for them to eat.
• Bird feeders are known for causing large spikes in rodent populations.
• Sometimes, people put insulation under porches/crawlspaces that mice can access. Making it a warm, protected habitat for them against the outside of the house.

A mouse’s range is 10-30 feet from its nest. You can reduce the mouse population by minimizing low-lying vegetation around the home. Do not store firewood or other objects close to the home. Remove leaf debris, and don’t have thick layers of mulch. Remove birdfeeders and fallen tree nuts.

Seal Up To Prevent Rodent Infestations

You have mice inside because there is a hole outside where they get in.

There is value in hiring a mouse exterminator for your home. The right pest control company can identify mouse entry points outside. Before scheduling a mouse control service, ensure the company performs rodent exclusion. Our company specializes in mice and excels in rodent-proofing. For those outside our service area, we recommend contacting a company certified by the National Wildlife Control Operators Association. You can view their business directory here.

Whether hiring an exterminator or doing it yourself, you want to find where mice enter your home. Otherwise, more mice will continue to enter. You see, mice leave behind scent trails telling that there is food and shelter inside your home. Even if you catch the mice currently inside, more are sure to follow.

Here is what you need to find and repair mouse entry points outside:

• Knee pads. To perform this task correctly, you will have to crawl around the perimeter of your home.
• A strong flashlight. We suggest a spotlight to see under porches, the bottom of the siding, and areas along the roof.
• Repair materials. Xcluder fabric, clear solar seal, and IPF spray foam are what we carry on our vehicles. Quarter-inch hardware fabric is great for screening vents.
• Telescopic ladder. Mice can enter homes way up on the roof. Even if you find mice in the basement, you should still inspect higher up on the house. We find mice entering along lower rooflines when we get callbacks for mice in basements. Lower rooflines are the most easily overlooked areas that mice enter.
• Skill. We recommend hiring someone with experience. Entry points can be tricky to find. You can also make a permanent mess if the repairs are sloppy, especially with spray foam repairs. Never over-apply spray foam. Always let it cure enough to get a skin on it. Then flatten it flush before it hardens.

Where to Look For Entry Points?

• Mice can climb up stone and masonry walls entering along the roofline.
• Tree branches touching the roof allow mice to enter soffit returns and attic vents. 
• Look at the foundation and for gaps under the bottom row of siding.
• Attached garages can be tricky. If your overhead door does not seal, ensure there are no ways for mice to enter your home from the shared interior garage walls.
• The #1 entry point for mice is where the air conditioning conduit enters the home.
  

  Even if it is hard to access, you want to ensure mice cannot enter the home underneath decks and porches. Front porch middle support beams are common culprits in Cleveland, OH.

• Always look underneath front porches and decks. In older homes, there is usually a gap where the middle support beam for the porch enters the top of the foundation.
• Inspect any junction point.

Mice will exploit the construction flaws of your home. The smallest gap will turn into the main entrance to their new home. Entry points can be nearly anywhere. That is why we suggest a high-powered flashlight. Inspection mirrors help see gaps underneath the bottom row of the siding. You can shine your flashlight into the mirror to light up your inspection area.

The main places to focus are where two home sections meet (junction points). This can be where a front porch joins the house. Or where an addition meets the original foundation. Look where masonry walls meet siding. Inspect where brick or stone exterior walls meet the trim below the roof. Gaps are common where soffits and overhangs meet the shingles. Closely inspect every junction point in your home. Or pay for our mouse exterminators to do so. It is well worth the investment!

How To Seal Entry Points For Mice

Only attempt to make repairs if they are clean and tidy. It is easy to grab a can of spray foam and go at it. Or jam some steel wool in a hole. Spray foam is messy if you have little experience using it. One bit of it will ruin your clothes. Most people overapply it. Then it looks like a big gloppy mess. Steel wool is similar. Although people highly recommend it, you should not use it outside. It will rust and corrode. It ends up disintegrating and staining surfaces around it. You are better off with Xcluder fabric or copper mesh. If you want to use a household item like steel wool, use copper scrubbing pads instead.

The recommended method to seal a hole is to fill the void with spray foam. Then, enmesh the exclusion material into the foam. Finish the repair by smoothing the sealant over the top. This creates a sandwich effect that rodents cannot compromise.

Controlling Mice Indoors

Pheromone Trails

Now that you know where mice are active indoors and where mice are entering, you will want to eliminate whatever mice are trapped inside.

Imagine the first mouse that ever entered your home. It was outside, looking for food/ shelter. Then, it came across an air current. Warm inside air leaking out alerted him to investigate. It entered the hole and got inside. Once inside, it found a safe place to make shelter. It gathered nesting materials and located food. It left breadcrumbs behind so it could return to find more food. These breadcrumbs are scents called pheromones. Pheromones provide signals directing it and other mice to food/ shelter/ safe spaces.

As he traveled the same paths, they became heavily marked by urine, fecal matter, pheromones, and sebum. Then the mouse died. Mice are low on the food chain. So, a single mouse won’t be around for long. But what remains are these well-marked pathways. Any new mouse entering the territory will find a safe passageway with these trails.

The thing about rodents is that once they vacate an area, neighboring rodents will converge on the newly abandoned territory. This is why it is so important to seal entry points off outside. You are cutting off the pathways ripe with pheromones. The paths that tell mice to live in your basement and eat in your kitchen.

Setting Traps

Now that you have cut off access for new mice to get inside, you want to stop the remaining mice from reaching your kitchen. You do this by setting mouse traps directly on the trails. Identifying trails is a matter of inspecting. You may need an exterminator for this. Otherwise, get 10-20 traps and space them throughout the unfinished areas of the home. Place traps against walls or stored objects. Mice especially run on top of the foundation walls instead of on the ground. So, focus traps on the sill plate.

Set them in the attic, too. When you catch a mouse, replace the trap, or you can add many traps to that location. This way, even if you can’t figure out how they are entering, you catch them as they enter. It is a better approach than setting traps in the kitchen.

Mice are inquisitive creatures. They explore new objects. So, it helps to move stuff around in the area when placing traps. They explore their territory the same every night that they forage. So, most of your mice can be caught within a few days. You can use bait stations, too. Placement is generally the same. Using bait (rodenticide) minimizes handling dead mice, but you also don’t retrieve the bodies. Bait can be beneficial or not ideal, depending on your preference.

Key Tips and Tricks

• Hire our company to do your mouse control. We have successfully eliminated mice from thousands of homes. We make it quick and easy.
• Do not use the fully enclosed traps where you do not see the caught mice. They are not very effective.
• Glue traps are only about 30% effective. They usually only catch juvenile mice, which isn’t bad since snap traps do not catch young mice. It might be good to mix some glue traps with snap traps. But do not rely on them alone.
• Mice get stressed in live traps very quickly. And it is not recommended to translocate wild, caught animals. We do not recommend that homeowners live trap rodents or other wildlife.
• We recommend wooden break-back traps for the most humane removal and effectiveness.
• Do not use mint oil or other scent repellants. Place traps instead.
• Do not use mothballs. They are not intended for that purpose and can harm your health.
• Ultrasonic repellants do not travel around 3-dimensional objects. Therefore, their use is limited at best.
• Somehow, people feel like their cats are in charge of pest control. This is while the mice dine on the cat food they leave in the dish on the floor. Wolves in the forest do not kill all of the deer. Predators, in general, kill off old and slow, young and dumb, or injured animals. They do not decimate the populations of what they feed off into near inexistance. Do not expect a housecat to keep mice out of your home.