How to Get Rid of Mice in Five Steps
With these five simple steps, you can trap a mouse on your first night and get rid of mice for good.
1 Find Their Patterns
Mice are active mostly between dusk and dawn, but you can spot evidence of them anytime. They move along walls and avoid open spaces, so mouse poop is often your first sign. Each mouse drops up to 75 pellets a day! Mice gnaw at drywall and similar materials, creating clean-cut holes up to 1½ inches in diameter, but they can fit through any dime-size opening. Look for holes and debris in dark corners of your kitchen or laundry room.
Check for caches of food in unexpected places such as behind appliances and furniture, and in other undisturbed areas of your house. Mice build nests of fibrous material in sheltered spots near heat sources, such as refrigerators, ovens, and water heaters.
2 Use the Right Mouse Solutions
Classic snap traps and modern electronic traps capture mice and make sure they're gone for good. Snap traps are the least expensive, and they're reusable or disposable–your choice. With an electronic mouse trap, you don't have to see any dead mice or continuously check traps. An indicator light lets you know when one has been caught. If you'd prefer to remove mice unharmed, you can use live mouse traps that let you release them far from your home. After the pests are gone, set up PestChaser® rodent repellers that emit ultrasound waves to drive mice away. If you are having trouble deciding what solution would work best for you, check out our trap guide for more information.
3 Choose Bait Wisely
Mice are strongly attracted to high-calorie foods, such as peanut butter, hazelnut spread, and chocolate. In winter, mice build nests with materials like cotton balls, dental floss, yarn, and twine, so they work as bait too. The food that mice have already been feeding on in your house, whether that's pet kibble, birdseed, or candy, may be the best mouse trap bait. For more information on baiting, check out our mouse baiting guide.
4 Place Traps in the Best Places
Mice primarily travel along walls, so you want to set your mouse traps in this path with the bait and trigger / tunnel side closest to the wall. Set traps every 2 to 3 feet along the walls where you've noticed activity. Wear protective gloves when handling traps to avoid transferring your scent.
The best spots for mouse traps are in enclosed spaces, inside cabinets and closets, and beneath or behind furniture and appliances. Ranges and ovens are a favorite haunt for mice, because there's a steady supply of warmth and bits of food. If there's a drawer for storing pans beneath your oven, set a mouse trap inside it.
5 Check and Reset
Look in on your mouse traps the first morning after you set them, and every morning after. Studies show you are likely to catch more mice on the first night you set out traps than on any subsequent night. Be sure to set a lot of mouse traps from the start, so you can capture as many as possible quickly.
Mice reproduce so fast and abundantly, you are certain to have more than one in your home at a time. So don't quit after you've caught one. Keep setting and checking mouse traps until you haven't caught a mouse for at least a week.
