Traditional and humane ways to rid your home of mice

The pest control specialist and killing trap still have their place, but here are some ways to ensure your conscience is clear as you get ready to protect your home this autumn

This is the ideal time to raise the drawbridge before mice move in or establish a visiting route to your home. Picture: iStock

If someone advocated for leading any other furry animal to a sticky piece of paper and then described how to drown the struggling captors in a bucket of water — well, we would be horrified. Mice are fair game for murderous attacks and torture. 

When The Russian, played by Mikhail Baryshnikov, exploded a mouse on the kitchen counter of her unkempt apartment in Sex & The City, Carrie barely turned a streaked extension. What a man.

Now, we are not talking here about a serious invasion of the little fellas. The pest control specialist and killing trap, still have their place. 

However, before leaping straight to routine execution with snap-traps, electric shocks and poisons, ensure your conscience is clear. 

Mice are opportunists that have lived with us for 300,000 years, creeping out of cracks in cave walls to pick up scraps from our kills and spoils. The common house mouse and its quaint saucer-eyed cousin the harvest mouse are everywhere we are.

Throughout June and July, I prise open the jaws of my useless cat and extracted the mangled little divils, returning them to the hedgerow with a stiffly worded warning. Still, summer’s over.

Mice come inside for two things: For grub and potentially a sheltered, undisturbed place to raise their young.

Mus musculus domesticus has built its whole lifestyle around shopping out of our bins, whipping through kitchens, and pantries, where a crumb or two can sustain them for a day. 

Gaps of 1.5mm or more in cavity blockwork, the warm warren of timber frame, and other welcoming cavities leave your home wide open. Indoors, mice are queasy, not quaint. 

They don’t have a sphincter on their minute bladder, so unless you welcome a pungent dash of mammalian pee in the sugar bowl, this is a serious health matter. Mice carry the same diseases as rats including salmonellosis and a family of diseases known as leptospirosis, the worst of which is Weil’s disease.

Awareness and prevention are the best defence and will get you in control of the rodent movements straight away, even if they are attempting to establish a colony inside. 

Raise the defences

We need to raise our physical defences and above all — closely examine the housekeeping around foodstuffs of every kind.

Starting outside, height can be a barrier to intrusion, depending on the type of render your house carries. Mice are accomplished climbers over vertical rough brick or stone and can jump up to around 30cm onto wood, pebbledash, low sills and obligating climbing plants that could take them right into your attic unseen. 

Walk around the outside of the house (kids are great for this job) and look for gaps larger than about 1.5cm around plumbing, drainage and electrical outlets, and finish them off with a silicone sealant.

For larger carriageways, proprietary expanding foam, or a full cement plug may be needed. Rodent Stop Steel Wool is impenetrable when used correctly to stuff up small holes — €12 on Amazon or try using a very fine, dense steel wool from any DIY outlet.

Don’t cover ventilation grilles — replace and repair them. Remove overgrown vegetation you can safely reach, being careful not to shred loose render. 

Recycle bins and other horticultural containers should be pulled out to examine the walls and recesses for any potential rodent access — cracks and breaks. Ensure lids are completely secure. 

If your traditional compost heap is being fed from the kitchen and is too close to the house, rats and mice may take a detour through the back door. Consider a closed system if the area is pinched. 

Some gardeners swear by a scattering of cat or better still, fox droppings on mouse trails. I’m not even going to touch that. Cut back shrubs that could be cloaking any traffic of mice and rats on their way to and from the house.

Signs of intrusion

The eviction notice from the grounds should encompass garages, sheds and outbuildings as mice can wreak havoc on stored goods like fish food, DIY materials, electric cabling and anything with a nice chew to it. 

As a mouse’s teeth continue to grow throughout their lives, they have to gnaw to keep them short.

Evidence of nibbles on softwood in your shed may be on show. Look out for signs of minute intruders- active nest sites in soft materials (not for the faint-hearted) and small black tea leaf-size droppings across your insulation batting. 

Rat droppings will be far more obvious, grey/black and slug-like. If you’re not a tough, agricultural being with Jack Russell dangled under each arm — get help.

Wipe down your counters meticulously every night.

Back inside, we need to follow up on all areas of ingress, and above all take a cold hard look at the housekeeping. If mice are visiting, it will be quite obvious, as they produce up to 75 droppings a day and golden puddles of urine. 

Mice come inside for two things: For grub (they may be just visiting daily) and potentially a sheltered, undisturbed place to raise their young. Without easy access to food, there’s not the same draw to confront you. 

All dry goods, bread, fruit, pet food, and condiments including sugar should be kept in sealed containers or better still in sealed containers in high, wall cabinets with a firm door and full back-board.

Wipe down your counters meticulously every night. Instigate a regular vacuum routine for the entire floor, including any recesses between cabinetry using the slender hose attachment of your machine. 

Hiding is a vital part of a mouse’s lifestyle. Inside, clear obscuring clutter from shelves and cupboards that would mask their droppings and give them another shadowy, inaccessible place to dart.

You are most likely to actually see a mouse zipping along the skirting. Once you are down off the chair — notice where they are coming from and going to. The sink area is often wide open, and behind the MDF panelling, it’s not somewhere we tend to go — ever.

Seal all wiring entries, gaps around plumbing pipes, loose skirting, windows, doors and cracks in floorboards. With a damaged, leery hinge and with a flap the weight of rice paper, pet doors are a gift to mice and rats. 

You can use a variety of caulks and flexible insulating materials indoors. If the gap is larger than the width of a HB pencil — mice can get in. Is there a gap at the kick-boards ingesting food scraps, spills and crumbs under the cabinets? How secure is the bin? Pull out furnishings, and flip up loose carpet around radiator inlet and outlet pipes.

Natural traps

Setting traps or sprinkling out Tabasco, lavender, peppermint oil, cayenne pepper, chilli powder or cloves (unproven natural remedies said to horrify mice) should only follow your full house and garden inventory.

You can get safe, non-toxic repelling ingredients in a spray form or make up your own if you truly believe. Try Ready Steady Defend, Mouse & Rat, €15 or Repel Shield Mouse, €12, both from Amazon, deployed on cotton wool balls and left around mouse traffic areas.

Humane live traps come in single or multi- catch designs and can be used to get the mice now unable to escape the house, safely out. 

You MUST check them daily, they are extraordinarily cruel. Follow the supplier’s instructions and wear gloves when handling the device.

Let any captives go at least 500m from the house or using their superb, instinct-driven GPS, they will just frolic back inside.

lectronic mouse-repellers, which work through your home’s electric cabling network, can be effective in some circumstances, but my experience after several seasons has been that they force mice off to other areas of the house rather than getting rid.