Searching for the best way to get rid of mice is one of the common scenarios of USA house owners. The mouse can be cute as a pet but most of the time it’s disturbing as a pest. When they invade your home, they will eat food, cut the cloth, books and can bring several diseases.
However, learning “how to get rid of mice” is most important for all house owners to keep their house mice free. And we are here with some proven methods to get rid of mice fast. Let’s scroll to find some easy ways to deal with pesky mice.
Identifying the Mice
Knowing your house mice is an important part to get rid of them. This will help to apply the right method to get rid of easily and quickly. However, mice are also known as Mouse or Rat are one of the common pests for home, kitchen, apartment, garage, garden or walls.
They are small to medium in size with 1-2 inches long tails. Some house mice have no tail and they can grow 5-7 inches long. The color of the mice can vary on species, including black or brown. All of them have small paw and nails. The droppings of the mice can be 0.5 inches long and round in shape.
However, no matter which species mice are, it will surely transmit so many diseases such as plague, salmonella, Hantavirus, Lassa fever, and so on.
Mice Vs Rats
Although most of the people think that mice and rats are the same things that are common pests of homes, garages, cars or gardens. However, there is a little difference between mice and rats and you should know it.
It will help you to identify them properly and apply the best method of getting rid of them.
- Mice are used to describe tiny and sparrow-sized rodents with long tails and ears. They are curious than rats and roaming everywhere in your home, apartment, kitchen, garage or garden. The most effective way to kill mice is a snap trap, glue trap, electric mouse trap or poison.
- Rats are larger in size than mice and they are mainly cautious. They like to avoid new things and love to live in the kitchen, garage or even in the car. Snap trap, electric rat trap, live rat trap or bucket trap works well to catch and kill rats.
Pros Tips: Mice are smarter than Rats, so deal with mice carefully to eliminate them entirely.
Inspect the Area
At first, you should inspect your entire property carefully to identify the mouse infestation. No matter how many mice you have seen in your house, kitchen or garage. You must take proper steps to eliminate them to keep yourself and your family members free from dangers.
However, while inspecting your area for mice, you should look for mice droppings, small mouse footprints like they will cut clothes, books, papers or create holes in wooden components.
You should also check all entry points or small holes which mice use to enter your house. After inspecting the whole area, now you are ready to take a proper step to get rid of mice for good.
Pro Tips: Don’t forget to wear gloves, protective clothing, mask, and eye goggles before inspecting for mice.
Some Effective Methods to Get Rid of Mice Fast
Well, you may look for some proven and most effective ways to get rid of mice at the house, apartment, kitchen, garage, garden, attic or car. If so, then you are in the right place. Keep scrolling to get some best and most effective methods to get rid of mice fast.
Get Rid of Mice Using the Mouse Trap
The most effective and old school method to get rid of mice and rats easily. Most of the people feel comfortable to use a mousetrap to catch or kill mice. This is one of the easiest ways and you don’t need to be a pest professional to use a mousetrap.
By following some simple steps, you can set a mouse trap and catch them alive or dead!
What Type Mouse Trap Do You Need?
There are different type’s mousetraps available in the market. Different types of mousetrap ideal for different rats as well as situations. So at first, you need to decide which type of mousetrap you will use to catch the mice. Here are some popular and widely used mousetraps.
- Traditional Snap Trap
Snap Traps are commonly used in the home, kitchen, office or garage to get rid of rats and mice. This is one of the oldest types of mousetrap and works well depending on your setup, placement, and bait.
For traditional snap traps, we would like to recommend the Victor Metal Pedal Rat Trap which is one of the top rated and best-selling snap traps on Amazon. The trap comes with a metal and wooden body with a convenient size. The setup process, baiting and dead mouse rescuing.
Pro Tips: Snap Trap works well in the home, kitchen and apartment. Peanut Butter is the Best Bait for Snap Mouse Trap.
- Electric Mouse Trap
Another commonly used mousetrap to kill home, garage or kitchen rats, mouse and mice. The electric mouse trap is the most humane mousetrap that can catch and kill mice instantly. With the help of high-voltage electric shock, these traps can kill mice within a few seconds.
For the electric mouse trap, you can choose the Victor M250S Electric Rat Trap. This is the best-selling electric mousetrap with the best success rate and available at a reasonable price. The setup and cleaning process is very easy. Using a set of 4 AA batteries, this trap can kill up to 100 mice.
And there is a killing chamber where dead mice stored automatically. You can clean the trap without seeing or touching the dead mice.
Pros Tips: Always read the user manual before setting an electric mouse trap.
- Glue Trap
Glue Traps are also widely used to catch mice. If you want to catch live mice, then a glue trap is for you. This trap is ideal to use in the kitchen, apartment or garage. The negative side of this trap is, it can’t kill the trapped mice.
After getting trapped in the mice you need to kill them by utilizing some other tools or throw away. For this reason, this trap considered a less humane trap and many people try to avoid it.
However, for the glue trap, we would like to recommend the Tomcat Mouse Glue Trap. This is the most popular glue trap in the market with the highest success rate and a very low price.
The non-toxic formula makes this trap pet and kid-friendly. So you can use it inside your house without any hesitation.
Pro Tips: Always use gloves before placing the glue trap. And check the glue trap for trapped mice after every 3-6 hours.
- Live Mouse Trap
The Live Mouse Trap is ideal for those people who are looking for the most humane way to only catch the mice (not kill). The Kensizer Small Animals Humane Live Cage Rat Mouse Trap is one of the best-selling live mouse trap with a simple setting process.
After trapping the mice, you can release them easily. You can also kill them if you want with the help of poison bait or other mouse killing tools.
Pro Tips: Use the best bait for live mouse trap to attract mice. Place the live trap in that area where the mouse population is too high.
How Many Mouse Trap Do You Need?
The number of mouse traps you need depending on the populations of the mice in your area. You should buy more than three mousetraps at a time for a better success rate.
You should set all mousetraps at a time to catch all mice in the fast few days. This will help to eliminate mice completely from your home, garage or apartment.
You can also set different types of mousetraps at a time to examine which one works best. However, it will be good to set 5 or 6 mousetraps at a time.
What is the Best Bait for Mouse Trap?
Different baits work well for different mice and traps. You can use peanut butter, chocolate, salted fish, honey, a thin slice of meat or fruits. We published a dedicated post about the best mousetrap bait.
Where to Place the Mouse Trap?
The success rate of catching mice highly depends on the mousetrap placement. You should place it in the right location to trap all mice in your home. You can place them where you get a strong sign of mice population during inspecting the area.
Generally, the kitchen, behind the refrigerator, besides the wall or behind the furniture are the best places to place a mousetrap. Changing trap location after every one or two days is also a good idea to catch more rats.
How Often Should You Check the Mousetrap?
It depends on the type of mousetrap you are using. You must check twice a day for a better success rate. Snap traps and glue traps should be checked at least three times a day.
If you are placing traps only at night, then you can check it after 5-6 hours. If you are using the live mouse trap, you should check it frequently, otherwise, you will fail to catch all mice.
How to Get Rid of Mice using Poison?
Rat poison is another most popular, widely used and proven method to get rid of mice. As poison doesn’t kill rats instantly and work by dehydrating the mouse, so some people think it’s a cruel process.
However, it’s one of the effective ways to get rid of mice if you can apply it in a proper way.
- Where to Use Rat Poison?
Almost all rat poisons are not pet and kid friendly. So you must use it wisely to avoid any kind of accidental damage.
Using rat poison in the house, apartment and kitchen may not a good idea if you can’t handle it properly. If there is no pet in your house, then poison can be used in the garage, garden, attic or in the wall.
- What Type Poison Works Best?
There are different types of rat poison available in the market. You should choose that one which is testy to mice and can kill them within 12-24 hours. Generally, the poison takes up to 72 hours to kill mice.
However, poison with Bromethalin (one kind of neurotoxin chemical) is the most effective one to kill mice. A single dose of this poison can kill multiple mice by damaging their liver cell and brain. We recommend the Havoc Rat Poison to those who are looking for this type of poison.
Pro Tips: Bromethalin is dangerous for pets and kids. So handle it with precaution.
Vitamin-based poison also popular for killing rats and mice. However, this type of poison is a little bit slower than Bromethalin. It may take more than 24 hours to kill mice by damaging the internal body system. D-Con Refillable Corner Fit Mouse Poison could be the best option for vitamin-based poison.
You can check all of our recommended rat poison here to get the best one for a better success rate.
Pro Tips: Always use gloves and mask while placing rat poison. Don’t place the mouse poison in the open place. And keep the poison out of the reach of pets or children.
Get Rid of Mice and Rats Using Repellent
If mice populations are too high in your area, then repellent may not a good idea to get rid of them. Mice repellent is the best option to prevent mice. If you have already caught or kill all mice, or there is just a small number of mice in your area, then mice repellent may be effective for you.
However, there are several types of mouse repellent available in the market including essential oil (peppermint oil), spray and electric mice repellent. Different repellent works well for different type mice and environment.
Most of the people love to use peppermint oil to repel house and kitchen mice. Some people grow mint trees in their garden to prevent mice problem.
Mice repellent spray also works well to repel house and kitchen mice. But this probably most effective to get rid of mice in the car. The electric rat repellent generally works well in the garden, garage and house. Some of them also available for the car.
This kind of repellent creates a large number of ultrasonic frequencies (one kind of sound) to expel mice from a specific area. However, we have published a post with some most effective mice repellents. You can check that to get the right one.
Get Rid of Mice Using Bait Station
The bait station is one kind of smart mouse trap where you can use poison (poison bait) to kill mice. There are different types of mice bait stations available in the market and they are safe to use in the house or kitchen. You can also use only poison bait that also available in the market to kill mice. But only poison bait (without bait station) may not a good idea for the house or kitchen.
However, we would like to recommend the Tomcat 370910 Bait Station to those people who are looking for an effective mouse bait station. This is a complete bait station with pellets that can kill mice and rats within a few houses. The setup and cleaning process is also easy. And this is a completely safe bait station for kids and pets.
Pro Tips: Never use an open bait station in your house, kitchen or garden.
How to Get Rid of Mice Using Home Remedies (Natural Methods)
Using home remedies is one of the common practice to get rid of mice. And there is a lot of controversies available in the market about the effectiveness of home remedies. Mannes, who is one of the top professionals about pest control advice to skip the home remedies to get rid of mice completely.
However, we would like to recommend some home remedies and natural ingredients that will help to prevent mice from entering your home or kitchen. You can also use them to get rid of rats if their populations are too low in your area. And these natural ingredients are
- Peppermint Oil/Spray
Peppermint oil and spray widely used to repel mice in the house, kitchen, apartment, garage or garden. Although there is a lot of controversies available about the effectiveness of peppermint oil to get rid of mice.
However, you can use 100% pure peppermint oil (without water) in cotton balls and place them in the kitchen or near mice nests to drive them away. Peppermint also can be used with water to spray in your area to prevent rats and mice.
- Dried Snake Poo
Some people find dried snake poo as one of the effective natural ways to keep mice away. You can get snake poo in the local or online shop. On the other hand, you can also visit the local zoo, pet store or snake pet owner to get some dried snake feces.
- Kitty Litter
Kitty Litter also widely used to keep mice away from home, garage, and garden. You can get kitty litter from a pet store or from a pet cat owner. Place the kitty litter near the mice population area and drive them away.
- Onions
Onions are one of the common things mice don’t like. They don’t like the smell of onions and always keep away from the area where onions smell available. So you can also try this to prevent mice.
How to Prevent Future Infestations?
Well, you have already done a lot of jobs to get rid of mice and that does not matter which method you have applied to eliminate mice. Now you should take some action to prevent them from future infestations. And here are some simple steps you can follow.
- Identify and Block Entry Points
For preventing mice infestations you should identify their entry points and block them to keep them away. If you failed to do it properly, you will need to fight against mice again and again. So should carefully identify their entry points in your house, kitchen or garage to keep your area protected.
- Good Sanitation is Most Important
You should keep your house neat and clean to keep it mice free. Remember that, mice can survive on a very little amount of food per day. So good sanitation is most important to prevent them, especially in your kitchen.
- Use Airtight Food Container
If you don’t want to attract mice in your house or kitchen, you should use an airtight food container for storing pantry items. Especially you should take care of sweets items, cookies, nuts, etc.
- Apply Natural Home Remedies
As we discussed in the “How to Get Rid of Mice Using Home Remedies”, you can also follow those methods to keep mice from future Infestations.
- Get a Cat
Most of the people love pet cat. If you are also one of them, you can get a pet cat. The cat is one of the biggest enemies of mice and they love to hunt them. So the cat will help to keep mice away from your home.
- Get Trash Can Out of Kitchen
Mice love garbage smell and it will attract them in your kitchen or house. So you can keep the trash can out of your kitchen and also out of the house if possible.
- Shut Doors and Windows Closely
Most of the time mice enter your house or kitchen at night. So you should shut doors and windows properly to keep them away.
- Create a Regular Schedule
Fight against mice is not one time job. You should always care about them even if you confirmed that you have eliminated all mice from your area.
For this reason, you can create a schedule and check your house, garage, kitchen or garden regularly. If you find any proof of mice Infestations, you should take action immediately.
Do You Need to Hire a Professional?
It is really hard to know whether it’s time to hire a professional or not especially if you face mice problems for the first time. .However, if you are facing mice problems very badly and tried almost all methods you can, but failed to get rid of mice, then it’s maybe a wise decision to hire a mouse exterminator.
Before hiring professionals/exterminators, you can talk with your neighbors, relatives or friends. They may face the same problem and hired a professional, so they can suggest to you the best mouse exterminator agency or someone who can really do your job perfectly.
You can also search online for your nearest exterminator agency and don’t forget to check what people said about their service.
Best Ways to Get Rid of Mice in House
House mice are quite smarter than others. If you have seen any sign in your house areas such as mouse poop, chewing/grease marks or any kind of pantry item damage, you should take action immediately. You must remember that get rid of large populations of mice is harder than smaller ones.
However, you can try different methods to get rid of house mice. In our experience, mouse trap, glue trap, bait station, and live mouse trap works best for house mice. But keep in mind that, you should place the trap in the proper area and use the right bait to attract them.
Some people also like to use natural repellent such as peppermint oil/spray, kitty litter or onions to keep mice away from their house. But if the mice population is too high in your house, then first you should catch and kill them. After that, you may use natural or ultrasonic mice repellent to drive them and keep your house mice free.
Pro Tips: You should avoid mouse poison especially if you have children and pets in your house.
How to Get Rid of Mice in the Walls?
If you have strong evidence that mice build their nests in the wall, then it’s time to take action to get rid of wall mice. Mouse trap, small-size glue traps or bait stations are some best options to deal with wall mice.
If you are using mousetrap or glue trap, make sure that you are using the right mousetrap bait. Also, block all holes in the wall (even it’s small in size) to prevent future mice infestation.
How to Eliminate Garden/Yard Mice?
Mouse trap and bait stations are widely used to get rid of mice in the garden. But you should careful before taking any step because it may harmful for your home pets or kids. There are different kinds of pet-proof bait stations available in the market such as Tomcat Bait Station.
You can use this kind pet and kid proof to get rid of garden mice. Some electric and live mouse traps also good options to eliminate garden mice as these traps are also kids and pet proof. However, it may take a long time to catch and kill all garden mice if their populations are too high.
Pro Tips: You can use ultrasonic mouse repellent and grow mint plants in your garden to keep it safe from future mice infestation.
Get Rid of Mice in the Attic
You may look for a proven method to get rid of mice in the attic and you may get surprised to know that it’s quite easy then get rid of mice in the house or kitchen. You just need to follow some simple steps to get rid of attic mice.
At first, you should identify their entry points and seal up them using steel wools. Now use more than one Snap Traps or Electric Rat Traps at a time to kill all mice. How many traps you need to use will depends on the size of the attic.
However, you can also use strong poison to eliminate all mice at a time as there is nothing to worry about pets or kids. If you confirmed that there is no more mouse in the attic, then it’s time to check again their entry points and seal up them to prevent future infestation.
Tips to Get Rid of Mice in the Garage
To get rid of mice in the garage, you can follow some basic steps. Like get rid of mice in the house or attic, at first you should check their entry points to the garage. And then seal up they’re all entry points including the very narrow hole.
After that, you can use snap traps or other types of mouse traps or bait stations to kill them. Some commercial sprays are also available to get rid of mice in the garage. If you want you can also apply them.
However, you should always keep your garage neat and clean so that mice won’t get any nesting materials to build their nest.
How to Get Rid of Mice in the Car?
To keep away mice from your car, you should always keep it neat and clean. Also, you should keep your garage mice free and shut the car door properly. Foliage and mosquitoes are also responsible for car mice.
So keep your car free from foliage and mosquitoes. And before parking your car in an open area, you should confirm that the place is rodent-free. If you have seen any sign of mice in your car, then you should take action immediately to eliminate them.
To eliminate car mice, you can use a mouse trap or rodent repellent spray. Also, there are some ultrasonic mouse repellents available in the market that’s are specially designed to repel car mice.
Final Words
It’s not a big question of what is the current mice populations in your house, kitchen, garden or garage. If you have seen any mice sign in your area, you should take action now to keep it pest-free as well as healthy for your family and kids.
And if you are looking for the best solution or a proven method on how to get rid of mice, we hope that you have already found it in our guide.
And don’t forget to let us know in the comment section which method you have applied to get rid of mice and what the success rate was. This will help our other readers to take the right step quickly to prevent the mice problems in their area.
