Make sure to get them way in there, if they’re sticking out at all, you’re going to have a big rusty mess running down the side of your house.
I had this problem a few weeks ago. If you can figure out where Topo Gigio is getting in from outside, I may have a solution.
You can break apart one of those mosquito-repelling coils that looks like a weird spiral incense stick (like this). Put the pieces in the crack or hole where the mouse is getting in – there’s something in it that mousie doesn’t like. I did this after a mouse had been getting my wall for a couple of weeks – waited until he was away, then put the broken-up coil in the little gap under a section of vinyl siding where he was getting in. Like magic, I never heard from him again!
It was a super-cheap solution, and I didn’t have to kill the little guy (I’m a softie). Hope that helps you. Good luck!
That’s citronella, I didn’t know it worked for rodents but a totally random web page I just looked at said it does. I’m having a problem with mice or a rat or a opussum living under my back stoop and digging all the gravel out from under it. I just might try that. I was going to toss some poison under there, but I’d prefer not to have it/them die under there or in the yard.
Long before Snopes, there were “stories” of people buying used cars and finding a horrific stench after a few days. The story goes that they take it to a mechanic, who finds the decomposing body of a snake.
Stories varied as to the purported reason for the snake seeking out a dashboard.
Well, my one-year-old car has that smell in the air conditioning unit. So did my old car. It costs a fortune to take the units apart to get the animal remains out.
Clearly, mice are a constant problem here.
I am definitely going to try the citronella trick. That sounds awesome. With a lucky lottery win, I will get new siding this year too.
I successfully mouse-proofed my parents kitchen by combining everything I thought could possibly work. There was practically a mouse freeway between some shoddy outdoor cabinets and the kitchen cabinets on the other side of the wall. I stapled hardware cloth over large holes, stuffed steel wool in smaller holes, and then filled everything in with urethane foam for good measure (it was also pretty drafty).
I can also affirm that a dead mouse in an enclosed space (like, say, a closet with cinder block on two sides and a shower liner on the third) can leave a nasty and long-lasting odor. I’d WAG that an outdoor wall wouldn’t hold much of an odor though. There’s probably all sorts of dead critters in walls and attics that nobody ever notices.
I heard the pitter patter of little feet again this morning. They’ve moved up their schedule and started the noise at 5:00 a.m. Grrrr.
A trip to the big box store to garner some mosquito coils only got me electronic devices because why would a big box store carry mosquito coils when we are still in snow storm mode? So off to Ace Hardware to score the coils. But these coils don’t have citronella scent. I’ll try them anyway. Then to the grocery store for, yup, groceries! And organic peppermint oil. Tomorrow, I will go to town with the screwdriver and deposit both coil bits and peppermint scented cotton balls behind my walls. Fingers crossed!
Mice are caught in our house with an old four sided strangler- mouse pulls bait, wire garrotes neck. Worse are rats, and we had a serious infestation (log house) until I got a cat from the local feral spay and neuter program- I did all of the above except sonics, and the verdammte creatures gnawed right around the steel wool. It’s really important to eliminate the food source if you can- they ate through a plastic container for bird seed. Our old dogs couldn’t have free choice food, either. Between the cat and removing (wearing hazmat suit) the stinking insulation under the floor, which was GROSS, there are no current signs. I HATE rats.
I can’t afford to put all my food in plastic containers right now but, thank goodness, I haven’t seen mice actually inside the house and the cats are not acting like there are mice actually in the house. Their food source is outside but their home is in the walls.
I’m working as hard as I can to prevent them joining us on the inside. Today’s snowfall didn’t help. If it was really spring, the mice would be outside more (and I’d be able to search for and block their entry spots).
If you have any friends with horses who feed beet pulp you might try putting some of the pellets out where they might get them. They have to be dry. I’m afraid the mice and any other rodents that eat it (I hear squirrels are quite attracted to it) will find the expansion of the gut after they drink water incompatible with life. Beet pulp isn’t poisonous and makes nice mulch (after it reaches the ground when the snow melts;)). It’s low sugar, too.
While I don’t want to torture the mice, I’ll keep beet pulp as an option. I know where I can get it. And I need mulch.