Has anyone else had bigger problems with mice coming into their house this year?
We have lived here for almost 4 years and this is our 4th winter. The first two winters we had no mice coming into our house/garage. Last year we had a single mouse that came in and get got with a trap.
This year we have already killed 5 and heard more of them inside our storage area near our bedroom. This started at the end of October. Most of the ones we have killed have been in this storage area – it is actually through a door in our closet so they don’t have access to the rest of our house. However this storage area does have a connection to the garage from which they are coming in.
I’m just wondering why we’ve had the sudden influx. I can’t really think of anything that has changed that would cause this problem compared to other years.
For now I am blocking off one of their access routes into our kitchen under the sink and have left many traps along the walls in the storage area. Last night we heard movement but when I checked the traps I found nothing and just a single mouse poop. It looks like it would be difficult to shut off access from the storage area to the garage but I’ll have to see what I can do.
Instead of random mice occasionally entering from outside, it sounds as if you may have developed a breeding population. Sealing all possible entry points would be a good start (which will require thorough inspection inside and out). But you may also need to do some trapping and baiting inside. If it gets to be a serious issue, consider a pest control professional.
Brand new cat, just under a year old - he has access to areas my fat old lady cat hasn’t been able to reach in years. We haven’t had mice, rats or squirrels in the overhead space at all since he figured out how to get in. He caught all of one pitiful looking mouse and tried to give it to me in the last 5 months. He even caught the annual cricket [no idea why, we tended to get a single cricket that got into the house and drove me nuts for a few weeks until it either died or found its way out.]
Go around the outside of your house and look for cracks holes etc. Stuff them with steel wool. Lay poison in inaccessible places (like attics or basements). You may need to revisit the outside entrances a couple of times and restuff. blocking inside holes is pretty pointless since there’s plenty of spaces for mice to hide all nice and warm once they’re inside.
And an exterminator can help if home remedies fail.
Happens every fall for me. The last few weeks were unseasonably cold and blustery, I’ve caught two mice and one got away in the last 3 days. I always leave traps set at various places around the house and check them once or twice a week. I don’t want to find out I have mice by finding their nest in a drawer or their poop on my kitchen counter.
Maybe so, but I work for a major pest control company, and that’s what our technicians use. I suspect that while steel may be harder, copper mesh is coarser than steel wool, so it screws up their insides more. In any event, we’ve often seen steel wool gnawed through, while the copper mesh is pretty effective in stopping them.