New Day, New Problem: Mice in Walls

I am open to suggestions of how to drive mice from walls (before I call a professional). In this vein, does anyone have experience with the ultrasonic rodent repellants? WIll it drive mice out of walls? Any preferred brands? Other ideas? Need help fast! TIA!

(If it helps to know, the mice are hiding in a garage interior wall with our family room on the other side. The hole is quite visible. Setting peanut butter in a trap by this hole has produced nothing, but you can hear them scraping in the wall. Google says they can live off insulation and wood (with little need for water.))

We had a mouse in the house probably ten years ago. We bought several of those plug-in rodent repellents and have seen no sign of rodents since. Could be coincidence, I dunno.

However, I do know that they do not work through walls or around corners, so the best they would do for you is to keep the mouses out of your living area.

mmm

We get mice in our home every winter despite my valiant attempts to plug all ingress/egress.

I set live traps in three locations (per my gf’s desire). I check them daily. When my trap line is fruitful, my gf releases them in our barn where she has food/water/welcome to the barn handouts available. I wonder sometimes if I am re-trapping the same mouse over and over.

Peanut butter is my bait of choice. The organic version from our neighbor’s farm store works great, but it’s also the only type we buy.

I caught one that had invaded our pantry with the bucket/soda can/peanut butter trap. But, instead of releasing it outside and nearby, I drove it to the edge of town, Rambo style, to the other side of the freeway and dumped it there. No mice since (we did have a rat in the garage (not in the kitchen) but that’s another story).

I have mice in the walls and cats in the house.

The cats can’t get at the mice while the mice are in the walls. But they can sure give the mice good reason not to come out of the walls into the house. And, mice not always having good reasoning, the cats keep the population level down.

ETA: this is not a good solution if you don’t otherwise want to live with cats. Though if it’s only cats you don’t want to live with but you’d like to live with a dog, try a terrier.

At least you don’t have Rats in the Walls. That’s a problem of Lovecraftian dimensions

I wouldn’t count on ultrasonic pest repellers.

“Ultrasonic rodent repellers are not effective pest control for mice because mice and other rodents can quickly become accustomed to repeated sounds. Ultrasonic sound waves may also be blocked by the objects mice hide behind, under, and in.”

I’ve tried cheap solar-powered devices that are supposed to produce ultrasonic noises that repel moles and voles in the garden. No discernable effect.

I’d call in the pros. They poop and pee which means you will start to smell it at some point. My sister had them in her basement and the pros were called in. He told her that a mouse can fit through an opening as big around as a pencil. He put out his poison and would come back to remove the dead ones which were just basically a pile of fluff.

My husband and I hate to kill animals. We had a mice issue in our detached garage. The mice were getting into our cars. The chewed some wires in his car. In mine the peed a lot. The sweet aroma of mouse pee would come through my heat/ac vents. First he tried live traps. He caught a few and brought them out to the woods behind the house. I’m sure they just came right back. We’ve tried the ultrasound plug in things. I’m not sure how well they work. We still had some mice. The next step were live traps. Which we both hated to have to do. It was my husbands job to check and remove the traps every morning. He hated doing it. Now we are using scent bags in our cars. We get them from Menards (home improvement store). They’re called Fresh Cab Botanical Rodent Repellent and the other brand we’ve used is Grandpa Gus’s Extra-Strength Mouse Repellent Pouches. Amazon has them too. Fresh Cab is made with balsam fir oil and Grandpa Gus is cinnamon and peppermint. These have seemed to work and my car smells great!