I like old school, spring loaded traps with peanut butter. There are also sticky traps that work well. Go get a dozen spring traps, bait them, put them in the garage wherever you find dropping or other signs of rodentia. Clean up all loose food or chewable stuff. Inside the house, use the safer (to people) enclosed traps. The point is to set a whole bunch of traps, not kill them one a day.

Also this is a good excuse to get a cat.

The good thing about having mice is, it means you don't have rats.

I dunno. I had both rats and mice. First mice then rats or maybe both at the same time. I had an enclosed poison bait holder outside placed there by the pest control people. I also threw bait under the house. I didn't use kill traps or sticky traps. I also went into my cupboards and stuffed all the crannies with steel wool. Especially around the pipes.

Eileen

We've found that PB in the standard spring traps (made in PA, LOL) work the best. We have both sizes - mouse and rats.

PB and traps, lots and lots of traps, worked well for us. My neighbor had a much more difficult time than we did because her daughter has a severe allergy to peanuts, so she couldn't use the peanut butter.

I have two electronic Rat Zappers for many years.

I have gotten rid of all rats, mice, chipmunks, moles, ---- inside the house and in my garden.

I use bird seeds for bait. Very easy disposal and setting the trap.

dcarch

I've had a few mice over the years, not many. My first challenge as a "resingled" woman was finding a dead mouse floating in the utility sink. My previous method for dealing with this would be cringing and getting some male type person to get rid of it. This time there was only me, so I put on my big girl panties, found the cat pooper-scooper, and fished it out of the sink into a bag. Lots of shivers and cringing along the way but ultimately my first step to becoming self-sufficient.

Then for years I had a cat and that kept the mice at bay. Once she went to the great litter box in the sky, the mice began to play, although rarely.

I think those sticky traps are horrible. The mousey gets his little mouse feet stuck in the goo and dies slowly from being trapped there. That's cruel. Better they should meet their maker with one quick snap. The PB on a snap trap works best. You can even buy snapping traps inside of little cardboard mouse houses so you can toss the whole thing away without having to look at the snapped mouse remains.

I used the enclosed traps that snap the mouse inside. Very tidy, quick for the critter and not horrifying to dispose of. I confess that when my children were really small I used the humane traps for mice that catch it alive. Then we went far away and released the little fellows. We lived in a semi rural area. The mice only ventured into the house when the yard and crawl space were flooded in the winter. The drainage was poor on the property.

Eileen

We keep poison bait in the crawl space at several locations the whole length of the house. When it is gone we put out more. Never had a mouse inside the house in 26 years.
Clare

You might want to consider calling an exterminator, if they are coming in through the attic. You need to close the holes where they are getting into the attic, and I would call a specialist for that.

Our house is pretty tight (except for the crawl space beneath), and nothing seems to get into our attic, but if the kitchen or patio doors are left open for any length of time, mice seem to find their way in. We recently had our kitchen door replaced (see photo below), and during the process, there was no door for a while. I did not see any mice, but I set out traps throughout the kitchen after the carpenter left anyway. I did catch a lone mouse and have not caught or seen any others since, but I still have the traps out. I like to use Snickers for bait because the mice like the chocolate as much as the peanuts, and I think they like the caramel also. From my experience, mice are able to lick peanut butter off the traps without tripping them.

I'm very happy with my new door, and today I hung some Kuba cloth over the window portion. It doesn't cover the window exactly, but I have Kuba cloth over the top part of the window above the kitchen sink, and they go together well.

To keep mice out, you have to keep your house tight.

Lars

Dh & I live in the country. We have woods & fields on 2 sides of our house. We always get mice in the spring & fall. This year they have been particularly bad. This year its been snap traps, using PB as bait, as well as Decon. It has definitely slowed them down, but we're still catching 1 every few days. The DH also got spray foam and plugged up any obvious holes with the foam. I cleaned out some old news papers and cardboard boxes that I had down in the basement. I also threw out some old towels I had in the basement too. It looked like something was tying to nest in them. We also get rid of some old insulation in the basement that they were nesting in.

No one's mentioned cats! I have cats, and don't have mice. Now, the house up in Tahlequah has mice. We live trap them sometimes, and snap trap them sometimes, using peanut butter as bait, but until we move there permanently, with our cats, we'll have mice there. I bet almond butter would work for those that are allergic to peanut butter.

I agree, the sticky traps are incredibly cruel and inhumane. They should be against the law.

Sally