Having a cat doesn't mean you will have no mice! Your best bet is to close points of entrance when it's warm outside and to contact an exterminator.

Ditto what snookums said. We had a cat who every autumn would actually bring live mice into the house and release them. We figured she was just ensuring we'd have a supply of fresh meat all winter. Stocking the pantry, you know!

Do you have trees overhanging or close to the roof? I was told by a house inspector that mice will use them to get into the attic. Trim back any branches that are close to the house.

Actually, a very good defense against mice is a big healthy blacksnake in the garden. They rob the nests, which keeps the population in check.

I am not cursed with a general fear of snakes (although I do have the sense to avoid the copperheads in the woodpile...), so I am happy to see a blacksnake or a corn snake slinking through the groundcover.

Not such a helpful solution in the city, however. And they can be a bit disruptive in the middle of a garden party, should someone happen to notice. Usually they are too shy ever to be seen.

Never depend on a cat to get rid of the mice. I've had cats all my life and they love to catch & bat them around while they're still alive, then the mouse will run under something where the cat can't go.

Now I did have a cat once who would catch a mouse outdoors, eat the head, and leave the body on the doormat for my approval. He was a cool cat! lol

Please, no arguments on this because I don't give a rat's patootie about the welfare of mice, but I'm a firm believer in glue boards. I'd much rather catch a mouse on a glue board then have it crunched by a mouse trap. They work tremendously well. Walmart has them.

They love a small piece of bread stuck in the middle of the board.

our rat snake kept both the rats and the chipmunks away...but she left when they were all gone. We are right in the middle of town and the regional folks at the extension service were amazed she was even here..she was about 4 ft long. I named her Samantha :) They warned me she would leave..sigh.

As to the rubber ones they absolutely do not work. You would have to go and move it all the time...the mice/rats/chippies get used to it really quick and it doesn't have a smell. So you have to use traps. As I said on the other thread...peanut butter works better than anything else. You will be amazed at how many you catch. The exterminator is great since I refuse to get near the traps !! worth 39.00 per month. c

I live on a large acreage and mice are abundant in the fields. In the past they also occasionally found their way into the house to the delight of my cats but not me.

I have followed the advice of an exterminator and my furnace guy who advised pushing steel wool in every possible crevasse. Since I have a 2 storey house I was concerned I couldn't possibly do the high parts but it seems I've managed to block enough openings on the lower parts so had no mice inside last fall at all which is when they usually try to come in to avoid the cold. I didn't have the exterminator use poison because of my cats. If they bit into a poisoned mouse they could be very sick. I've also heard about poisoned mice dying inside walls which causes an odor that lasts awhile. Yuck!

Depending on the type of exterior cladding on your house mice can climb walls if they can get traction such as on wood siding.

I was also advised to use the expanding foam insulation on larger cracks and crevasses but haven't done so. Using the steel wool is easy, just takes a bit of time. I used a small hand trowel to push the steel wool into the cracks.

Prior to doing this I had also used mouse traps altho find them really distasteful. I never emptied the traps, just threw them away. Double yuck!

We bought those things on TV that are supposed to somehow or other electronically deter insects, etc. I had suffered 3 brown recluse spider bites in 2 years and my husband saw those things on TV on an infomercial. We thought it was worth it. I have not suffered a bite since and we quit hearing the mice in the attic at night. We put them in every room and 2 in the attic. We would have done anything to rid our house of spiders. We were told that getting rid of roaches causes brown recluse spiders as they feed on the carcuses of the roaches. So if we eliminated the mice, so be it. We have not had a bad spider problem. However, we had a tick problem in our shower last summer which led to searching the internet for an answer and we found it. Technology "ain't so bad" most of the time.

We have 5 cats in the house and STILL have a mouse problem - just today we noticed the unpleasant odor of dead mouse in our basement. We live in the middle of the woods and battle these critters all the time. One of our cats has begun hanging out in our basement utility room because she has seen mice there; I think it has helped as activity is definitely down.

We have tried snap traps and have caught a few, but we've had many go untouched, and we usually use peanut butter as our bait. We've stuffed holes with steel wool - the darn mice just kick it out. I won't use poison or glue traps, so we're resigned to having mice every now and then. It comes with the territory, I guess.

At least they've never gotten into our food. THAT would really gross me out.

Hmmm, we've had the opposite experience with cats and mice to the previous posters. We were over run with mice. They were so bad they'd keep me awake at night scrabbling around trying to find food. When I found droppings in the crib, we bought a cat. From the day we got the cat, the mice disappeared. Every fall when it gets cold and the mice are looking for a warm home, she kills one or two in the house and then that is it. I've never found droppings anywhere since we got her. I wasn't that thrilled about the idea of a cat either and she was the last thing we tried after using every trap on the market and trying to stop up holes in our swiss cheese old house, but now we love her. On our block, everyone who doesn't have a cat, has mice. Those of us with cats have none.

Best defense is a house sealled tight. Mice can enter through a hole as small as a pencil eraser. They will use the ducts and pipes and wiring in your house like little highways. The above posters have lots of ideas for sealing a house tight. For example, a mouse can jump up into your dryer duct if it is accessible in a sidewall of your house. They can jump into the PVC piping that your sump pump uses to get water out of your basement. You have to cover that with screening. They will crawl through cracks around your faucet bibs, etc. etc. You might want to have someone walk around the house and point out areas that have holes. My exterminator also has a service where they use expanding foams and screens to seal points of entry. The other possibility is poisons. There are lots of traps and things available. My concern is always for the animals and the environment so I think sealing exterior cracks and access routes is the best way to go. If you decide to get a pet, you should get a pet because you want a PET. Not because you want an animal to rid your home of mice. Pets are a very big commitment, expense, and responsbility. It is not fair to an animal to accept it with the expectation that it will rid your home of pests. As other posters have indicated, it probably will NOT work. I have cats and I have mice! Another thing is, if you decide to use poison (the poison they commonly use is a blood thinner. It thins the blood, the mice get very thirsty. They ideally go outside where there is more water at that point and expire there). In any case, if you have cats AND you poison the mice, the cats are at risk. A cat can be poisoned secondarily through your mouse poison. If a cat eats a mouse that has died because of your poison your cat can get sick or even die. So, think carefully about how you're going to do that!

I don't have an outdoor cat any longer but I had one who was the product of my Himalayan escaping one morning and having an affair with a feral cat. We kept the kitten following its mother having a simultaneous C-section and a hysterectomy and could not bear to do away with the kitten but it was also somewhat feral, and wanted the option of running loose and returning home at will. Occasionally when I would not get up to let her in at the wee wee hours, she would gift me with mice or snakes in the days following, I suppose in an effort to either show me she cared or hated me, not sure which, but she did not eat them. She either turned them loose at my feet or toyed with them. I never saw her kill or eat one.

Patricia, which brand of electrical thingy do you use? I'd like to try them but there's so much junk out there, I want to be sure it's one that really works.

I use the RatZapper. It's quick, the mouse doesn't die a slow death and they now have remote sensors to let you know when to check the container.
They can be purchased from other suppliers, but I linked to the mftr.

They claim the Zappers can be used for ground squirrels but after finding a squirrel still alive I stopped using it to trap them. The batteries had max voltage....the squirrels were just too large. My neighbor is now controlling the ground squirrel problem since he brings in a pro that traps and baits them.

Here is a link that might be useful: RatZapper

I think mine are Black & Decker but they look exactly like this.
http://www.amazon.com/Bell-Howell-Ultrasonic-Repellers-Outlet/dp/B0017VYUOI/ref=pd_sim_lg_3

We have a mouse or 2 that find a way into our attic...we have no idea how...every fall and we use d-con to get rid of them....it makes them thirsty so they leave the building in search of water to die, so no stinky carcasses....

Some cats kill mice--I have one who Will Not Sleep until the invading mice have been caught and she will then tenderly leave the carcases on the floor by my bed--right where I will step on them as I get up in the morning.

The other cat may deign to lift her head off her cushioned bed as a mouse scampers by. You can almost hear her thinking, "Oh, look, the humans are providing live entertainment today," before she yawns and gently lowers her head and returns to her nap.

Closing all possible holes with the expanding foam or steel wool (you can use screening stapled to the walls to hold the steel wool in place) is the first line of defense against mice. Keeping them out is easier and safer than getting them out once they have come in. If the problem is really bad, I'd call an exterminator and have a pro do the job.

Everything judithn said - two thumbs up! I agree 100% I also agree with everyone who said you can have a cat(s) and still have mice. In fact, speaking from experience, you can have cats and have a rat, too.

If you want a cat because you like cats and can accept the responsibility of having a pet, that's great. Otherwise, try other methods suggested. Steel wool does work, but like others have said, for best success, try to locate every crack and opening.

I used to live along the river. I got a cat, who had 5 kittens, in effort to get rid of the very large mice. She just played with them. She threw them in the air and waited for them to fall then chased them. I preferred to set traps. They would go off in the night, which was alarming, but then I knew what I had caught. I would empty and reset. I eventually moved and was still setting traps each day when I moved.

Thanks for the gadget information.

I agree, don't get a pet unless you love cats. They are a lot of expense and responsibility. They also need your time and attention. Seems more often than not, they do not scare or kill the mice anyway!

Speaking of cats and expense, my kitty has end-stage renal disease and I have to put him in the hospital so frequently that my vet bills look like my dental bills, except my dental bills slowed down after many root canals, all crowns and a couple epicoectomies but the cat expense is always there and you will never, never, never want to end that expense because that will end the best friendship you ever had. Kitties love you so unconditionally. Reward them for their love and don't expect them to be your pest control man.

I'm petrified of dead mice and living ones out here in the New Mexico can carry Bubonic Plague or Hantavirus. So, we use a combination of mousetraps (that DH has to empty for me), steel wool into every possible opening they can get into and pure peppermint oil. Our pest control people told me that mice (and packrats, another huge problem out here) have highly sensitive noses and for some reason hate the smell of peppermint. It must be the pure oil, though, and not the peppermint extract sold for cooking.

I stuff plastic webbed tubing with cotton balls, tie off both ends with rubberbands or plastic coated wire ties and then put several drops of peppermint oil on them. I put them in corners and along the walls where I know the mice travel, as mice follow the urine scents they leave as they walk and tend to use the same routes over and over.

I buy the peppermint oil at my local Ace Hardware store. You may be able to get the tubing there, too. I'm still using the bunch my pest control people gave me, so I haven't had to buy any as yet. Re-moisten the cottonballs every month. I've been using mine for a couple of years now, so they do last.
Here's the oil I use:

I've also used one of those high frequency emitters outside in our seating area on the front portal. It needs to be plugged into an outlet and seems to have worked fairly well. I need to remember to buy a new one as mine broke a while back.
Lynn

Well, a cat might not rid you of your problem. But it will help. And there is no form of pest control other than a warm cat that purrs in your lap on a cold evening. They are the most popular pet in America now, because they adapt to odd working hours and more confined conditions much better than dogs can.

I'm curently the staff to 5, and would have it no other way. My oldster is around 20 and getting senile, and even my youngest is 11. When I'm down to only one or two, I'll probably adopt senior kitties after that because I don't want them to outlive me and there are a lot of oldsters that just need a warm place to nap out their years. Like me. ;)

Lynn, interesting info! This spring I'm going to see how it works when I put some in the ground squirrel holes that are near the house.

Thank you, Annz, and good luck. I hope they work for you.
Lynn

We have lived in our house for almost 30 years. Until last year we had an outside cat and never had rodents in the house. Our last cat died early last year and this fall we had our first rat in the house - a big smart one who repeatedly stole the bait out of spring rat traps. We finally caught him with one of the terrible sticky traps. Yesterday my husband saw another rat in the garage.

I'm thinking of trying the electric trap as more humane than the sticky ones. Perhaps we will try some of the peppermint oil too.

Our first home had mice and once we found out how they were getting in then we set traps and used warfarin. Caught 3 withing the first hour then nothing after some time we sealed the hole and no more mice. Good luck (the warfarin was set out behind a closed space so as the children could not get at it)

Interesting ... we had mouse/rat problem every fall. Read where just the smell of a cat would keep them away so we got a cat, well two. We haven't had an unwanted critter in the house since and it's been six years. Wonder what the difference is with those who have cats and still had a problem.