Our neighbors across the street and one house over had one and it drove us nuts, we could hear it as soon as we stepped outside. Didn't do a thing about the mice, either.

I am completely freaked out by mice too, and I totally sympathize! We never had mice in my home growing up. Our first house as a married couple was 100+ years old, and the first time I saw a mouse, I lost my mind and threatened to move back to my parents' house. Ugh!! I wore shoes in the house for months, and had to sterilize everything :-) I can't imagine what I'd do if I saw a rat.

We live in the country, and of course we've had a few mice. They are mainly in the outbuildings, thank goodness. We have a great mousing cat, and we're very careful about keeping doors closed and sealing up every nook and cranny with foam spray. DH has set mouse traps with peanut butter when we've seen signs, and it's very effective. Thankfully he disposes of them. I know that many are opposed to poisons, but we've also used D-Con packs in the attic and basement, and they work.

The high-frequency repellents are a scam. I'd look for where they may suddenly be coming from. Have you had any nearby construction, landscaping, etc?

JLC, we live in the mountains, but in a rural development where everyone has at least 2 acres, and most of us more. No construction around us, but we are having a particularly rainy monsoon season. That's probably what is bringing them inside. Outside cats around here get eaten pretty quickly by owls, hawks, eagles, coyote, bobcats, big snakes. Both our kids are very allergic to cats and keeping an outside cat around here is too cruel. We use peanut butter, too, in our traps. I'll only use the snap ones. Those sticky traps are also too cruel for me.

Just a couple weeks ago my cats started going crazy. We have four indoor only cats, so I'm not sure they know to kill mice or not. To them it's probably more of something to play with.
Anyway, I soon realized it was a mouse they were after because no bug, they love chasing bugs that used to get in through the deck in the screened in porch. We carpeted it to rid that problem. The boys chased the mouse all around the main floor and finally it escaped up one of the Ladies Parlor curtains and had a stare down with me. This thing was HUGE! I was totally freaking out and no one was home with me. Hubby waiting a flight home and son on his way between work and class. The darn thing disappeared while I went into the kitchen to get away from looking at it.

We live in a country neighborhood surrounded by corn and bean fields. When we first moved in we killed two dozen before I was so sick of the thought of these filthy critters in our home that I stopped counting. Those were itty bitty things, as shown in the picture below, of two that we trapped and released while under construction. I always hated killing any of God's creatures, I even trap and take spiders outside. Flies and mosquitoes are the only creatures I'd ever felt was okay to flatten, but after I found one itty bitty mouse in our kitchen after we moved in, hubby didn't believe we had any when I told him I could hear them in the basement, and let out a blood curdling scream I no longer feel bad about killing them. Well as long as it's a quick kill. Which is why we use large traps and peanut butter. We put traps all over the main floor, but have yet to catch this big guy, so not sure whether the cats got him, or our stare down scared him to leave out premises as I've found no sign of him anywhere.

Oh, I forgot to mention after the first what I felt was like an infestation, hubby did some research and found the mice are allergic to pure peppermint oil. We've been soaking cotton balls and placing them all around the basement for years with great results. Well until the big guy got in. With hubby traveling he's not been as diligent with replacing the cotton balls as often. He can reach the top of walls in the ceiling in the basement without a ladder, I can't, which is why the job was his. I need to start doing that again.
Some have said it doesn't work for them, but it could be they don't replace the soaked cotton balls often enough.

I will be placing the cotton balls in my truck. I opened the glove compartment to find shredded napkins. It is not likely staying in there because of the heat but yuck! We mainly get them in the garage from time to time. We just set the traps with peanut butter and it seems to take care of them. Along the lines of them not liking mint, I have taken cuttings of mint, catmint, and things like that and placed them along the outside perimeter of the house. I have no idea of it really works but it made me feel like I was doing something. From a distance, field mice are cute, and when they are out in the field. Honestly, packrats are kinda cute, too, and rather funny but with possibility of Hanta virus, any that invade my space have to die. While snakes also give me the heebie jeebies, I take special care not to run over the big gopher snakes or bull snakes in the hopes they will take care of the mice, too.

Lynn, I feel for you! We are in the city, but this spring several houses on our street had problems with raccoons, and mice. We had mice (well, for sure not as bad as raccoons!), and I could hear them scurrying overhead in the attic at night. We wanted to make sure to the extent possible that no more could get in, and hired a service to plug up entrance holes, tighten loose soffits, caulk, and put mesh into areas that shouldn't be blocked (for example, vents). The attic was also deodorized, so the scent of the previous "tenants" would not attract their cousins or bigger critters looking for meals of mice - apparently raccoons eat them. So far so good.

Coincidentally, we were at a dinner party last night and some of the guests were sharing stories about their battles with mice. One was saying that his mice tenants are so smart that they can eat the peanut butter without triggering the traps. His solution, which he said works: make a little paper arch tent and put it over the peanut butter trap. Apparently it slows the mice down just enough....hmmm....

This the type we bought that's suppose to make it impossible for the mice to get the food without triggering the trap. Once they stick they put their nose in where the peanut butter is, it triggers the bar.

About 10 years ago I found a RAT sitting on top of the vertical blinds in my bedroom. I think he'd been brought in in the middle of the previous night by one of my cats. He'd been in the house with me all day. Ugh. I shut my bedroom door to contain him and opened the slider. I brought in each of my 3 cats and basically said sic 'em. The cats looked bored, turned around, and walked out.

The rat ran behind my dresser. Ugh. I enlisted a neighbor (woman). She wielded a broom as I removed one drawer at a time, flinging it across the room, sox and underwear flying. Finally he was exposed and we swept that sucker out the door. Relief, cheering.

It took a couple of years before I could walk into my bedroom without looking for a rat on the blinds. And those vertical blinds? They are now so outta there.

I have also been fighting an invasion since late winter! It was record cold here, so they were incentivized to move indoors. I still dread looking in some place. My 7 y.o. nephew found it so funny to hear me panicking over mice, he bought me a stuffed one to commemorate the Great Invasion of 2015! I wish I could buy a cat, but I am highly allergic. Good Luck!

I am planning on peppermint oil tomorrow. :)

Linelle, I have the same feeling every time I walk into this room too. I often find myself looking at the curtain panels to see fi they are moving when I don't see him/her sitting on top of them.
Make sure you get 100% pure Peppermint Oil. Hubby ordered a 16oz bottle from HERE. It's so much less expensive than you can find locally. 16 oz is just $25.00 whereas locally you pay ten plus dollars for half an ounce.

Lynn, the previous owner of the house next door to us apparenty lived with a rat infestation that was discovered when the house sold and was inspected. Just prior to that, we'd seen a rat in our pear tree (got stripped clean in just a couple of nights!). During the cold weather, we spotted one running into our garage. I didn't want anything that could harm pets or children or unintended critters and was hoping to avoid traps. I found this Rat Zapper on Amazon. They use a lot of batteries, but they work.

We turned them into corners or neaeer fences to avoid getting other larger critters and did some turning on at night/off during the day to avoid getting birds or squirrels who might go for the peanuts or peanut butter. We didn't kill other critters, but we did make a skunk very unhappy one night. I would have felt worse about that incident, but my dogs got sunked four times in one year -- think it was that same year. I couldn't say I was too upset that they might not find our yard that hospitable.

We tried the peppermint oil and have mint growing our garden -- didn't seem to deter the ones outside.

Linelle and justgottabeme, I am LOL at your rodent stories!

Usually in the fall we'll get a mouse or two in the attic. We spray foamed what we thought were entrances, but they are still getting in. We use d-con which works well as it makes them thirsty so they leave searching for water rather than dying in the house.

Cats are not always effective. When DH was living in the old colonial house (so full of holes you couldn't keep out any creature....he had a bat hanging off his shower curtain rod for several days) he used to have an old tomcat named Knucklehead...looked just like the original Morris the cat. He would sit on the kitchen chair and watch the mice scurry across the kitchen floor and barely blink. He was only ever interested in chasing queens.

Mice can get into your house through the tiniest of openings. A methodical approach, going around the outside of your house with cans of spray foam is your best weapon. Places like the cracks around your hose bibs or where your AC unit lines enter the house, the unseen gap underneath your siding if you have it and any gaps where material meet such as around windows and doors are places of entry. And unfortunately, not just at ground or low level as they can climb and enter gaps in your soffit or around roof vents, too. If you have an attached garage make sure the gasket at the bottom of the door is tight but of course they can get in as soon as you open the door so I'd keep baited traps in the garage to prevent the next move in through the people door! We lived in our old house over 20 years before we had a single mouse and then they found a way in during a bitter winter so you have to stay on top of the exterior sealing every year.

We had to pay a pest control company to do an exclusion for RATS in our attic. We thought we had mice and the pest guy looked at the droppings and told me the bad news. Thankfully I never saw one.

They were crawling up the huge live oak trees near our house, jumping on the roof and finding ways to get into the attic. The pest company guy crawled all around our roof and eaves and plugged the holes that the rats made trying to get inside.

I always associated rats with city living but apparently they love our mild climate and the ample supply of food from the marshes. Gross.

Ugh. My house is part of an old farm, so of course there was a big mouse problem when I bought the house, mostly in the kitchen. I just kept working on the problem, including getting the electronic repellant. All true above: they don't work and can be terrible for pets.

Peppermint oil supposedly works, but then your house smells like peppermint.

Ultimately, the best thing to do is also the most work but it's worth it. Find the entrances and plug them with coarse steel wool. It is the only thing that works 100%. The steel wool hurts their noses, so they can't even get close enough to chew. You have to think like a mouse, figure out their paths of travel. How are they getting into your drawers and cabinets? plug it up with steel wool. are they traveling behind the cabinets, climbing up the stove, behind the fridge, etc.? Pull them out and plug up any recesses and holes. I made a lot of headway this way, and using live traps (such a pain), and finally this spring, I knew the only place left that they could be getting in was behind the dishwasher. Plumber came up, pulled it out for me, and there were two huge gaping holes. Plugged them up, cleaned up the droppings, bleached to sterilize…no more mice. I am finally mouse free! I don't care if they're in the crawlspace. I just don't want them in the house proper.

A trick to find their entrances is to put down a spoonful of flour in front of areas you think they're using to get in. Their footprints will be there. They will eat the flour, though, if they're hungry enough.

Interesting enough, this past winter was the first winter I had no mice at all. Turns out, the reason was all of the snow. It got so high and packed around houses, mice couldn't get in!

No experience with those hf devices but mice freak me out too. Just the thought of the nastiness they bring in gives me the willies. We live in the country, so I know they are around. We find some occasionally outside or signs of them in our garage. The dog doesn't care.

DH took his motorcycle in for some routine maintenance a couple of weeks ago. He takes it to a local guy who has a shop behind his home who does wonderful work. He asked DH if he wanted him to check his air filter, so of course he said yes. He put a bore scope in and started laughing. There was a mouse nest inside! DH had to leave the bike since the mice had also chewed some insulation off some wiring (I had to go get him since he hadn't planned that), and he ended up having some additional work done since they had to take the cowling off to do all that. There were baby carcases in the nest when they got it all removed. We suspect mama mouse found a warm spot this past winter. DH does drive it on nice days even in winter, but had no idea the nest was in there. Creeps me out wondering if there has been one in my car engine too!

The same day I read about rats at the Denver airport chewing wiring in parked cars. It seems some foreign made cars, in an attempt to go green, have used soy-based insulating material in their wiring, and the rats and mice love it. A pilot had to spent around $500 in repairs after being gone for several days on an overseas flight. He said he would be throwing a rubber snake under his car in the future. Maybe that's what we all need, Lynn.

Yeah, they get into the air filter under the glove compartment in cars too. Ugh. Had my oil changed once, and the guy showed me the nest in mine. Keep meaning to check it again, so thanks, OutsidePlaying. Can't stand them. The'll also get into lawn mowers and do damage. Recommendation is to put moth balls on top of any equipment you don't want them in, but only in garages, etc., not in living spaces since moth balls are toxic.

Mice and ticks…just wanna blast them into outer space.

We've had good luck with the kind of traps that justgotto beme pictured. Using dry dog food works as well as peanut butter if there are allergy issues.

We had a major infestation many years ago (so bad they were keeping me up at night with their scratching around) and got a cat and they disappeared immediately. Sorry you can't do this as it really seems to be the most long term effective solution (but the peppermint sounds effective too. I hadn't tried that).

My mother in law always puts bay leaves around the cottage when we close it up for the winter, but I've found if I leave the kitty litter there (relatively clean but with some remnants), they stay away too. Except one year, I tried using the corn based litter - yikes! It was like saying, "come on in mice - free board and lodging").

Yes! My sister once left the corn-based kitty litter in a box at the family beach house. OMG. Might as well have put a blinking neon sign out front: "EATS!" "DINER!" "OPEN 24/7!"

never had mice in the house, but we had a couple of mice in the garage when it started getting chilly a couple of winters-never saw them, but saw their evidence-- once we even heard one or 2 in the walls when there was a hole in the garage drywall- that's when I decided to do something! I found the dcon pellets to be very effective. I was careful to put them where the dogs wouldn't be.

Am loving all your stories and advice! Where did you get those great traps, JGTBM? Am hurrying this morning as I have an appt. in town, but will be back here later. Funny-yucky story: last night I baited 2 snap traps and put them on a spread newspaper in the most visited of the pan drawers in my kitchen. Around 10:30, DD was studying for her Trig exam today in the dining room when she heard scuffling noises coming from the kitchen. She called DH and they found a mouse, caught around it's middle, in one of the traps. Not dead, just caught. DH threw it outside someplace (Grrr!). It's probably already back in my kitchen somewhere, darn him!

I've been using plastic mesh tubing stuffed with 3 cotton balls and then dripped with pure peppermint oil for years now outside on our front portal and in a cabinet in our bathroom that they were getting into. It seems to work in the cab, but not that well outside. You do have to freshen the cotton balls every few weeks, though.

The problem with poisons is that then they eat it, go into your walls, get trapped and die. That happened to us at our old house. Horrible! Every fall the roof rats leave signs on our back deck here and get into our greenhouse to try and nest. Thank goodness we haven't had any in the house. We had an exterminator seal our attic when we moved in. Expensive, but well worth it. We have had success with this outside.Raticator

Good luck!

Tibb, OMG, wouldn't ingesting cat litter create havoc within their little digestive systems? I mean, it serves them right, but horrific anyway.

A couple of years ago someone in the neighborhood was obviously using d-CON. I found two outwardly unharmed dead mice in my side walk and one dead RAT in the backyard. I mean, a dead rodent is better than a live one in your house, but gross is still gross. I asked my nextdoor neighbor if he was using d-CON, and he said no, but he just found half a dozen dead mice in the corner of his yard. Lord have mercy!!!

I live half a block from a creek so there's more critters around than you'd expect in my suburban neighborhood. I can no longer grow tomatoes because RATS eat them. What a world.

Justgota, ugh, right? When I first spotted the RAT I thought, what's that? Did the cats toss a ball up there? I walked closer and noticed it had EARS. Just one more reason I detest vertical blinds.

When my other nextdoor neighbors are away, I take care of their cats. Years ago I went into their house, looked down the hall and found a large dead RAT that one of the cats had slaughtered and left for me to find. Again, it was years before I could enter their house and not worry about what I'd find in the hallway.

Truism: You cannot command a cat to do anything.

I think if one has mice in their walls, there are probably 'several' dead mice in there anyway- poison used or not...

have never had a cat who caught any mice that I knew of... had one cat when I was a kid who we (infrequently) let outside in the summer-- almost every time he would bring some gift on the back stoop for us- usually a dead chipmunk or garter snake!! doubt if he ever ate little critters he found...

the dog of a friend of mine ate some rat poison prior owners of their Cape house had tossed under the deck of the house. Of course ended up at the vet, fortunately didn't die, huge vet bills...

Be very careful with these poisons if you use them.

this is why bottom cabinets in the kitchen creep me out

Please think twice before using chemicals.

On the other hand, I think pet rats are cute and I can pick them up and let them scamper up my arm. There must be a strong, inbred aversion to the wild critters that causes such revulsion.

i think wild mice are cute too and they don't scare me at all- but i don't want them living and eating and excreting and multiplying in my house! i don't really know how prevalent hantavirus is where i am- i don't live in a rural area- but i still don't want mice in the house. i didn't mind them living in the garage, but didn't like the shredded cardboard and pillows/ stuffing and all the droppings. :(

i know the warfarin injested by the mouse could potentially affect other wildlife but i found that to be most effective and we cleaned up the dead mice we found-- i don't think most of them got too far.... leaving packs haphazardly around your property for other animals to get into is irresponsible imo.

Lynn, I got them at our little WM in their chemical aisle. We had used the little chip clip looking reusable traps after we first moved in, but what we had then were itty bitty mice. This guy needed something bigger, so I grabbed them. So far, unless the kitties got him and didn't leave any "part gifts" for me, like Max Cat did on the back steps, when we lived in the city. We used to joke that he saved the tail to use as a tooth pick, which is why we found them all the time.
Linelle, your truism is so right! Mine sure had fun chasing it around the house, but had no clue how to outsmart it. With four cats they should have joined up and cornered the darn thing.
I won't use poison to kill anything because there's always a ripple affect.

Oh ya, also meant to say that the high freq. things definitely don't work. We had one plugged into the outlet under our kitchen table (pre-cat) and while sitting within inches of the thing I felt something run over my foot - you guessed it - a mouse and he wasn't bothered in the least.

Little mice don't scare me, but I think there's something else, the skittery, unpredictable way they move. Forgive my crassness, but I think I once read somewhere that women at least have an innate fear that they will run up their legs and, well, you know. Why else do people hop on chairs? It's really ludicrous when you think of the size differential between a field mouse and a human.

I once had a ferret run up the inside of my pants leg. Hello?!!! Fortunately he was too big to get very far and he was on a leash. But, oh my, that was an interesting encounter with the neighbor.

Besides trying to find every little hole they use to enter your house and sealing in up, I would buy a rat zapper. I buy them on amazon. I've dealt with mice in the basement before.

Someone mentioned it up thread, and they do work. They zap the mouse (or rat) ...shudders...instantly, so less cruel. A red light blinks showing you have a kill. More humane on the instant kill.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CM859OA/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1437217938&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=rat+zapper+ultra&dpPl=1&dpID=417wgXFSLRL&ref=plSrch

This is the one I use. Keep it away from pets.

Again, thank you so much for all the great info. Am just getting back here after a very busy weekend working outside with DH. We used the spray foam with great, if somewhat messy results. The hole in the kitchen wall is now plugged up and I can put my pots and pans back in the (now sterilized) drawers. I thought our bathroom was mouse-proofed now, too, until this morning DH saw one run along the baseboards from the bathroom through our foyer and down the hall!

Anita: that rat/mouse zapper looks fantastic! Too bad it's so pricey, as I'd love to buy a couple dozen of them!

MDLN: Isn't that tragic?

Linelle: OMG!!!

Daisychain: you poor thing, I would have had to be peeled off the ceiling after that!

We use the spray foam too and it works. Mice can squeeze into the tiniest of openings. (Make sure you foam around outdoor faucets) We're in the country so we get our fair share. I'll never forget our first Christmas in our newly built house. I was home alone watching TV. I heard a noise coming from the Christmas tree. I looked over and a mouse was eating the popcorn! I had to call DH to get home ASAP!

For those using spray foam, do you use the regular or pestblock version? Has anyone had a mouse penetrate through the standard stuff? Do I really need to buy this more expensive version?

@ Lynn, yes that has left an impression on me. Landscaper, who is removing a tree, just told me that they would not be able to grind down a stump due to its location, but they could put chemicals on it to keep it from regrowing. I declined the chemicals, saying that I would prefer just cutting off any sprouts.

we had an issue with yellowjackets coming through a small gap where the gas line came into our basement and the regular spray foam filled it and kept the wasps out- pestblock formula not needed for them!

It worked for us under these circumstances. An abandoned building was torn down about a block away, and simultaneously they were working on the storm sewers, it was very cold out and the entire neighborhood was overrun with rats.

The renters (in the house I now live in) called to say they thought there was a squirrel in the chimney and I went to the house and from what I could see, I thought it was probably at least one rat, not a squirrel, and not in the chimney (I grew up in the country and my neighbor had a barn with rats).

I bought two of those plug in things, and within about 30 seconds there were two rats pacing frantically on the back patio. This is where, I found out later, they had chewed completely through a door sill and gotten into the basement.

We had to work at keeping them out of the yard (which is basically an urban concrete surrounded patio, and they chewed through incompletely cured cement patches that we put over the only exposed dirt in the yard. ) , but they did not actively attempt to get back in the house anymore. We still keep them plugged in, and they don't seem to bother the cat (which came later).

Oh my gosh, Pal, how unbelievable that they would chew through that concrete! It makes me shudder just thinking about it. And those being rats, not mice. Thank goodness you knew what to do.

Busy: Yellowjackets are scary, as they can be so aggressive.

Oakley, I would have done the exact same thing!

Mdln: that can is what we used. I bought it at Home Depot for $8.95, which is expensive. I was glad to get something engineered to work for rodents, though, so I wasn't' arguing the price that day (LOL). But, this stuff is injected into holes via a long, plastic tube. It hardens fairly quickly, which is good for the hole, but makes the tube unusable soon after. So, have a game plan before you start and fill everything quickly. Wet paper towels, a sturdy paper plate and a metal spatula to smooth out the foam worked best for us. I had to use Goof Off to get it off of the spatula, though.

Tibbie: I'm kind of concerned, as I pick up our new furkid on Wednesday afternoon, which is just 2 days from now. I need to make sure nothing harmful such as mousetraps, etc. (we don't use poisons) are around for him to get into. P.S. I'll try to post pics of my new boy on Thursday.

I am ready to borrow a cat for a month or so. Think they are gone, then the dog starts sniffing for them again. He is ready to kill them, but they get in places he can't and has no patience. FYI, when I found the spot they were entering the house, I also found that they had eaten all of the ant traps I had stored and the mice were apparently no worse off!

If you can get to the hole easily, stuffing it with steel wool works too. You can buy a package of fairly fine gauge steel wool at HD or Lowes and tear off chunks. I used it in the controller box that controls our outside lights to keep the wasps out. The little buggers find a way to get in where the power lines run up thru the hole in the bottom of the box.

As I was perusing various sites for ideas on how to take my roof rat control project to the next level without poison (they are really bad this year -- my poor fig tree), I came upon this from the University of Florida site:

"There is evidence that ultrasonic devices can cause hearing loss in pets, especially dogs." (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw120)

That's as I would suspect (hearing and its effects are likely not always "conscious", just as what we "see" is only what our brain allows us to "see"), and isn't it terrible that these devices can be sold with no meaningful regulation at all?

Hmmm... deaf mice due to the ultrasonic devices. :-)

As I mentioned, we used the (above) foam and steel wool to fill any holes we could find. We caught one mouse who zipped into DD's room around 11PM the other night. Another in our bedroom hallway. Things have been quiet now for several days, but I'm still going to replace all of our mousetraps with the ones that JGTBM showed us.

We had an issue with mice after our house was air sealed. They were caught inside. The best and easiest traps I found at Lowe's. They are white plastic and come in a 2 pack.

http://www.amazon.com/Ortho-0320110-Defense-Contain-2-Pack/dp/B001H1HHYS

There's a little door in back where the peanut butter goes. The mice go in, the trap closes and you don't see them. You can tell you've caught something when it's closed. I caught 12 with those traps. No issue with removal. Job done and none seen since, knock wood.

They get in because the house is not properly sealed -- usually around the floor level.There is a sealing foam our insulation guy used that does the job way better than anything else. It's easy to use. Also Lowe's or home depot. You push it and the foam comes out, expands and dries down.

We haven't had a mouse problem in years. That changed this week. Email exchange on Monday:

DH:
Subject: Dishwasher

Keith [our wonderful plumber] is here. Mice chewed the drain hose...will enclose
something for them. Jack [the dog] can't get to it without using a screw driver

ME: There are some (very few) things you should not
tell your wife. This is one of them.

I'm not sure what type of trap he used, but I did tell him to use one that would keep the mouse in place so a poisoned mouse won't somehow get out where Jack could get it because years ago one of my Mom's cat's died from eating a poisoned rat and I didn't want that to happen to Jack. I've also instructed him not to discuss it with me further, but thanks to Rococogurl's suggestion I will suggest the sealing foam because I suspect the critters got in from where the plumbing comes up through the floor.

this morning as I stepped out on the porch, I surprised a young tabby cat in my yard with a mouse in her clutches. Probably a stray, but that's okay with me. My own indoor catboys were not best pleased as she ran off.