We get a lot of mice and have a pest control service that comes, sets traps and checks them seasonally. The pest control company says that our two cats are the reason the mice don't come into the rest of the house.

We get mice as we live in the woods. Having a cat helps, but ours is retired now...

I set snap traps with a dab of peanut butter. Slide the trap in a brown paper bag and move to affected area. I'll have dh look in the bag every day. If we caught one, he'll throw the whole thing; bag and trap in the trash. This works for us. We think we found the entry point for the mice, placed a board in front of that area and we haven't been aware of mice in the house since. Doesn't mean they aren't, but we haven't seen evidence.

Good luck. If it's really bad, I recommend a pest service like sas95 has. It's an ongoing battle.

I live in town. There was a rat in the exterior wall that my cats alerted me to. I called an exterminator. They set traps in my crawl space and attic and closed off entry points along the perimeter of my house. It wasn't cheap, but it took care of the problem.

I've have had mice in my garage which is open to attic of the breezeway, now heated and my office. I am hoping they don't get into the attic of the main house, since I had coaxil cable run between. I will never, ever use a glue trap again like I did about 30+ years ago in a different house. I was traumatized every time afterwards when I thought of the cruel fate that mouse suffered. Since I don't want to handle regular snap traps, I buy the ones by Tomcat that are like a white plastic tunnel -elongated igloo - there is a little trap door on the back on which you put a dab of peanut butter then close it and pull down a lever on the side to set the trap and put in place. The only thing you see is a tail sticking out of the opening if you catch one. I can manage that. Downside is the cost is more than wire snap traps and that occasionally one is a dud, but still worth it. Good luck

I just bought one of those boxes that quickly electrocutes them. It is hard to figure out how to be most humane but effectively deal with the problem. I’ll have to look at the one you mentioned Indigo R. I am also going to get a quote on assessing the entrance points and fixing them. Thanks for sharing your experiences and reassuring me I’m not alone.

After using those sticky traps, I had nightmares. For the occasional mouse, I now use the Have a heart trap.

We just recently put in a Nest doorbell. I t has spotted two cats at night walking around our house. At first, I was annoyed but then I realized they might very well be keeping the mouse population under control.

No far no mice this past winter.

It is strange that once I did find evidence of them in my attic. You would think that I would have been overrun by mice, but that wasn't the case.

Jlsch, we too have had a few small mice. My husband has trapped four of these small mice in the last two weeks. As we live on the edge of the woods, he has caught many mice over the years, but these four are different. They are neither house mice nor field mice, as these four are small and black.

Hub was surprised enough at the first one he mentioned it to me. I said maybe it was a young one, but he said no, he was sure it was an adult. THe four he's caught are small, black adult mice of a species he has never seen before.

Hub would like to know if your small mice are also black and if perchance you live in SE Wisconsin. Thank you.

The few times we have had mice, we used the snap traps. I use small chunks of Snickers bars for bait - the mice seem to be able to lick off peanut butter without setting off the traps. If you do use peanut butter, use chunky instead of smooth, but mice like chocolate, which is part of a Snickers bar.

When we had mice at work, the exterminator only used chocolate as bait, and that was very efficient.

We have neighbors' cats that come into our yards, and I think that helps to keep us from getting mice. We would have our own cat except that we are both allergic.

Sheesh, I’m not entirely sure of how dark they were as my son thankfully managed most of the capture. I live in south central Wisconsin. I’ll pay closer attention when we see or trap more, and let you know. They were tiny though, and I have wondered if they have enough heft to set off a spring type trap.

Lars, if the smooth PB I used doesn’t work, I’ll give chocolate a try. Sure would be enticing for me! Thanks for the tip.

This for me is the Year of the Mouse.

My one cat was effective at mouse patrol, but he passed on about a month ago. My other would probably become a mouse-friend, if she bothers to notice them at all.

I did reach down instinctively to grab one this summer. I went out and threw him into the woods.

And then I bought 3 mouse zap traps... they get quickly electrocuted. My pantry was their favorite spot. I'm switching all bagged and boxed items to sealable containers they can't access, and every night I set the traps. I've cleared out the house by now... although sometimes a new mouse finds his way inside.

My bait of choice: rice or oatmeal flakes. My mice don't care for cheese, and cleaning peanut butter from the zap traps sounds thankless.

Thank you for your reply, Jlsch. Hub has caught four of them with Tom cat spring traps baited with cheese. He said so far all of his traps have been successful. I sure hope so!

It's interesting that mice seem to be invading this year. 2020! Thanks, everyone.

MIce and bats drives me nuts at times. The Bat man came told us he could fix the bat issues, guaranteed but not mice. He can seal up all present entrances they use but as home age they settle and new entrances emerge. Snap traps work well for us. DH has the job to empty it. It is what it is.

Please don’t use poison. It kills other animals and there’s also a good chance that a rodent will ingest it and then die in your wall. You will then have a horrible odor that lingers for months.

I agree aboutnot using poison. Sheesh we have seen small very dark mice on our stone wall by patio. They are fast & jump. I see them at night I think they are black.

You can use the trap of your choice until the cows come home but if you don't find out how they are getting in and get those areas closed off, you'll never out trap the outdoor mice looking for a warm place for the winter. It took some time in our old house but eventually we found out how they were getting into our attic. They'd get behind the siding at the very bottom piece and climb between it and the sheathing to the attic then burrow through the insulation. Steel wool is often recommended to stop them but they'll just pull it out of their way. We used expanding foam around the entire perimeter and that finally worked. I don't know if it dries too hard and is too much work for them to burrow through or if they don't like the chemical smell but it worked.

We got mice inside our house once, probably keeping the back door open while we were struggling to house train a stubborn puppy. I used snap traps. I would not use poison for the reasons already listed.

There are poisons that don't cause secondary poisoning; i.e. killing an animal/bird that eats the poisoned mouse. I learned that because I was concerned about my cats. I doubt they'd ever eat a dead mouse (they're well fed) but wanted to be safe. I had great results with the bait stations used by a professional pest control company at our old house. We don't have any where we live now but but we have had more mouse activity at our lake cabin (attic and garage) this year. I'm doing DIY because I couldn't get our pest guy to come out - too busy. It seems like they haven't touched the bait stations but we've found a few dead ones so I guess they have.

No poison here, just traps.

We've always had coyotes roaming the area. Last year we noticed there are.no more coyotes, and this year we have mice - and turkeys, raccoons, deer, chipmunks and opossum galore. Correlation is not causation, but it's interesting. All our neighbors are complaining about mice, too, but as far as i know we are the only ones with small black mice. It doesn't seem limited to my area though, judging from all of your responses.

I have nothing to add that hasn't been stated already, but I do empathize with you. We've had mice at 2 previous houses, and they are just the creepiest, ickiest things in the world.

As a teenager, I babysat for a toddler whose family lived out in the country. There were frequent mice in the house. Once, to get the toddler off the floor after I had spotted a mouse, I put him in his high chair and gave him crackers to distract him while I tried to get rid of the mouse. I went looking for it, and found it back under the high chair, eating cracker crumbs. Another time, I found one crawling up the phone cord (back when phones had cords). I had nightmares about those mice. The house was clean, the family was lovely, but they had a very high tolerance for mice.

I've had mice since I bought this house 4.5 years ago .. when they finally came out of the basement and into the main living area, I called a nuisance wildlife guy. He set snap traps and goes around the house regularly trying to block where they are coming in. If you don't block them, you will continue to have mice no matter how many you catch. We now seem to have it mostly under control ... there were only 3 dead mice in the basement the last time he was here a week ago. And yesterday I went down there and didn't see any .. and this is the time they are coming inside in my area.

Feathers, I don't know how people develop that kind of tolerance. It really does creep me out. When I was a young adult I worked on a ranch in Montana that was up in the mountains. It was a great experience, but the frame house staff lived in was riddled with mice. I think it left me forever traumatized! My house is about 50 years old and has settled over time, and I think that is a large part of the problem. My garage floor is in terrible shape and I've wondered if I replaced it if it would go a long way in solving the problem... but as others have said, it may be bigger than that. These tiny mice could get into a very tiny crevice! Big ugh!

There are poisons that don't cause secondary poisoning; i.e. killing an animal/bird that eats the poisoned mouse. I learned that because I was concerned about my cats. I doubt they'd ever eat a dead mouse (they're well fed) but wanted to be safe.

My mouser cat was extremely well fed, but he still ate his catches...

I am having a big battle this year. I can't find out where they are getting in. Like DLM warns, I may be setting traps til the cows come home. Very difficult to figure out where the breach is, since we have a big duct system in the crawl space and there are any number of possibilities. Hubs hates cats or I might get one. Also don't really want to deal with all the fur shedding. Our house is small so it would be concentrated.

We are battling them too-one of the trade offs for having trees as neighbors.

I have had the airbag in my car destroyed, furnace malfunctions b/c wires chewed, and the latest was last week when my daughter got home from work. A mouse was peering up at her from under the hood. Appears it is ( hopefully WAS ) living there, storing nuts, etc. Lots of screaming in the driveway, lol. Hoping the peppermint oil deters it & I am now leaving my garage lights on overnight. 2020 just keeps getting better, right?

I was watching an instructional video on avocados and the grower from California made a comment about rats. He recommended bubble gum. Double bubble was his suggested brand. His claim was this kills them on the spot. You just set it out and let them at it. I haven’t tried it but I have used a rat zapper with great success. Here in Hawaii when it get cold (mid 60’s at night, sorry not sorry) and there is no fruit on the trees the rats get testy.

Get out the frypan! 🤪

I was watching an instructional video on avocados and the grower from California made a comment about rats. He recommended bubble gum. Double bubble was his suggested brand. His claim was this kills them on the spot. You just set it out and let them at it. I haven’t tried it but I have used a rat zapper with great success. Here in Hawaii when it get cold (mid 60’s at night, sorry not sorry) and there is no fruit on the trees the rats get testy.

Problem with that, where are they gonna keel over and die? In the wallspace? Might be fine to do that out in the barn, but not, certainly NOT, in the house. Since I no longer have Obi Wan the mouser, I'll stick with zappers.

Get out the frypan! 🤪

You may want to try reading Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf. He did just that... on a survey in northern Canada.

artemis that is one our favorite family movies! Love Charles Martin Smith (he was Toad in American Graffiti as well) and he was just perfect in that NCW.