The only botanical product that reliably deters mice is peppermint oil. That’s the true oil and not plants. Lavender may help, too, but not so much the plants. Essential oils can be applied to cotton balls placed in various locations around the home, inside and out.

A professional company may be more successful at pinpointing possible trouble areas and give you some good ideas about how to exclude mice from your property. Good luck!

We had a mouse problem in 2020, which we'd spent living in the country. I used Fresh Cab. They promote it as something truckers use, which I'd never thought about, but probably really is a problem. The stuff worked pretty well and I loved the way it smelled.

A friend of mine used to work at a zoo and she would use fur that lions had shed. She claimed that the mice wouldn't come near it. I tried using cat hair but it didn't do anything.

Do you have a basement or a crawlspace? We have a crawlspace but you may not like my method. Every autumn before it gets cold outside I'll place baited mouse traps (the snap type) just inside each crawlspace hatch/door where the mice most likely get in to access the rest of the house, esp the kitchen. I'll check the traps every week or so until the window of opportunity closes (after temps drops below freezing).

Sorry, no to non humane traps. They give me nightmares.

The trouble with the catch and release traps, you catch the same mouse a lot. I

can't stand the thought of the non-humane traps either, so I am sorry, I don't

have the answer for you. But. have you tried going all around your house with tubes of

calking and checking for openings in the foundation....it only takes a very small one for the mice to make it in.

Wishing you good luck anyway. Uh...do you want to borrow my cat? LOL

Steel wool tucked into gaps works, but you have to find the gaps. Peppermint oil on cotton balls helped in my son’s room (why were they in there? no idea!) but can become overwhelming.

Uptown Gal, it’s advised to the mouse about 2 miles away. I bring them to a wooded local park.

bpath, I have heard of steel wool but it would be difficult to look behind our storage shelves.

Call the exterminator. They can come seal up all the cracks..but they can't say more cracks won't appear. They will teach you how to check your home for the size crack a mouse can get through.

We find poison and snap traps work well. Nature is no 'safe' place..if they are coming in it means they don't know how to live in their natual enviornment and will die out there anyway.

Using poison is an irresponsible choice, the poison-containing carcasses endanger the lives of cats, birds, and other animals that might happen upon them.

We have large rats in my neighborhood (because we're not far from an undeveloped area). They're often as large as my size 13 shoe from nose to tush, not counting the added length of the tail. Catch and release? No thanks. The service we use utilizes snap traps that are contained in black plastic boxes with small entry holes, to protect accidentally injuring unintended victims like cats.

The service comes regularly, empties and then resets the traps. We removed established bushes around the house and in the yard that rats can use for housing purposes - stuff like ivy, low juniper plants, etc. We have no more rats besides the few that get caught and no indoor infestations. We also keep our garage doors closed other than when passing in and out - that helps too.

"Using poison is an irresponsible choice, the poison-containing carcasses endanger the lives of cats, birds, and other animals that might happen upon them. "

Elmer, I couldn't love you any more than I do right now for posting that.

Also .... glue traps. NOOOOOO! Although we don't want mice/rats, that's no reason to torture them.

I bought glue traps and after I read the box, I returned them. Horrible. But even this: I was cleaning out an unoccupied house that had a sticky bug trap under the refrigerator…with two tiny dead mice stuck on it.

As to snap traps, we kept one under the kitchen sink when we had a problem. Did catch and kill some mice, but once or twice only the tail was left, and one day I heard rattling around under there. I couldn’t bear to look (because I’m a weenie) so I called my husband to meet me for dinner somewhere, after he stopped at home to take care of it. He said it had caught the mouse by the leg. And the ones where they enter a small hole? One didn’t snap, and the mouse eventually chewed its way out through the plastic!

OTOH, we catch chipmunks in a humane trap and release them a mile away, either across a creek or across the train tracks.

Killing and glue traps are cruel. I could hire out my cat Poppy who regularly brings me one and drops it at my feet and then it runs away. Even Poppy isn't cruel enough to kill. I try and catch this mouse but he's too quick so far. If I do, I would take him away from the house, not in the backyard where he would re-enter. I have a large stone foundation on this ancient house so no way to patch that.

We attempted live trapping raccoons once, they were climbing onto the roof and pulling at the shingles. You may not have been as startled as I was to open my eyes during the night to a little muddy face staring down at me from the skylights. I was the world's worst trapper or these were very smart raccoons. Even using marshmallows as suggested by Dept Fish and Wildlife, I only managed the neighbors cat a number of times.

DFW very much were opposed to catch and release. They told us it spreads bacteria and viruses into areas not having seen those specific germs and being territorial, very few animals find a niche and make it anyway. I'm not sure how that works with mice.

We did have a rodent issue with our first house that had a half basement, half crawlspace under it. The exterminator had DH and his brother spending a weekend crawling back and forth with flashlights and any place that had even the hint of an opening that could be detected with flashlight on the other side was tightly packed with steel wool using screwdriver. Tedious. And it worked.

We have owls and other raptors in this neighborhood and wouldn't consider any kind of poisoned baits. Happily have not needed to.

Some of this rodent business can be more than a shuddering inconvenience. Right at about the time my sister (on 5 acres some wooded) had her cancer diagnosis, she'd been having a bathroom remodeled and the plumber found a problem under their house. Crawl space neither one of them ventured into at their ages. Seems raccoons will hunt mice and rats. They'd had all three under their house that had caused much damage. A dirty mess, insulation all pulled away and duct work from their furnace disassembled too, their heat had been escaping to no where helpful no longer attached to room vents. By the time all was sealed, cleaned up, replaced, her expenses added onto her bathroom remodel became $10,000 more. Her insurance paid some of it.

They took down their many bird feeding stations - those couldn't have helped with spilled seeds.

We have lived on acreage for 40 years. Mice have always been an issue. Last year, I found these on Amazon. They are meant to repel unwanted pests, including mice and insects. We put one in the entryway of the house, one in the RV and one in the garage. I can’t say for sure they work, but we had absolutely no issues with mosquitoes, flies or mice. It’s not supposed to bother pets.

i live so far out in the boonies, i should have my own zip code. i have enough non-venomous snakes living around here that i never even see mice, let alone have them in the house. it's a win for the snakes because they never go hungry and it's a win for me for obvious reasons. :)

Catch and release can be cruel- when you move the animal and dump them elsewhere, they often slowly starve or die of dehydration because they are completely disorientated by the removal. Or they are attacked as an invader to the territory you dumped them in, or end up as predator food because they don't know where to hide in the forgien place. Poison can be cruel since the mice can get out with the poison in them and other animals suffer secondary poisoning when eating them, sometimes leading to a quick poison death, often to a slower low level poisoning. Sticky traps are cruel since they often result in exhaustion, glue suffocation, starvation, or dehydration death. Snap traps can mutilate or only hurt rather than kill, though they can be the most efficent at a quick death when sprung well. Drown buckets can take a couple minutes to drown them. Pretty much none of the means humans use are very humane when it comes to mice, it's just a degree of cruelty to the mouse itself and potental harm to other animals depending on the methods used.

I'm not trying to say don't try to trap or kill the mouse in the house. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you aren't being cruel with whatever means you use.

If you want to find out better where they come in, call an exterminator. They are good at finding those places. And the best ways to plug those spots up.

I always put out some food for the mouse when I turned them out into the wild. Cat kibble for choice. Since mouse territories are actually quite small I dont worry about moving them any long distance. The life of a mouse is short-just a few months, and violent if they are male. They actually tear each other apart if given the chance. Females will completely abandon their progeny if any thing goes wrong, It is a really grim and gritty world for a mouse. Mice reproduce at fantastic rates because so many animals subsist on mice. Everyone eats mice. They are prey. That is biology 101. Hard on the mouse. if my cats corner one I try to put it outside. If your mouse is raised inside it is hardly going to find its way back in as they follow scent trails.

Lots to think about.

I still feel better releasing and will continue to do it.

I just bought peppermint essential oil. I'm going to scatter it on cotton balls as a deterrent.

with the change of season, that's when they really want to get in. be very careful about leaving doors open, cracked. i do that sometimes when carrying in Costco etc...

we had vents in our crawl space and they were getting that way. DH sheet metaled them shut, no more mice in crawl space.

steel wool works great around cracks and around kitchen sink drain pipe, which is a common way they get in the ktichen, along with the gas line from outside.

they can get in through almost a hairline crack!

a cat will work wonders!

They seem to be in my laundry room. And yes, I store food down there. I just recently bought a locked container for the dog food. They don't seem to be attracted to my snacks or cereal, but I'm going to keep less and less of that stuff.

I just out the cotton balls. If nothing else, I'm enjoying the light peppermint aroma!

A cat doesn't always work wonders as my cat Poppy has a pet mouse she carries around and puts down and it runs away only to be caught again the next day. It's unscathed.

Our cats are worthless. They are good mouse-pointers, but that’s all.

haha,, my cat was a mouser for sure! he caught quite a few when he first got here, always at change of season. we had no mice for years after he was here for a couple years. he passed a year and half ago and we had a mouse last winter! so my experience has been a good one with my cat :)

Sprtphntc, I hope you didn't actually close off the ventilation to your crawl space completely. You need ventilation or your joists and flooring can rot. I knew some people who bought a home that had no vents and the husband fell through the Livingroom floor one day,

our crawl space is only under 1/2 the house - split level, and we have a door to get in, so not closed off.

there is a ventilation opening where the laudry room buts up against the crawl space, hard to explain.

all of our 'extras' are fine, no mold!!

I have two battery operated ones, they are made by Victor. One for the house and one for the garage. If they get into the garage sometimes they make their way into the house, so with one in each place I can take care of them easily. No they are not ones that notify me on my phone that I have one in a trap.

Sue