Mice in Your Walls? Read our 4 Free Tips Before Calling an Exterminator
How to Get Rid of Mice in Your Walls
You’re relaxing at home when a furry blur scurries across the floor. After following it, you find one or several holes in your wall with scratching noises on the other side. You call an exterminator, hoping they can solve your mouse problem, but they tell you the only “solution” involves tearing down the walls in your home.
This was the reality facing one Philadelphia homeowner, who had to decide whether she’d fork over thousands to ruin her home or let mice scurry across the floor each day and night. Her choice would change everything, but not in the way you’d expect…
How Mice Get in Your Walls
But first, where did those furry intruders come from?
Although mice do live in the walls of your home, they often don’t stay there all year long. Mice are a seasonal pest, meaning they only come inside your home for certain parts of the year. While this means your mice problem can appear to magically resolve itself in the spring or summer time, the reality is that those same mice will be coming back in a few short months when the weather gets cold again.
That’s why many mice problems aren’t just about getting them out, but taking steps to make sure they never come back as well. Don’t worry though, you can get mice out without forking over hundreds for pest control and thousands for home repairs.
How to get Mice out of Your Walls in 4 Steps
Bait
Mice may love living in your walls, but they love tasty food even more! Here’s a step-by-step plan to use bait to get rid of mice in your house. First, find the holes or openings that mice are using to go in or out of your walls. You can try watching the mice, or do a foot-by-foot inspection of your home for holes behind appliances or in dark places.
Take extra notice of your kitchen, since mice can be attracted to food crumbs and can hide in holes or openings behind your appliances. This means inspecting behind your dishwasher, oven, and fridge to make sure there are no hidden mice holes. If you’re checking for mice yourself then make sure to disconnect your appliances safely and correctly, and if you’re hiring exterminators then carefully evaluate if they’ll fix your mouse problem without breaking your appliances.
It will take a few weeks to remove all the mice in your walls after you start baiting, so don’t worry if you don’t see results right away. Once all the mice are out of your home, it’s time to keep them from ever coming back.
Seal Entry Points
Getting mice out of your house is great, but now you can make sure they never come back too!
Now that you know where the mice came from after your previous inspection, fill up all the holes with a tough material that mice can’t chew through. Cement, metal sheeting, steel wool, or wire mesh are all good options to keep mice from getting back in your walls.
Make double and triple sure you’ve covered every entrance, even if it seems quite small. Mice are very flexible, and even a hole the size of a dime is big enough for a mouse to squeeze through!
Use Repellants
Even after you’ve sealed up all the entrances, there’s still a small chance you left a way for mice to get back inside your walls.
Soak cotton balls with mouse repellant sprays, then place them by all the sealed entrances. Put some more in areas where you heard lots of mice activity, just in case you left a way inside your home. If you still think some mice could be hiding in your walls after all that, try baiting to see if any mice come out or use ultrasonic noise repellents to scare mice into leaving for good. If you’re really keen on keeping mice out, consider getting a cat too. Mice won’t come back anytime soon, and you’ll have a cute companion to make your day better!
Keep it Clean
Mice love food, and a messy house with crumbs on the floor or counters will bring mice from far away.
A few simple cleanliness habits will keep mice from coming back, saving you tons of money on exterminators or DIY mouse control solutions. Store food in airtight containers, and don’t leave half-eaten meals laying out. Take out the garbage regularly, and consider putting your bin somewhere away from the open air. Sweep your floors regularly, and check for any holes or openings near the walls or floors of your home. By doing these simple things, you’ll make mice run as far away from your home as possible.
No more Mice in Your Walls
When that Philadelphia homeowner sought help for mice in her walls, she ended up thinking it would cost her thousands of dollars and all four of the walls in her home. Instead, she got every mouse out in a single weekend and saved thousands.
The secret?
