How to get rid of mice in a private house - folk and chemical remedies

Why is an invasion dangerous?

Before you learn how to deal with mice in a private home, it is worth understanding why you need to do this. These creatures can cause a lot of problems because they:

they spoil furniture, food, things in the attic (read below for how to remove voles without harming things and products);
are carriers of a large number of diseases that are transmitted to people and domestic animals;
can significantly spoil the harvest, especially grain crops;
cause allergic reactions to wool, waste products;
They make noise, especially at night, depriving residents of normal sleep.

Since these animals do not move alone, the consequences of their presence in the house make themselves felt almost instantly.

The hygiene of residential premises in a frame or any other building is significantly compromised; food products become unfit for consumption after exposure to these creatures. In this situation, everyone suffers, including pets, who can contract life-threatening diseases through frequent contact. In order to avoid all these troubles, you need to know about all the effective remedies for mice in a private building.

Why do mice appear in the house?

The question of why there are mice in a cottage worries most homeowners. Human housing attracts the attention of animals for the following reasons:

with the arrival of winter, animals try to hide from the cold, trying to find a warmer and safer place to live;
an accessible source of water and food is another factor that attracts tailed pests into human housing;
leftover food on the table, dirty dishes in the sink, waste in the trash can, cereals in plastic bags - all this favors the spread of mice in the house.

How to choose a way to fight?

Before you get rid of mice in a private home, you need to understand exactly who you are dealing with. It often happens that a building is invaded not by small mice, but by large gray rats, which are several times more dangerous than their distant relatives. In order to distinguish these animals, you need to pay attention to the size - rats are much larger. The color of a rat ranges from dark brown to black, while the color of a mouse can be light brown, almost sandy in color.

Some methods for removing voles are not suitable for killing rats; you need to learn how to exterminate pests of this species separately.

If you noticed at least one individual in the room, this is a signal that there is a whole colony nearby.

If you are convinced that you are dealing with this particular type of parasite, then you need to understand how to get rid of mice at home.

Causes of rodents

Various types of rodents, just like insects, can settle next to a person and cause him a whole lot of inconvenience.
Before you begin to destroy such unwanted neighbors, you must first find out the possible reasons for their appearance in order to avoid relapses in the future.

Most often, their appearance is accompanied by the following factors:

The presence of food and various edible supplies that are stored in places that are accessible to mice. It is worth noting that storing food in bags and even hanging cabinets is not considered a sufficient degree of protection, since such obstacles are not insurmountable for rodents.
Violation of sanitary standards in the premises, which can be expressed in rare garbage removal, leading to its accumulation in large volumes, as well as extremely rare cleaning. All these factors create a favorable environment for rodents to live in, since among the waste there is almost always food suitable for them.
Favorable temperature conditions, this factor becomes most relevant with the onset of winter cold, when mice are ready to sacrifice their own safety for the sake of moving to warmer places, including human homes.
Mass migration of rodents, which can begin due to the fact that someone nearby began to purposefully poison and exterminate them.

Prevention of invasion

How to deal with pests in a country house, private house or utility room? For prevention you should:

eliminate all cracks and cracks on the floor and walls, cover the ventilation with special grilles;
install screens on windows;
reliably protect food products in sealed containers made of plastic, glass or metal;
Maintain cleanliness in all areas.

When performing all this work, you should be very careful, since even a small gap in the wall, on the floor or at the junction of the screens and windows is enough for the animals to get inside your home . An important point is maintaining cleanliness in the premises. These animals have an excellent sense of smell, so if there is edible food in accessible places, it will be immediately destroyed by representatives of the mouse family.

In order to quickly eliminate rodents from your home, you can use mint. They cannot stand the aroma of this plant, so all places that smell of mint are unsuitable for them to live. You can use not only the leaves, but also peppermint oil. At the same time, you need to change the grass quite often. This is due to the fact that as soon as the premises stop smelling of mint, animals will immediately get inside. This method is effective not only for preventing an invasion, but will also help if you are tormented by pests.

Ultrasonic repellers

Ultrasonic exposure not only prevents mice from communicating, but also negatively affects their nervous system. Due to constant exposure to ultrasound, the habitat becomes unsuitable for mice, so they leave.

It is worth noting that ultrasonic devices are harmless to animals and humans and are inexpensive. The advantages of such products include:

effects on all rodents;
no dead animals;
such products work constantly;
long service life of devices.

It is worth noting the disadvantages. If you turn off the ultrasonic device, the rodents may return. Ultrasound bounces off different surfaces, so your home may require multiple units. It is important to remember that cheap models may be fake and have no effect on rodents.

How to destroy pests in a private building?

How to get rid of mice in the house if it was not possible to prevent their appearance? There are several effective options:

Mousetraps.
Pets.
Poisons.
Ultrasonic devices.

Mousetraps are the most common means of keeping rodents out of homes. There are many varieties of them, including traditional devices or adhesive devices. Among other things, you can choose deterrent devices that will help you catch the animal without killing it.

If you want to understand how to get rid of rodents in the house for good and select the most effective trap, you should know that adhesive structures are often criticized for the fact that they do not kill the animal instantly, but only immobilize it, which often condemns the vole to slow and hungry death.

Representatives of the mouse family easily adapt to any living conditions, so they can eat almost all foods . Therefore, as bait you can use:

cheese;
peanut butter;
bread;
other aromatic products.

Another effective way to both get rid of mice in your dacha forever and prevent their appearance is to get a pet. Cats and dogs are excellent at repelling voles. The instincts of cats are aimed at catching this particular animal, so the pet will not only delight you with its affection, but will also help eliminate a serious problem. Dogs, unlike cats, do not catch mice, but the presence of a pet in the house alerts voles and can deter their invasion.

If you are interested in how to get rid of pests from your home, you should know that one of the ways is to use poisons. However, if you want to know how to kill pests in a private building, you must be especially careful. The fact is that poisoned baits can be eaten by pets, which will lead to their death or illness. You should also be wary of this method if there are small children in the family.

If you need to know what to do if there are voles in your house and you want to destroy them, you need to make poison. To do this, pieces of food need to be mixed with boric acid and placed in places that are easily accessible to members of the mouse family. Caution should be exercised and hands should be washed thoroughly after contact with the substance. Also, a modern assortment of poisons for parasites allows you to buy them in a store and simply place them in suitable places.

Various electronic devices make it possible to both fight mice in the countryside in winter and prevent them from appearing in the building at other times of the year.

These devices emit ultrasound, which is not perceived by the human ear, but at the same time heard by mice. The animals cannot stand it and leave the places within the range of this device. Today, this method is considered the most humane, since it does not lead to the death of animals, but only scares them away from residential buildings. If you want to know what pests don’t like in residential areas, then the most common answer is ultrasound.

How to deal with rodents in your home

You need to fight mice as soon as traces of their activity are noticed. Do not forget that rodents are extremely prolific, and if time is missed, the colony will grow to enormous sizes.

We suggest you read: Mold in the apartment. Causes and how to get rid of mold on walls

General rules

Recommendations for rodent control:

The first rule is to seal all visible cracks in the floor and roof. The mice will gnaw through them again if you don’t fight them, but this measure will stop the rodent invasion for a short time.
It is necessary to shake out all the things in closets and pantries and wash them using peppermint oil - rodents do not tolerate this smell and will not make nests in clothes.
Wash all surfaces with vinegar or wormwood oil.
Place supplies out of reach, pour all cereals and dry foods into tightly sealed glass or metal jars.
Close the trash can tightly, take it out daily and wash the bin itself with vinegar or chlorine.
If possible, have a cat in the house.

Traps

The simplest means of dealing with mice is standard traps or mousetraps. They need to be placed throughout the house - in places where excrement has been noticed. As bait, it is best to use pieces of bread soaked in vegetable or sesame oil - this smell drives mice crazy, they like it so much.

Note! The problem with mousetraps is that they are only suitable for fighting single individuals. If the population is large, then only a couple of mice will fall into the trap, the rest will begin to avoid them.

Lures

Glue baits are very effective. You can simply use mouse glue and make the bait yourself, or you can buy a ready-made design in a special store.

In the finished version, glue is applied to the entire area of the cardboard, which can be folded into a tube and left in places where pests can pass. The bait itself is placed in the middle of the cardboard - a nut or grain mixture soaked in oil.

Making your own bait:

You need to take a thick cardboard or plastic board, apply a thin layer of glue and put a piece of bread, grains or seeds in the middle.
The mouse, attracted by the smell of the bait, gets caught in the glue and cannot get out. If there are a lot of rodents in the house, then by morning you can find up to five firmly stuck rodents on one bait.

Poison

It is better to buy the poison ready-made; it is sold in the garden departments of most hardware stores. This is the most ineffective means of controlling rodents. The mice are sent to sample the food of the weakest and sickest members of the colony. If they die, then the rodents will no longer touch the poison.

There are special products that kill mice only after three days. They can get rid of an entire colony of mice, but the dead rodents begin to decompose in holes, from where they are difficult to get out, and the disgusting smell can linger in the house for many weeks. Therefore, poisoning mice using this method can only be done in summer cottages before the winter period.

Repellers

Special ultrasonic devices (Grad, ElectroKot) are good at getting rid of mice - they affect the nervous system of pests, driving them crazy. The sounds produced by repellers are unbearable for rodents, but are absolutely not perceived by humans or pets.

Repellers against mice - voles - are very effective; the device can be stuck into the ground, and within a couple of weeks there will be no mice left on the site.

When buying a device, it makes sense to check its range - if it is small, then you will need to buy several of them to install in each room.

How to get rid of voles without harm to yourself and your family members

Before removing rodents from your home, you should familiarize yourself with some rules that will help you protect yourself, your family and pets from the harmful effects of representatives of the mouse family.

Before driving rodents out of your home, you need to pay attention to the following nuances:

after an animal dies in a mousetrap, fleas or other insects with which it is infected look for a new “breadwinner”, which can harm pets;
if a pet eats a poisoned animal, it will either get sick or die;
some individuals recognize mousetraps and do not get caught in them;
animal waste, corpses should not be removed with bare hands, rubber gloves must be used, and everything must first be sprayed with bleach to avoid infection;
individuals are often resistant to various poisons.