If you can achieve these things, then you know that the mice are finally gone, and you can rest easy.
How to Get Rid of Mice in Your Home
You may find yourself struggling to win the battle against mice in your home. In fact, you may have just gotten started. That’s why we’re going to review some of the most effective ways to get mice out of your house. First off, you need to find out how they’re getting into your home. You need to seal up small gaps and holes near doors and windows while also looking near your foundation. Mice can sneak through holes that are the size of a dime. Any holes you find need to be filled with cement and caulk, and it’s a good idea to shore them up with steel wool or other metal depending on the situation. Once you have sealed up your home, you need to start setting down traps in the areas where you have spotted mice. You can use snap traps baited with peanut butter, glue traps, electric traps, and even humane traps. Just put down a lot of them since most mice are caught on the first night or two that the traps are placed down. After you have placed your traps, it’s time to repel the mice from areas using smells they can’t stand, like peppermint oil, cayenne pepper, and even dryer sheets if that’s all you have handy. Keep checking the traps, and you’ll be on the right track to a mouse-free home. If it’s too much for you to handle, don’t be afraid to get some help from professionals.
How Do You Know When All the Mice Are Gone from Your House?
You know all the mice are gone from your house when you no longer see clawed or gnawed food packages, feces, or full traps while also not smelling or hearing mice. These are some of the most obvious signs that you have a mouse problem. When those problems start disappearing, you’ll know that the mice are all gone from your house. Generally, you need to see all of this evidence to conclude that the mice have left your home for good.
1. Your Traps Are Consistently Empty
You’ve been laying traps for days or weeks. You catch fewer and fewer mice. Eventually, that number turns to zero, and you no longer catch any mice. That’s a good sign that there are not any mice left to be caught in your home. If you keep baiting traps and find them empty, you are running out of mice to catch.
2. The Smell in Mouse-Ridden Areas Dissipates
How do you know when all the mice are gone from your house? You’ll smell it. Mice leave behind a very distinct smell in areas they inhabit. It’s not from their feces, though. The smell comes from the ammonia in their urine. They spread it around in their travels, leaving a stale smell in cabinets and around their nests. Once that stale smell starts to dissipate, you know that fewer mice are in your home.
3. You Don’t See Any Signs of Mice Trying to Get in Your Home
Mice get into your home in a variety of ways. They can squeeze through holes, wander in through open doors, or gnaw their way inside. If you’ve taken the proper steps to reduce the presence of mice in your home, then you know how mice were getting inside. Once you have filled the holes and fixed the entryways mice had before, keep a lookout for new ones. If no new means of ingress appear during your searches, the chances are no more mice are getting inside.
4. You Don’t Wake Up to Squeaking, Scurrying, or Scratching
One of the most common ways that people realize they have a serious mouse infestation is the noises the creatures make. You can hear mice scurry across the floors, in the walls, and above you in ceilings throughout the night. After you’ve caught and poisoned enough mice, the noise should go away completely. If you still have noise, then you still have mice. No squeaking, scurrying, and scratching is a good sign that mice are out of your home.
5. You Don’t Find Any Nests
Lastly, you will notice that there are no more nests in your home. Mice build nests to keep them warm and to raise their young. If you have an infestation, you’ll find these nests in all sorts of out-of-the-way places like basements, behind appliances, and even in unused drawers. Once you have done your utmost to kill or remove the mice from your home, it’s time to hunt and remove the nests. If your house is truly free of mice, then you won’t find any more nests. Most of the time, people find nests because of their smell or sound. When you don’t find new nests in your home, it’s a good sign that mice aren’t trying to raise a family of their own inside your home. Even though you’ve managed to get rid of mice, for now, there is no guarantee that they won’t come back. That’s why it is so important for you to stay vigilant about keeping an eye out for mice in your home. Only by paying attention to the situation can you reduce the chances that mice will come back to wreak havoc on your home’s wires or spread diseases to you and your family. We’ve answered, how do you know when all the mice are gone from your house? In many cases, the absences will be rather profound and noticeable. Without all the extra noise and smell, you’ll have a pretty good idea of when the last mouse has left your home.
