Best Mouse Deterrents

Mice can be extremely persistent, especially when it is cold outside and they have discovered a cozy spot in your house to make their nest, like in the attic, a basement corner, or a seldom used closet or crawlspace. However, with the best mouse deterrents, it is not difficulty to outsmart the nuisance animals and rid your house of them altogether.

The best mouse deterrents will work by either frightening the mice away with scare tactics, or by offending their sense of smell. Mice are timid and nocturnal creatures, so any amount of commotion will usually keep them away. Some people will keep lights on, play loud music, and use other everyday items to make their attics or other places less than desirable for a peace-seeking mouse. Of course, pets can be a big help with frightening away mice—both dogs and cats chase mice, and many mice will avoid entering a space where they sense a cat or dog lives. Ultrasonic noise devices are one of the best mouse deterrents for scare tactics; these work by emitting a noise that is undetectable to humans, but will keep mice and other rodents such as rats and squirrels away with their unpleasant sounds. These can be purchased online or at large retail stores.

Odor based deterrents are also some of the best mouse deterrents. These are available almost anywhere, and many of them are environmentally safe, non toxic, and good to use in home that have children or pets. The active ingredient in these types of deterrents is usually an essential oil such as peppermint oil, spearmint oil, or cinnamon oil. The mint oils are the most common, but other ingredients like white pepper are sometimes used as well. The mouse deterrents that are made with essential oils as their active ingredients come in a number of forms, with the most common being a spray that can be used either inside or out, and a pellet form, which is best used outside, or inside where it doesn’t matter that there are pellets- like an attic or crawlspace. The oil is very irritating to mice, rats, squirrels and other nuisance animals, and because it is safe and smells good, it is one of the best mouse deterrents available.

A number of types of mousetraps are also available at almost any type of store. Traps come in varieties such as the spring loaded trap that snaps shut on the mouse when the mouse tries to take the bait; the glue trap that the mouse sticks to when walking on it; and the more humane live trap, that allows a homeowner to release the mouse or mice away from the home.

However, with the best mouse deterrents, the idea is for the homeowner to never have to deal with traps in the first place- using the above methods will help keep your house free of mice from the very beginning, so that poisons and traps will never needs to be introduced to rid your home of the disease spreading nuisance animals.