How to get rid of mice: a practical guide for Western Kentucky homes

Why mice move in every fall

Every fall around here, once the nights start dipping into the 40s, the phone starts ringing. Folks in Paducah, Hopkinsville, Murray and Bowling Green all say some version of the same thing: "I heard something in the wall last night." Mice are looking for a warm place to spend the winter [1], and your house looks a lot better than a cold fencerow.

The good news is there's a lot you can do on your own. Here's what we'd tell a neighbor who asked.

Step 1: Figure out what you're dealing with

Before you buy anything, take a flashlight and look around. Check under the kitchen sink, behind the stove and fridge, in the pantry, along the garage walls and in the attic or basement. You're looking for droppings (small, dark, about the size of a grain of rice), chewed food packaging, shredded paper or insulation, and greasy rub marks along baseboards.

Where you find the most signs is where they're spending the most time. That tells you where to put traps and where to start looking for the way in. Not sure if it's mice or rats? Our rats vs mice guide shows how to tell.

Step 2: Cut off the food

Mice don't need much. A few crumbs under the toaster and an open bag of dog food in the garage will keep a family of them happy for weeks.

• Move cereal, rice, flour, crackers and snacks into hard plastic or glass containers with tight lids.
• Store pet food and birdseed in metal or heavy plastic bins, not the bag it came in.
• Wipe counters at night and sweep under appliances once a week.
• Don't leave pet bowls full overnight.
• Keep trash in a can with a lid that actually closes.

Step 3: Clear the clutter

Mice love cover. Stacks of cardboard boxes, piles of clothes on the closet floor, and stuff pushed up against the garage wall all give them places to hide and nest. Swap cardboard for plastic totes, keep things a few inches off the walls where you can, and keep firewood and brush piles away from the foundation outside.

Step 4: Set traps the right way

Snap traps still work well when they're placed right. A few tips:

• Use more traps than you think you need. A dozen isn't too many for a regular house.
• Put them flat against the wall with the trigger end touching the wall. Mice run along edges, not across open floor.
• Bait with a pea sized dab of peanut butter. Too much and they can lick it off without setting it off.
• Check them every morning and move any that haven't caught anything in three or four days.

Step 5: Seal the way in

This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that matters most. A mouse can squeeze through a gap about 1/4 inch across, roughly the width of a pencil [2]. Walk the outside of your house and look where pipes, wires and AC lines come in, around dryer vents, under doors, at garage door corners and where siding meets the foundation.

Steel wool stuffed tight and covered with caulk works for small gaps. Hardware cloth works for larger ones. Plain foam by itself won't stop them, because they chew right through it. Put a good door sweep on any exterior door you can see daylight under.

Why DIY sometimes isn't enough

Here's the honest part. A lot of folks do everything above, catch three or four mice and figure they're done. Then two weeks later it starts again. That usually happens for one of a few reasons:

• There's an entry point they never found. Gaps up at the roofline, behind siding or around soffits are hard to see from the ground.
• There are more mice than they thought. For every one you see, there are usually more you don't.
• The traps are in the wrong spots. Mice can get trap shy, and if the traps aren't on their path they'll walk right past them.

That's not a knock on anybody. It just takes some experience to know where to look in a house, and older homes in Paducah's Lower Town or out in the county around Murray and Hopkinsville can have a lot of hidden gaps.

When to call a professional

If you're still hearing scratching after a couple of weeks, finding fresh droppings, or you just don't want to crawl around the attic, that's when it makes sense to bring in some help.

At Liberty Pest Control, all rodent problems start with a free inspection. We'll walk the house, find where they're getting in and show you what we see. We serve Paducah, Hopkinsville, Murray, Bowling Green and the towns around them. More on how we handle it is on our rodent control page, and our mice and rats page has more on both.

Find rodent control for your town: Paducah, Benton, Mayfield, Murray, Princeton, Cadiz, Hopkinsville, Oak Grove, Elkton, Pembroke, Metropolis and Bowling Green.

Common questions

What is the most important step to get rid of mice?

Sealing the way in. Traps catch the mice already inside, but if the gap they used is still open, new ones keep coming. A mouse can fit through a gap about 1/4 inch across.

Where should I put mouse traps?

Flat against the wall with the trigger end touching the wall, in the spots where you find the most droppings. Mice run along edges, not across open floor.

Does expanding foam keep mice out?

Not by itself. They chew right through it. Pack small gaps tight with steel wool and cover it with caulk, and use hardware cloth on larger ones.

Sources

1. University of Kentucky Entomology. Michael F. Potter. "Control of Mice" (ENTFACT-617). https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef617 ↗ (opens in a new tab)
2. University of Kentucky Entomology. Michael F. Potter. "How to Pest-Proof Your Home" (ENTFACT-641). https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef641 ↗ (opens in a new tab)