How to Get Rid of Mice in an Apartment

The presence of mice in your house is serious as these pests pose a health risk to humans and pets. If you find small pieces of poop around your apartment, it may be a sign that mice have found their way inside your building. Learn how to get rid of mice in an apartment to avoid any direct or indirect diseases transmitted by mice.

Mice find their way indoors, searching for food or a safe place to nest. When dealing with mice, the first thought is to often turn to professionals to schedule exterminations.

While a severe infestation may require professional intervention, it is possible to remove or kill mice in your apartment without the help of an exterminator. This article offers homemade methods for killing mice in your home and suggestions on the best way to catch a mouse in an apartment humanely.

Getting Rid of Mice in Apartments

After confirming the presence of mice in your apartment, getting rid of them requires diligence in cleaning and rodent control methods. Depending on the method used for killing mice, the next step involves searching for the nest to remove dead bodies and avoid the smell of dead mice filling your apartment.

If you find yourself already needing to deal with and get rid of mouse pee smell, thorough cleaning and sanitizing is the answer.

Using Essential Oils Against Mice

Although essential oils are not fatal to mice, using oils around your house is one way to deter mice naturally. The smells of some oils like clove and peppermint repel mice – strategically leaving cotton balls soaked in these oils is one way to deter mouse activity.

Leaving oil-soaked cotton balls in areas where you have a mouse problem in combination with other pest control methods is an effective way to draw out and eliminate mice around your apartment. If you’ve identified areas of entry, cotton balls soaked with essential oil are excellent for preventing more mice from entering.

Use Garlic to Repel Mice

The smell of garlic is potent enough for humans; however, mice cannot stand the smell of garlic. If you’re dealing with a house mouse problem, leaving garlic cloves around your home in areas of mice activity is one way to drive mice away.

Another option for using garlic is to mix chopped garlic in a spray bottle with water. Spray around your home to repel mice from these treated areas.

Homemade Mouse Poison

If killing the mice is your aim, there are many ways to kill a mouse. The problem with commercial rat poisons is the risk they pose if accidentally ingested by humans. However, creating a mixture of safe ingredients that is fatal to rats, is simple and effective in dealing with a mice infestation.

Baking soda is essential to this recipe because after the mice ingest it, the compounds in baking soda react to the acid and moisture in the mice’s system. This reaction causes a buildup of gas that causes internal damage to rodents.

Mix the ingredients until evenly combined. Pour some of the baking soda mixture onto plastic lids that you can move around your apartment. Leave these lids in areas where mice are known to travel or where you find mouse poop or mouse urine.

Using Ammonia to Deal with a Mice Problem in Your Apartment

Mice are known for their strong sense of smell, and using strong odors around your apartment is an easy way to prevent mice from roaming freely throughout your house. Ammonia is a solvent often used to remove stains and cut through grease.

As a form of pest control for mice, dip cotton balls in ammonia and leave them in your apartment to repel mice. While ammonia does not have a pleasant smell, it is efficient at keeping mice away.

Kill Mice with Bay Leaves

Using plants and herbs against unwanted pests is a well-known tip because many repel pests. Bay leaves work well when dealing with a mice problem in your apartment.

Bay leaves contain a compound called eugenol that causes damage to the liver of rats once ingested. To effectively use bay leaves against a mouse infestation and an easy way to keep field mice out of your house, leave whole leaves around your home or chop them into smaller strips for mice to eat. The smell of bay leaves confuses mice into thinking it is food.

Can Instant Potatoes Kill Mice?

One of the best methods for dealing with a mice problem in your apartment is using instant mashed potatoes, which come in packages in grocery stores as dried potato flakes.

Once mixed with water or another liquid, these flakes hydrate and become the fluffy mashed potatoes we’re used to eating. This process of rehydrating potato flakes harms mice because rodents cannot release any gasses caused by the bloating, or they vomit the potatoes.

Sprinkle instant mashed potato flakes on a plastic lid or in a bowl and leave them out for the mice to eat. Add sugar to the flakes to make the potato flakes more appealing to mice.

Leave a dish of water for them to drink to ensure this rodent control works. Monitor areas around your home for dead mice in the following days after using this setup.

Eliminate Mice with Boric Acid

Boric acid is a compound with various uses across the medical and industrial fields. It also works well as an insecticide to deal with pests in and outside the home. When ingested, boric acid decreases the acid in an animal’s body, resulting in respiratory and renal distress.

Pour boric acid into a bowl and add chicken broth, one teaspoon at a time, stirring until it becomes thick and the mixture is difficult to mix. Roll the mixture between your gloved hands to make bait balls the size of a marble.

Place the bait balls on plastic lids or containers that are easy to relocate around your apartment. Leave the bait in areas where you notice mouse droppings.

Using Cats for Rodent Control

It’s no secret that cats and mice don’t get along, and scientific research supports this. A pheromone in cat urine triggers fear in rodents and causes them to flee, and cats are known to hunt and kill mice.

Although owning a cat may seem like a significant commitment to dealing with mice because mice are common in areas like New York, taking in a cat is a long-term solution to your mouse problem.

After hunting a mouse, some cats bring the dead mouse to their owner for approval, and with the right encouragement, cats continue hunting to keep your apartment mouse free.

Deter Mice Activity with Kitty Litter

If you already own a cat, one way to keep mice away is using their cat litter as a weapon against the mice in your apartment. The smell of cat urine isn’t pleasant, but it triggers a primal fear in mice that makes them wary of entering any space that smells of cat urine.

Using gloves, scoop out litter your cat urinated on and place it in a bowl or container. Leave this container in an area where the mice typically pass or go through. The smell of the urine keeps mice away and may force them to remain in one part of your apartment, allowing you to control their activity better.

Making a Glue Trap

Glue traps are some simple DIY methods for catching mice around your home but are considered a cruel practice. Mice become stuck to the glue, cannot escape, and die. To make a glue trap, create a sticky solution that does not dry out.

Combine water and corn syrup in a pot on the stove over medium heat and warm until it becomes a sticky paste. Cut the heat and allow your mixture to cool before adding your sticky mix to jars with lids or airtight containers.

Spread the corn syrup mixture across cut pieces of cardboard to act as glue boards. To prevent the traps from moving, stick duct tape to the bottom before placing your traps in your apartment.

Capture Mice with Live Traps

Among the types of available rodent traps, live traps are the most humane way of getting rid of mice in apartments. Unlike common snap traps, live rat traps do not kill mice.

Live traps involve using bait to lure mice inside before the trap closes, capturing the mouse inside, making it the best way to get rid of mice in walls and around your home. Unlike snap traps, live traps are closed, so the mouse cannot escape until you reopen the trap in an area where it’s safe to release the mouse.

It’s easy to make your own DIY mouse trap bucket, too, if you don’t want to spend the money on a commercial trap.

Reduce Mice Numbers with Electric Traps

Electric mouse traps are a popular choice to kill mice in an apartment because it poses the lowest risk to humans and children. Electric traps are enclosed devices with an opening for rodents that provides them with fatal electrical shocks when they touch a plate inside.

Most commercial traps are equipped with a light to signify a trapped mouse. The downside to these traps is that they lack the space to kill multiple mice, making them ineffective in tackling a rodent infestation.

Getting Rid of Mice with Snap Traps

The most well-known way to get rid of mice at home is through a classic mouse trap that snaps closed once triggered. Prep these traps with a type of bait like peanut butter. Once activated by the mouse, a metal latch snaps shut. This trap kills mice instantly, and once you remove the dead mouse, the trap is ready for reuse.

Because this trap is fatal to mice and reusable, it has long been a favorite tool to eliminate house mice. Other traps exist, including closed traps that do not show the dead mouse and clam traps that close around the mouse like a clamshell.

Plaster of Paris Poison

Calcium sulfate hemihydrate, also known as plaster, is a standard tool for home projects like ceiling work. Once mixed with water, this plaster hardens, making it useful for moldings. If ingested, this plaster hardens in the stomach of mice, causing a blockage in their digestive system.

Mix plaster with the other ingredients until well combined. Wearing gloves, roll the plaster mix into bait-sized balls and leave them in areas mice frequent or where you’ve spotted mice droppings.

This strategy may be a good one to get mice out of the garage, storage shed, or carport.

How to Get Rid of Mice in an Apartment Using Homemade Bait Stations

The purpose of commercial bait stations is not to trap and kill mice; instead, these devices allow numerous mice to feed on poisoned bait. This process enables mice to feed and return to their nest before dying due to the poisoned bait.

Creating a bait station is as simple as using a length of pipe or a flat wooden board secured to a wall. The purpose of stations like this is to provide mice with a safe place to feed. Using a pipe or a wooden board gives mice an exit so that they are free to feed and leave as often as needed for the poison to take effect.

Rodenticides are available online for you to place inside homemade bait stations. The options for these rodenticides include multi-dose dry baits or baits that mix with liquid. These baits are attractive to mice because they typically contain a small amount of sugar to attract mice.

Tips for Avoiding Mouse Problems

If mice are in your apartment, they’re likely looking for shelter, food, and safety from the outdoors. Mice find ways inside through the smallest openings, including large cracks in the foundation or holes in the side of buildings.

Once inside, mice build nests in warm areas, typically between walls or under cabinets near food sources. If you live at ground level, seal any openings to the outside to avoid a mice problem in your apartment.

Another way to avoid a mouse problem is to make your apartment undesirable for mice by removing or limiting their access to food sources. To prevent mice from making your apartment their home, avoid leaving dirty dishes in your sink as this food residue and moisture attracts mice.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, pet food is a food source for mice, and to avoid mice feeding on it, keep your pet’s food in a plastic container. After feeding your pets, keep an eye on when they finish eating to take away any remaining food before mice get to it. (..)

Mice are fast breeders; female mice can have up to ten litters, with each litter being born about ten days after mating. Because of this, mice in your apartment are a red flag to begin taking measures to handle the rodent problem before it gets out of hand. Use a combination of repellents and DIY traps to manage mice in your apartment before their numbers rise.

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