How to get rid of mice in the attic?

December 14, 2023 11:58 AM

How do I get mice to leave my house (they are in the attic which is difficult to get to) without killing them? I don't want to get a cat.
posted by GernBlandston to Home & Garden (16 answers total)

You can set humane traps that don't hurt the mice but please remember to check them often otherwise the mouse will starve to death inside and even decompose.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:13 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

There are probably more of them right now because they're scrambling inside from the cold weather. I live near a woodsy area and can hear them in my walls. And I have two cats. It annoys me to hear them but I try to remember that this is the worst time and usually takes care of itself and/or the cats get new, lifelike toys.
posted by mermaidcafe at 12:20 PM on December 14, 2023

Hire a professional to inspect your attic/house and figure out where they are entering & seal up the entrances. This keeps them from coming inside. Then you can ask to humanely trap the ones that are already inside. But until you seal up the house they will keep coming in.
posted by muddgirl at 12:20 PM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]

They may not even need to enter the attic, when we had rats they did all the sealing from the outside.
posted by muddgirl at 12:21 PM on December 14, 2023

Sorry, but I never found way besides killing them (after sealing up all the entrances).
posted by wenestvedt at 12:25 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

There really is no way to not kill them if you aren't willing to live with them. Live traps make people feel better, but if you trap and relocate a mouse to a strange area, it will die.
posted by FencingGal at 12:41 PM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]

You don't. (Source: I suffered with mice in the attic for four years at my last house. And that's with three cats and no compunctions killing the fuckers. They never went away.)
posted by jdroth at 12:47 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

but if you trap and relocate a mouse to a strange area, it will die

When we lived in a house with mice we would catch them and drop them off in a local wooded area which we still call 5+ years later the "nezumi (mouse) forest". I don't know how long they survived there but at least they'd make a meal for an animal that needed it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

In terms of using a humane trap, remember that you don't need to fully access the attic to do it. You can just open whatever access you do have and put the trap (with whatever bait in it) right there by the opening.
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2023

I agree that there is no way to just get them to leave. Don't even bother trying anything that supposedly acts as a repellent. You can (and should) make your house less attractive to them by making sure there isn't food (including crumbs, pet food or outside bird feeders) left where they can get to it. But your house still provides a warm space that is fairly safe from predators so even if they have to forage outside they may prefer to live in the attic. You can also try to block up any openings that are providing access. This is more feasible with some houses than with others.

If the problem is mainly that you don't want to have to go into the attic, you can probably kill them with traps (or poison) set in other parts of your house. Even if the attic is their home base, they likely explore the whole house. If your problem is moral or sentimental rather than practical, you can use live traps. But if you do, release the mice far from your house, not in your yard or just down the street.
posted by Redstart at 1:03 PM on December 14, 2023

You can try the live traps but I have sat here and watched a very bold mouse investigate all of my kitchen walking the perimeter of a live trap but refusing to go in it. I’ve tried many types and only ever caught a single mouse who was obviously traumatized and then the trap absolutely reeked of mouse pee and poop despite diligent washing, all of which was really fun for just one mouse when I had an entire little civilization of them in the walls of my house. Snap traps were a humane and effective solution. I’ve never had one go wrong.
posted by HotToddy at 1:16 PM on December 14, 2023

Plug in a mouse deterrent device such as this item. It's a combo of a supersonic frequency married to a continuous loop of animal cries (including crows, dogs and the like). Not sure if the ultrasound is effective, but the barks and screeches are--amazingly so.

Turn the volume up to high--assuming you can tolerate hearing the noise in adjacent rooms. The current generation of mice will pay it no mind, but in sixth months or so, into a new season, it will deter new mice from arriving in your attic. Occasionally a renegade will brave the device, but you can take care of this miscreant with a humane trap.
posted by Gordion Knott at 2:35 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I contacted a wildlife removal company for this issue and they were very thorough sealing up the house and getting the ones inside trapped and removed. It was Not Cheap but as a moderately mouse-phobic person it was totally worth it to me.
posted by jeoc at 9:31 PM on December 14, 2023

I never thought this would work, but I decided to try it anyway and did… peppermint oil. I cut a couple sponges into tiny pieces, soaked them in peppermint oil, and put them all around the kitchen and back storage room. I haven't seen any since. You do have to refresh them when they stop smelling.
posted by wheatlets at 5:53 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

A large field mouse can easily get through a hole/opening that's 1/2 inch wide (and with effort, even smaller), so even if you trap the existing mice, more will always come back.

Identifying where they gain access is best left to professionals, if you go this route, do your research first, don't just call the first pest control company you find.

The reason for this is that many "pest control" companies are really just exterminators, and use poison bait (which they will claim forces the pest to leave the house to look for water and then they die outdoors). This is largely BS, of course, you will have dead mice in your house. A cynical person would say this tactic ensures repeat customers by not addressing the core issue.

Sealing off these entry/exit points is really, really hard (for your average house, the older it is, the more difficult usually) but as someone mentioned above: doing it right is going to be pricy.
posted by jeremias at 7:30 AM on December 16, 2023

In my experience, no-kill traps are basically feeding stations, and nothing more.
posted by gimonca at 10:13 AM on December 16, 2023