A Mouse in the House!
How to Get Rid of Mice Naturally
Continuing with my natural home care series, as you now know, I am new to Vermont and country living. After dealing with seemingly domesticated ants (see Country Living with Ants) who became unwanted houseguests, little did I know another indoor adventure was just around the corner.
It all started innocently enough (or at least I thought).
I went downstairs to the laundry room in the basement and proceeded to fold my clothes after taking them out of the dryer. I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
A mouse!
However, something was wrong here. The mouse wasn’t moving. In fact, he looked as though he had been running in full sprint and simply froze in mid-stride and rolled over! Almost as if I could pick him up, wind him up, and set him back down on the ground so he could continuing running!
But this was no wind-up-toy, it was a mouse and he was undeniably dead.
As I later would come to understand, the fact that there was even one mouse in the house should have been a warning sign to me. Not to this non-country girl though. My soft heart actually worried that this little mouse’s family might go hungry! I even considered leaving food out for them—how naïve could I have been?
So with little mouse-eared heart bubbles popping from my chest, I delicately scooped him up in a fabric softener box (natural of course), and placed his little body inside of it. I took the tiny box outside and (you guessed it) buried him next to the little bird that flew into my window only weeks before (that’s another “country living” story!)
So other than giving my new Vermont friends a good belly laugh regarding my lack of mouse intricacy knowledge, I figured the mysterious running mouse caper was a closed case.
Until…
Soon after the burial and mourning period, came cooler days and colder nights. Winter was coming.
As I do nearly every holiday season, I went to Florida to bask under the tropical sun. That’s when I got a call from a dear friend who was cat/house sitting. She informed me that there were mouse droppings in the kitchen drawers! “Droppings?” OMG! As I mentioned in my Country Living with Ants story, I have two cats.
CATS! Aren’t they supposed to keep the mice out of the house?
I arrived back home in a few days only to find that there were droppings in almost ALL the drawers!
Well, I don’t have to be a “country” girl to know that this was now a serious problem!
Apparently they were relocating near the stove in the kitchen for warmth. The solutions to get rid of them were to either use poison or mouse traps.
Again with the poison? As per my ant story, it would be hypocritical for me to use any kind of toxic poison. Plus, I still have my obviously useless (but beautiful 😉 ) indoor kitties to keep safe!
Now, I absolutely knew that mice could not live in my kitchen and somehow I needed to get rid of them, but the thought of a mouse trap snapping shut in the middle of the night left me uneasy. Of course if it snapped in the middle of the night that would mean there was a good chance I’d find Mickey smashed in the drawer—or worse, alive and trapped! Aargh!
There must another solution! And I found it!
Sonic Mouse Repellents!
You simply plug this little device (no bigger than a nightlight) into an outlet and it does its magic (you may need a few)! After cleaning all the drawers thoroughly and spraying the same orange spray I used on the ants (figured it may be multi-purpose), my mouse problem was no more!
I have to say that I was skeptical that the sonic devices would work, but I am a 100% satisfied customer of the product.
- No dangerous poison!
- No snapping mouse traps!
- No more droppings!
Hmmmm, I wonder if the sonic mosquito repellent works? Thoughts?
In the end, I feel like I have a bit more “country knowledge” under my belt.
Side Note: I’m going to have a serious talk with my cats!
[Update: It’s been over a year now, and I am pleased to report – my house is STILL mouse free!]
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