How to Get Rid of Mice in Your Attic

It is important to know how to get rid of mice, even if you do not already have a mouse problem in your attic. Mice can be terrible pests. They can damage food, chew on wires and insulation, die in hard-to-reach places and leave bad smells behind, and even carry diseases. Naturally, nobody wants a mouse infestation. Preventing them before they occur is always best, but sometimes this is not possible, and mice will enter your attic. When this occurs, knowing what to do in response is very useful. If you are in this situation, or you are planning for it in the future, the following instructions should prove useful.

Step 1 - Setting up

There are a wide variety of devices that are marketed to people with mouse problems. There are so many that it may seem hard to decide between them. However, traps are the best choice. Poisons seems like a good idea at first, but they can lead to many problems. For one thing, if they work, they tend to kill mice that are hidden away, possibly inside your walls. This makes them difficult to remove and becomes a sanitation issue, as well as causing your home to smell bad. Also, leaving poisonous material lying around is dangerous for anyone with small children or pets. Using standard mouse traps is the best idea.

Set up a few standard mouse traps—the snap variety—in your attic. Bait them with peanut butter. It has a strong smell and is known for attracting mice effectively.

If you do not want to kill the mice in your attic, using non-lethal traps is fine. 

Step 2 - Waiting

Now all you can do is wait. However, you still need to do a little bit of work daily to maximize the effectiveness of your traps.

First, check your traps on a daily basis. You do not want a dead mouse rotting in your attic. And if you catch a live mouse, you do not want it to starve or dehydrate before you can release it back into the wild.

Next, you will need to wait several days. However, it is possible that your traps will not catch anything. If this happens, do not give up. It is possible that the mice are simply not finding the traps. Go back to your attic and move your traps around so they are in different areas. This way, a mouse will be more likely to encounter your traps.

Step 3 - Finishing

Chances are good that eventually you will catch a mouse. Once you do, it is important to get rid of it properly. Dispose of any dead mice immediately.

If you have caught a live mouse, release it far from your home. However, do not release it on private property or near other people's homes.

Step 4 - Prevention

Now that your attic is free of mice, you should figure out how they got in. Mice do not need a very big crack to enter your house, so it is a good idea to go over any holes with caulk to prevent future mouse infestations.