How to get rid of mice in a private home - homemade recipes and proven remedies

10.29.2018 Category: RodentsAuthor: Anastasia Tsvetkova

If dangerous rodents such as rats appear in your private house or apartment, do not despair! There are many popular folk remedies to combat these obnoxious “neighbors.”

• 2 Extermination of rodents at home
  2.1 Video: how to get rid of rats once and for all
• 2.2 Physical destruction

  2.2.1 Video: how to make a rat trap with your own hands

2.3 Use of folk remedies

3 Prevention of rats

4 Reviews

Folk remedies for mice

You can also use special plants to control pests:

• Peppermint. Its aroma is known to everyone, and rodents really don’t like it. The plant smells like this because of the essential oils it contains. Mint leaves should be placed where mice appear most often. On shelves, near discovered holes, in cracks on the floor. Moreover, the plant works both dry and fresh. Mint tincture with alcohol also helps. You can buy it at any pharmacy. And then roll small balls from ordinary cotton wool, soak them in the purchased composition, and place them in the right places.
• Sagebrush. It has a characteristic tart smell. Dry wormwood, collected at the time of flowering, works best against mice. It must be placed where rodents have been spotted. In addition, wormwood can be used to fumigate a room. A bunch of grass must be set on fire and ensure that it smolders and does not burn. Smoke with a characteristic odor will repel mice.
• Elder. Mice are also afraid of this plant. Elderberry roots contain hydrocyanic acid. So if there is a lot of this bush growing near the house, mice are unlikely to stay there. If you cut elderberry branches and place them around the house, rodents will not be able to stand the smell of the poisonous acid and will leave.

Where do mice come from?

As a rule, the most common house mice enter a person's home. They are synanthropic animals, that is, they are attached to people and live exclusively next to them. Of course, the damage caused by mice is quite great.

There are a huge number of ways to scare mice away from your home using folk remedies. Perhaps there would not be so many of them if rodents did not have an exceptional ability to adapt to even the most cruel conditions. Thus, they can survive prolonged hunger, cold, and high water levels.

In the house itself, mice appear through migration from neighboring houses or when moving in boxes with things. The first step is to take a look at the basement. From there it’s easiest for them to start their “takeover” of the house. If the basement is filled with a lot of junk, this only makes the task easier. Therefore, it is important to keep this area clean and tidy.

How to deal with rodents in your home

You need to fight mice as soon as traces of their activity are noticed. Do not forget that rodents are extremely prolific, and if time is missed, the colony will grow to enormous sizes.

General rules

Recommendations for rodent control:

The first rule is to seal all visible cracks in the floor and roof. The mice will gnaw through them again if you don’t fight them, but this measure will stop the rodent invasion for a short time. It is necessary to shake out all the things in closets and pantries and wash them using peppermint oil - rodents do not tolerate this smell and will not make nests in clothes. Wash all surfaces with vinegar or wormwood oil. Place supplies out of reach, pour all cereals and dry foods into tightly sealed glass or metal jars. Close the trash can tightly, take it out daily and wash the bin itself with vinegar or chlorine. If possible, have a cat in the house.

Traps

The simplest means of dealing with mice is standard traps or mousetraps. They need to be placed throughout the house - in places where excrement has been noticed. As bait, it is best to use pieces of bread soaked in vegetable or sesame oil - this smell drives mice crazy, they like it so much.

Note! The problem with mousetraps is that they are only suitable for fighting single individuals. If the population is large, then only a couple of mice will fall into the trap, the rest will begin to avoid them

Lures

Glue baits are very effective. You can simply use mouse glue and make the bait yourself, or you can buy a ready-made design in a special store.

In the finished version, glue is applied to the entire area of ​​the cardboard, which can be folded into a tube and left in places where pests can pass. The bait itself is placed in the middle of the cardboard - a nut or grain mixture soaked in oil.

Making your own bait:

You need to take a thick cardboard or plastic board, apply a thin layer of glue and put a piece of bread, grains or seeds in the middle. The mouse, attracted by the smell of the bait, gets caught in the glue and cannot get out. If there are a lot of rodents in the house, then by morning you can find up to five firmly stuck rodents on one bait.

Poison

It is better to buy the poison ready-made; it is sold in the garden departments of most hardware stores. This is the most ineffective means of controlling rodents. The mice are sent to sample the food of the weakest and sickest members of the colony. If they die, then the rodents will no longer touch the poison.

There are special products that kill mice only after three days. They can get rid of an entire colony of mice, but the dead rodents begin to decompose in holes, from where they are difficult to get out, and the disgusting smell can linger in the house for many weeks. Therefore, poisoning mice using this method can only be done in summer cottages before the winter period.

Repellers

Special ultrasonic devices (Grad, ElectroKot) are good at getting rid of mice - they affect the nervous system of pests, driving them crazy. The sounds produced by repellers are unbearable for rodents, but are absolutely not perceived by humans or pets.

Repellers against mice - voles - are very effective; the device can be stuck into the ground, and within a couple of weeks there will be no mice left on the site.

When buying a device, it makes sense to check its range - if it is small, then you will need to buy several of them to install in each room.

Find out how and how to clean an enamel pan from burnt jam from this article.

Go to https://poryadok-v-dome.com/nasekomye/muravi/narodnye-sredstva-borby.html and read about how to get rid of ants in your home using improvised means.

Folk remedies

If you can’t buy traps or poison, you can make them yourself.

Gypsum bait is very effective. Gypsum or concrete is mixed with a grain mixture previously moistened with vegetable oil. Bowls of water are placed next to the “delicacy”.

A mouse that eats such a meal will permanently cement its intestines and die. Not very humane, but very effective.

Rodents cannot tolerate strong odors:

mint, lemon balm, chamomile, wormwood.

You can spread these herbs in places where mice live, you can wash floors and all surfaces with the addition of oils from these herbs.

The smell of vinegar and chlorine repels rodents well. These odors will forever remove the very “aroma” of the vital activity of mice.

Ash and sulfur

• Sulfur is a universal remedy because it helps get rid of mice, cockroaches, and even fungus. How to use this miracle remedy? Go to any hardware store and buy a sulfur bomb. When you arrive home, you need to fumigate the entire room with it.
• Some people know that in places where there was a fire not long ago, rodents do not appear. Why? In such places a lot of ash remains, and it falls on the paws of mice and then gets into their throats, thereby causing severe irritation. In general, if you put fine wood ash in the cellar or underground, then after some time the rodents will leave you. For 5 square meters of room you will need a bucket of ash.

Folk remedies

Several effective methods have been established experimentally. You can scare away mice in your dacha with folk remedies forever, using the most effective and proven methods.

1. Wood ash, scattered in the habitats of pests, falls on their paws and is an unpleasant irritant.
2. Bay leaves laid out in cabinets and on shelves will scare away with their pungent smell.
3. Coniferous branches placed directly in holes will not only repel mice, but will also become a serious obstacle for them.
4. Ammonia or vinegar evaporates quickly, but cotton wool or rags soaked in one of these solutions will help you forget about the pest invasion for a short time.
5. Mint or other plants with a pungent odor are placed throughout the house. You can simply soak a cotton ball in a solution with a strong mint scent.
6. Pour bleach into the holes, and use it to treat the walls and places where mice gather.

In the fight against rodent pests, it is practiced to make poisons with your own hands.

1. Mix flour, granulated sugar and gypsum (alabaster) in a ratio of 1:1:1. Mice that eat such a “delicacy” and drink water will die.
2. Finely chop the cork (from champagne, wine) and fry in any type of oil. The aroma attracts mice. The plug will swell inside the body and the animal will die.
3. Another popular method is using cork. It is crushed and mixed with any cereal.
4. The composition of quicklime, sugar and flour in equal proportions is a terrible poison for animals.
5. An effective way to get rid of rodents is to mix crushed glass with food. They are also placed in places where mice gather, which are determined by the amount of droppings.
6. Combine any melted vegetable or animal fat with flour and barium carbonate in a ratio of 1:4:2, roll into small balls and spread throughout the house.
7. Prepare a mixture of dry potatoes, cinnamon, and gypsum.

Interesting video:

Birch tar is a great way to repel mice; they cannot stand this specific smell. As an alternative replacement, the ordinary, familiar to everyone, “Vishnevsky ointment” is used. The product is used to coat window sills, thresholds, baseboards, and the backs of furniture.

You can build traps from bottles or cans. They are lubricated from the inside with oil with a pronounced smell and installed obliquely. Pests, having climbed inside, will not be able to get out along the slippery walls. For bait, you can put a piece of bread, cheese or lard.

Mice love water very much, and this is what the following method is based on. At the dacha they place buckets of water, one-third to half full. When thirsty, the animals will fall into the bucket and will not be able to get out. There have been cases where more than a dozen rodents found themselves in such a “trap” in one night.

The most traditional and proven means of controlling rodents is to have a cat in the house. These furry helpers deftly and quickly cope with the problem.

Modern chemical means of controlling mice

Poisonous compounds against rodents

To use them, you need to purchase special poisons. Following the instructions, you can use them, after which the animals die. This is the main disadvantage of toxic chemical control methods. In addition, the trouble is that the mouse can die in a place unnoticeable to the owners - for example, in the floor. This factor will cause additional inconvenience. Among the most common toxic substances, several basic remedies can be distinguished.

• KRYSIN;
• DIFENACIN
• KEMACHLOR;
• DIKUMALOR.

These are a list of chronic agents aimed at long-term use; rodents die within a few weeks. There is also a list of drugs that have an acute effect. They contain organic plant components, as well as similar synthetic substances. But it is worth remembering their danger to humans and pets, so use is carried out strictly according to the instructions. Using these methods, you can eliminate mice in a greenhouse or in a house, but it is necessary to protect grapes and some other crops with the most harmless substances.

Repellent devices

These are electrical devices that operate using an ultrasound circuit, for example, Pest Reject. The action ensures that the device emits certain sound vibrations that are not subject to human hearing, but have a detrimental effect on the receptors of rodents. It is necessary to insert the plug into the socket for several weeks, and after some time you can 100% forget about rodents. The result is a significant time saving. Such devices have a classification: some products are powered by an electrical network, and some elements operate using batteries.

DIY trap

To create it, you need to take a bottle with a volume of 0.5 or 0.7 liters and pour in a little vegetable oil in the amount of a couple of tablespoons. Next, a finger is placed on the neck, the bottle is shaken off so that the entire internal cavity is covered with liquid. It is necessary that the oil must have a smell. To be confident in this method, some summer residents advise throwing bait in the form of seeds, cheese or nuts into the container. Then the vessel is placed at an angle to form a step near the neck, and stoppers are placed on the sides. If you have managed to get mice, you can be sure that they will appear in the bottle the next morning. And gnawed wood material is no longer a threat to you!

Repellent methods

You can fight mice in a private house and in a country house using the same methods, but not all are suitable for an apartment. Rodents cannot tolerate loud sounds, bright lighting, some odors and ultrasound. If one of these irritants is present, they leave the room permanently or for a while, depending on what is used. Thus, ultrasound repels mice, but it is effective only when the device is plugged in. Wave vibrations do not penetrate the floor, ceiling and walls, so rodents can easily move to another place.

To ensure that pests leave your dacha, house or apartment, you can lay out fresh wormwood or other fragrant herbs. It is noticed that soon after this there is no trace of the mice left.

In a private home, you should try to scare away rodents with loud sounds.

The noise that mice fear:

• chords on piano, guitar;
• playing the button accordion;
• drumroll;
• operation of the washing machine;
• hard Rock;
• unpleasant ringing of the alarm clock.

Simplifying your life: homemade rat traps from scrap materials

It is quite possible to make a trap for rodents with your own hands from available materials. This allows you to get rid of rats and mice with minimal financial outlay, and often homemade traps work no worse than industrial options.

For example, at home it is very easy to make a very effective live trap from a deep container, a piece of thick wire and two or three strips. The task here is to make a tipping bridge from wire and one plank. A bait is placed on the edge of the bridge, it is installed on the container, and an improvised ladder is made to the entire structure, along which the animal can climb to the edge of the container. As soon as he tries to get closer to the bait, the bridge overturns and the rat falls into the container.

It is useful to do two non-obvious things in such a design:

1. Pour water into the container so that the rat cannot push off from the bottom and jump out;
2. Attach the bait to the bridge - after the rat falls into the container, the structure will return to its original position and will be able to catch more than one rat.

There are many options for implementing such a mechanism: a rat can fall from a table after climbing into a cardboard house with bait on the edge; or above a container (barrel, bucket) you can place a bottle rotating on a metal rod, coated with bait, so that it rotates under the weight of the animal and “drops” it into the container.

Below in the video you can see a clear example of how such a trap works:

There are other options for simple homemade traps that allow you to get rid of rats in a private home without using any other means. Traps can also be made lethal, so that the rat does not have to be killed personally or shaken out alive.

Such traps are used in the same way as store-bought ones, and their main advantages are the ability to be manufactured at home and, in most cases, increased safety of use (which, however, depends on the design).

On a note

But the conditional freeness of homemade rat traps should hardly be considered such a significant advantage. The price of a good crusher today is 70-80 rubles, and rat poison in an amount sufficient to get rid of rats in an average-sized private house costs about 50 rubles on the market. However, not every home owner will be willing to spend an hour or two of his time creating a homemade rat trap.

To summarize: traps are well suited for the safe, methodical extermination of rats in the house, and if you use them in conjunction with bait stations, you can catch rodents in almost any room. Traps are probably not suitable in cases where a large number of rats or mice need to be destroyed as quickly as possible, all at once.

In this case, rodent poisons can come to the rescue.

How to get rid of rats using folk remedies. Physical methods

Placed traps and traps work for sure, which should lead to the rapid destruction of rodents. But rats are very cunning animals; they do not fall into the same trap twice. A rat caught in a trap with its squeak warns its relatives of danger, who will avoid traps and traps in every possible way.

Having decided to fight rats in a private home using physical means, you need to carefully study their paths of movement in order to place traps and rat traps in the places most frequently visited by rats. Products that will arouse interest in rodents are placed in the rat trap: smoked meat, cheese, sausage.

To get rid of rats in a private home using folk remedies, the following devices and methods are used:

• Classic homemade or purchased traps and traps that are triggered when an animal tries to get the bait.
• Traps that restrict the movement of rodents rather than kill them.
• Glue traps that are easy to make with your own hands. Take a sheet of cardboard and attach it to the floor. The cardboard is treated with a special long-drying glue.
• Construction plaster and corn flour (in equal proportions) are thoroughly mixed and laid out in the places most visited by rats, and a bowl of water is placed next to it. The plaster hardens in the rodent's stomach, tearing its insides.
• Folk remedies that act as poison for rats include a mixture of semolina and putty, which is completely harmless to humans. Semolina and dry putty are mixed in equal proportions and placed near rat holes. The putty swells in the rat’s digestive tract, completely blocking it, which leads to the death of the animal.

• A completely harmless mixture of sugar and soda helps to get rid of rats in a private home, if not forever, then for a long time. The ingredients are taken in equal proportions and mixed with a small amount of flour. In the stomach of a rat, soda reacts with hydrochloric acid, resulting in the release of carbon dioxide, which literally tears the insides of the rodent apart.
• The cork plug is crushed and then fried in lard. Attracted by the smell of pork, rats actively eat it. The plug in the rodent's stomach swells, damaging internal organs.
• Broken, finely ground glass is placed in rat holes and along rat trails. The skin on the paws of rats is thin; having received multiple wounds, the rat pack most often leaves the house.
• Glass wool. It is believed that glass wool used as insulation will be able to prevent the invasion of rats, but many users report that rats are able to not only overcome a layer of glass wool, but even make nests in it.

How to use rat traps effectively?

In most cases, a variety of rat traps are the most preferred to use. Many of them, when used correctly, are very effective; with their help, you can methodically destroy rats one by one until they are completely exterminated. At the same time, rat traps are quite affordable: you can buy them in markets, hardware stores and online stores.

On a note

It is also worth keeping in mind that well-made homemade traps work no worse than industrial ones.

An important advantage of traps over poisons when used in a private home: if poison is used, there is a high risk of rodents snatching the poison around the house or summer cottage; in addition, pets can find and eat a poisoned, dying rodent. When using traps, these risks are eliminated. And what is important, when using traps, you can be sure that a dead rat or mouse will not begin to decompose somewhere behind the wall of the house.

However, rat and mouse traps have a number of disadvantages that also need to be taken into account:

1. The trap needs to be checked and recharged regularly; it will not catch several rodents at once (the exceptions are modern electric rat traps and some types of live traps - we will talk about them a little later);
2. When using traps, you need to pull out dead rats from them, often showing signs of painful death - bulging eyes, a broken skull, a pool of blood around the trap. And if we are talking about a live trap, then you need to remove a live, frightened animal from it, which can bite painfully if done incorrectly;

3. Quite effective and easy-to-use lethal traps - crushers - pose some danger to pets and children (a powerful spring can break a cat's paw or a child's finger).

Potentially dangerous traps (mousetraps and rat traps like a masher with a spring) can only be used in areas where children and pets do not enter - in the basement, pantry, boiler room, attic.

Alternatively, the trap can be placed in a closed box, in the wall of which several holes with a diameter of about 5 cm are made - exactly enough for a hungry rat to squeeze through, but through which no pet can get in.

Such boxes are called bait stations - they are commercially available (usually made of plastic). They can be used in any room, but sometimes the most cautious rats still do not get into them, even if there is a very attractive bait inside (in the trap).

Live traps are more convenient in this regard - they do not pose a threat to either people or pets, and they can catch rodents even in the bedroom or children's room. But they also force you to solve additional problems: how to kill the animal after catching it yourself, or where to take it out and release it so that it does not return to the house. Not everyone can kill a live rat, and not everyone has the time to release it a kilometer from home.

The most popular rat traps are divided into several types:

1. Pressers are the same well-known dies with a spring, colloquially called mousetraps, only they are small for mice and larger for rats. They are quite effective, inexpensive and durable, but when used without bait stations they are not always safe;

2. Electric rat traps, in which the rat is killed by an electric shock. The most modern models are able to “pack” the carcasses of victims into a special compartment and recharge, due to which the rat trap can kill several rats without human inspection. To throw them away, simply shake out the contents of the compartment into a trash bag;

3. Glue traps, which are made of cardboard or plastic with a special rodent glue applied to the surface (there are ready-to-use industrially produced sticky traps, or you can buy glue and make such a trap for rats and mice with your own hands). In general, we can say that glue traps are difficult to use, cause a lot of trouble if a pet or child gets dirty with glue, and are very inhumane - the animal dies a painful death on the glue within a few days. On the other hand, anti-rodent glue is good because it can catch not only rats and mice, but also domestic pests - cockroaches sometimes stick to it in much larger quantities than rodents;

4. Live traps in the form of cages with a slamming door are perhaps the safest, but they are quite bulky and poorly presented on the market.

It is also useful to read: How to catch a rat in the house: the most effective ways

If rats have been present in a private home for a long time and have managed to breed, sometimes you have to spend a considerable amount of time fighting them with the help of rat traps. It is likely that in a large house the trap will have to be rearranged several times, choosing the optimal location, or catching rodents in turn in each room. It is best to place the device where excrement and traces of animals eating are found, or where it is known for certain that rodents are running through here (for example, traces of rats rubbing with fur are visible).

On the other hand, a trap purchased once will last for years. The only consumable item in it is bait.

It should be borne in mind that the effectiveness of the trap largely depends on the bait. Even the most effective trap will not work if loaded with bait that is unattractive to a rodent, and vice versa - a good bait will lure even a cautious rat into a trap that the animal would otherwise prefer to avoid.

Practice shows that the best bait for rats is smoked sausage, minced meat with onions, lard, canned fish, and for mice - pieces of fruit, lard or a crust of bread dipped in vegetable oil.

On a note

In general, lard can be considered one of the most versatile and effective baits for any rodents in the house. There is a little trick - if you lightly burn the lard with a match before placing it in the rat trap, then even the smartest and most careful rats often cannot resist its smell.

Traps should be loaded and placed in the house as long as they catch rats. It often happens that rodents no longer visually show themselves in any way, but, for example, a trap steadily continues to catch them day after day. For the same reason, by the way, it is useful to simply keep a charged rat trap in places where rats appear most often - if a new pest gets into the house from the street, he will immediately try to steal the bait lying in the most visible place, and will be caught...

Fighting methods

There are the following methods of controlling rodents:

• mechanical (installation of mousetraps, traps);
• chemical (use of poisons);
• folk;
• ultrasonic;
• biological (attracting domestic animals that hunt rodents).

Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Installing mousetraps

Mousetraps and similar traps can be purchased at the store or made yourself. One of the disadvantages of mechanical devices is that they are not able to quickly cope with large numbers of rodents.

In addition to standard mousetraps, there are traps. They don't always work as expected. The most effective devices will require significant financial costs.

The most common homemade designs:

Glue trap. In the store you buy a special glue for rodents (Alt, “Kotofey”, “Kapkan”) and apply it to a piece of plastic or a board. An edible bait (a nut, a piece of sausage or a cracker soaked in sunflower oil) is placed in the center. The mouse, attracted by the smell of food, steps on the glue and can no longer escape. Several caught animals can fit on the sticky surface of one trap.

Another trap can be made from a glass jar with a thread glued to the bottom. The bait is tied to the thread. The jar is turned upside down, placing a coin under the neck (after placing it on the edge). The structure is very shaky - a mouse that manages to get inside will remain under the can.

It's easy to catch a mouse with a plastic bottle. The container needs to be cut into 2 parts and the bait should be placed on the bottom, the walls from the inside should be greased with oil. A strip of cardboard is placed against the bottle so that the rodent can get to the edible piece. The pest will no longer be able to get free.

Chemicals

The most effective way to get rid of mice on your property is to use toxic substances. But the main disadvantage of this method is the increased toxicity of the drugs. Controlling mice and other rodents using poison is dangerous for people and pets.

Here are some of the poisons:

1. "Storm". Kills rodents by causing internal bleeding. Pest death occurs approximately 7 days after eating poisoned pellets.
2. "Efa." Poison for mice, but it is also suitable for rats. A highly toxic agent that causes the death of rodents on the third day.
3. "Rat Death" A very poisonous drug. Rodents begin to die from the third day.

“Mortorat”, “Rat Death”, “Goliath”, “Ratsid” are the best remedies for rats.

Separately, the drug “Baktorodencid” should be highlighted (it refers not to chemical, but to biological agents) - it contains pathogenic bacteria. Rodents, eating the substance, become infected themselves and spread the infection within the colony. Moderately dangerous to humans and domestic animals.

Ultrasonic repellers

The repeller generates ultrasonic waves that cause anxiety and fear in rodents. Therefore, when they hear such sounds, they leave their habitual places.

When choosing a device, take into account the area of ​​the room and operating conditions. Repellers can also be used outdoors.

Popular ultrasonic devices include:

• "Tornado 400";
• "Typhoon OG.01";
• "Chiston-2 PRO".

Some experts believe that these devices are the most effective means of fighting mice. Others argue that ultrasound repelling is not the most effective method. Sometimes repellers are useless because some individuals have adapted to ultrasonic waves and stopped responding to them.

Pets to the rescue

Animals: cats and dogs can reduce the number of rodents in the house and garden. But not all cats cope with this task - pets do not always have the desire to catch mice. The hunter's instinct is more pronounced in street cats. In order for them to help you remove mice, you need to feed them, thereby attracting them to the site.

To combat mice and rats, hunting dogs are suitable: dachshund, fox terrier.

People's Councils

You can get rid of rodents on your own using folk remedies.

Here are some of them:

• wood ash - it is scattered in the house or in the garden;
• a kind of poison that is obtained by mixing flour, sugar and soda;
• a mixture of flour and dry putty (1:1) with the addition of water and salt - roll it into balls and place it near the burrows, placing water next to it;
• treating corners and secluded places in the house with mint alcohol (if someone is in the room all the time, the treatment is not carried out so that people do not inhale mint too much).

The easiest way to combat rodents is to plant certain plants with a strong odor (mint, wormwood, tomatoes) in the area.

Contacting special services

Exterminating rodents on your own cannot guarantee their complete elimination. To ensure accurate disposal, it is recommended to contact special services.

The use of special means guarantees the complete elimination of rodents. Services use several options for controlling mice:

1. Food poisoning substances, a bait is used, which is located in the center of the poisonous substance, the mice eat them and die.
2. Gaseous toxic substances, used in hard-to-reach areas, have a toxic structure. The death of the animal occurs from carbon dioxide as a result of suffocation.

Fighting mice and other rodents on the site: step-by-step instructions and tips

The most effective method of getting rid of rodents in the country is to involve specialists from sanitary services. If disinfection is not possible, you should try other methods:

Use a standard mousetrap. It is effective to set several traps at once. You need to place a fragrant bait in them: lard, sausage, cheese or boiled potatoes are good for this purpose. Use of glue traps. The composition must be applied to the selected surface (boards or cardboard base), and a tasty bait must be placed behind it. Getting closer to the food, the animal gets stuck in the sticky mass with no way to get out. This method allows you to catch a lot of rodents, but its disadvantage is the noise: mice caught in a glue trap begin to squeak loudly. Another effective way to combat rodents is the presence of a cat.

It is important to take into account that the hunting instinct of a domestic animal may be dulled. Using live traps - beer bottles that are attached at an angle

The barley and hop aroma will attract rodents, but they will not be able to get out due to the slippery glass surface.

Important! Mice must be released from live traps at least 10 km from the summer cottage, otherwise the animals may return

Protecting your home from rodents

All the means and methods of getting rid of rodents discussed above, even if effective, have one common drawback - they are all temporary. Rats can be poisoned, they can be caught, sometimes they can be scared away, but if they once appeared in a private house, it means they have found their way here, and with a high probability their brothers will come here in the future along the same path.

Therefore, once you have managed to get rid of rats in the house, you need to do everything possible to prevent them from getting here in the future. To do this you should:

1. Find out how pests get into the house. There can be many options - rats and mice can dig holes under the foundation in the basement, gnaw through insulation, make holes in wooden walls, climb through open doors or through ventilation pipes, enter through sewers;

2. Block the entry routes for rodents - close the ventilation with a metal mesh, lay a mesh under the floor in the basement (if the floor is earthen), use materials that rats do not chew as insulation for the house (for example, they do chew on building rods, so you can use expanded clay, foam glass, ecowool);
3. Take measures to ensure that there are fewer rats near your home. It is useful to keep a rat-catcher cat in the yard (and let it into the house from time to time), apply the same protective measures in the barn and summer kitchen as in the house, and take care of the garden and vegetable garden so that rodents do not feel at ease here even in summer. In such conditions, the likelihood that pests will approach the house is significantly reduced.

Finally, in the most difficult situations, you can call specialists from pest control services to help. Their services are quite expensive (at least if it’s a really good service), but when the rats are really overwhelming and you can’t get rid of them yourself, or there’s no desire to do it, professionals usually solve the problem fairly quickly.

If you have personal experience fighting rats in a private home, be sure to share your story by leaving a review at the bottom of this page.

Interesting video: making rodent traps from improvised materials

Folk remedies

Folk remedies can be used quite successfully against rodents

It is especially important not to use poisons in your living space if you have pets or small children.

The most commonly used plants for destruction are:

the poisonous autumn colchicum allows you to quickly get rid of rodents, and to prepare a poisoned bait you need to grind 15 g of plant seeds and add about 500 g of baking flour. Mix the mixture thoroughly and sprinkle the bait in areas where the pest is concentrated;

The best thing, according to many, is wild rosemary foliage, which contains many essential oils. Plant materials need to be laid out near the animal’s burrows, and the bait should be periodically replaced with new, fresher foliage.

The best folk remedy for rodents, according to many, is wild rosemary foliage, which contains many essential oils

Signs of mice

If there are mice in a house where no people have lived for a long time, then the presence of rodents will be obvious and easily identifiable. You will immediately feel a specific “mouse” smell, see excrement on the floor and find quite a lot of nests. The latter is not surprising, because a characteristic feature of any rodents is their fertility. If you spend a lot of time in the country, you can spot a mouse as soon as it appears

Pay attention to the following characteristic signs:

• the appearance of several holes of small diameter (significantly smaller than rat holes);
• presence of traces of rodent activity;
• chewed foods that have nutritional value, or traces of mouse teeth on food packages;
• periodic weak grinding sounds due to the fact that mice are gnawing furniture, wood and even insulation in order to build their nests from them.

If you find signs of mice living in your home, you should immediately start getting rid of them. These rodents are carriers of many diseases, including leptospirosis, hemorrhagic fever and hepatitis E. Remember that during your delay, they will multiply, which means it will be more difficult to remove them.

One of the signs of rodents in the countryside is the presence of mouse nests

Prevention of rats

Unfortunately, simply keeping the house tidy and clean is not always enough. To protect your home from rodents, try attaching a fine grille to all ventilation ducts, and also seal all the cracks and seal the water supply system. It is best to store food in containers with tight lids, and dispose of garbage as quickly as possible so that pests do not have access to food.

You can take action already at the stage of laying the foundation of your private house or cottage - install a fine-mesh mesh vertically in the cement and seal all small holes.

If you live in an apartment, remember that many of the listed herbal products can be grown even on the balcony and used both to scent the room and to repel rats.

Methods by which you can calculate the appearance of mice

If you are absent from the house for a long time, the presence of mice in it will be quite obvious: excrement, nests will be found, and an unpleasant odor will appear. However, if you are constantly present at the dacha, you can determine the presence of rodents by characteristic signs:

1. Chewed food supplies, walls, books.
2. According to the small holes discovered.
3. Pet behavior. They will constantly try to track someone down.
4. Damaged clothes.
5. By a regular strange sound, a grinding sound.
6. Damaged bark on trees.
7. Chewed vegetables, seedlings, fruits.

Mice reproduce quite quickly and therefore, if at least one sign matches, you should quickly take any action or regularly carry out preventive measures before they get started.

Precautionary measures

Mice will never choose your home if you take preventive measures. These tips will help greatly reduce the chances of a mouse infestation in your home:

• Seal all cracks and holes in the floor, walls and ceiling. Install metal grilles on the ventilation holes. Remember - a mouse can fit through even a very small gap.
• Install screens on windows that are constantly open. Although mice are capable of gnawing a hole in the mesh, they will still be somewhat puzzled by such an obstacle.
• Store all foods and grains in airtight containers made of glass, thick plastic or metal. Avoid using cardboard boxes for these purposes.
• Wet-clean the floor regularly, because even a few forgotten crumbs are a strong magnet for mice. When wet cleaning, it is advisable to pour a little white into the water.

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"Folk" methods

Ash

Mice cannot tolerate it organically. There are more than enough products of combustion at any dacha, since even the simplest stove for burning waste is required on the site, and often there is also a barbecue (read how to make it here). Ash is scattered everywhere - in the house and in outbuildings (under the floorboards), under the porch (veranda, gazebo) and so on. That is, everywhere where rodents can live. To prevent voles from entering the area, do not forget about the perimeter. An ash path along the fence will not be superfluous.

Sharp objects

This method is quite effective if holes are found in baseboards, walls (in the floor area) or other places. You can pour broken glass into these mouse passages, insert a bunch of nails or other sharp objects. If there are thickets of burdock near the site, then its thorns are also an option. This method is convenient because, unlike ash, the repellent does not have to be constantly renewed.

Plants

Mice really don't like the smells of many flora representatives. Some of them can even be specially planted on the site. But dried herbs are no less effective in controlling voles. They cover not only the rooms around the perimeter, but also the outside of the house.

The stems and leaves of plants such as black root, mint, wormwood, black currant, elderberry, chamomile, spurge, garlic, and hazel grouse perform their protective function perfectly. Although they are not the only ones. Every region has herbs that are good at repelling rodents. They make brooms and lumps from them, grind them into powder (dry) and lay them out along the paths of possible movement of animals. Including inside cabinets, drawers, and so on.

The only thing that needs to be taken into account is that you need to process the entire area, and not just, for example, 1 room in which the mouse was noticed.

How can you tell if you have mice?

There are a number of signs by which you can easily and accurately recognize that gray pests have appeared in your home:

• You will notice small holes on the floor in the area of ​​the baseboards, although none of the household members did anything to the baseboards. Often, in the indicated area, you can also notice paper, or rather shredded paper;
• an unpleasant musty smell will appear in one or several rooms at once;
• you accidentally find mouse droppings on the floor;
• Extraneous sounds will be heard (grinding, rustling). These sounds are heard both at night and during the day;
• If you have a cat or cat living in your house, then the pet’s strange and unusual behavior can also indicate the presence of mice somewhere nearby.