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Extracted from "The Kitchen" Faith Durand, May 12, 2009 10:30AM
- Mice in the kitchen! Have you ever had this problem? This is not a pleasant topic, and we'll be the first to admit that. But it's one that many of us have to deal with at one time or another, and we are curious: if you've had mice in the kitchen, how did you get rid of them?
- • Do everything you can stop entry in the first place. Make sure the little holes and gaps behind your cupboards and sink are closed off. This is hard! Mice can fit through holes as small as a dime.
- So I spent a few hours stuffing steel wool tightly down these holes to block them. I used a chopstick to really shove it into the tiny spaces. (Although I didn't protect my hands enough; they're all scratched up now from the deceptively soft steel wool!) Mice apparently hate steel wool; it hurts their paws and teeth and they can't get through it. I stuffed it through very tightly, adding drops of mint oil, too, which according to some accounts is also a deterrent. (Mice are allergic to mint, apparently.)
- Steel wool packed tightly into
holes along the walls and in cupboards will prevent mice from
entering a room. It's one of the only materials that they find
too sharp to poke their noses through. Buy it in bulk and stuff
liberally and tightly (use a pair of scissors to help pack it
in).
In the year that we lived in a shack in the country, we had traps, exterminators and cats. While the cats caught the mice at first, the only thing that kept the mice out for good was the steel wool.
posted by k1princesa on May 12th 2009 at 10:51am
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- As others have said, steel wool
works wonders! Put it in every small corner you can think of.
We found a dead mice in our sink; he drowned because we left
water in it and another one was hiding under the stove. We put
steel wool there too. ...
posted by groupie on May 12th 2009 at 2:46pm
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- We lived in an old farmhouse in
the country for a while, and it was a constant battle to keep
the field mice out of the kitchen. I hated to kill them, so we
adopted a 2-strike strategy. We placed no-kill traps along
walls (mice will almost always run along a wall instead of
through the center of a room). When we caught one, we took him
way out in the field and spray painted his tail red. If we
caught a mouse in the house again with a red tail, we put down
some snap traps.
We also filled every nook and cranny with steel wool, which seems to be the best way to stop them. And we moved most dry goods to the refrigerator and only used the pantry for mouse-proof canned goods. A sealed tupperware bin will also keep them out.
Finally, wipe down your kitchen counter and stove really well every day. There are probably food bits or drips that you don't see but that a mouse will certainly smell.
posted by michelle123 on May 13th 2009 at 9:19am
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- When we stayed in Philadelphia
in University city we had mice trouble in the fall. Since I am
really scared of them , I was determined to get rid of them. I
informed the landlord and we set about plugging all the holes
with steel wool.
Then I threw out all the food items which looked tampered with. We set up traps , with peanut butter. This helped us get rid of a lot of mice. I dint go about humane traps, since I consider them vermin to be got rid of. Glue traps worked well for me, and when it caught one my husband would get rid of it for me.
posted by nerd2003 on May 13th 2009 at 9:22am
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