How To Get Rid of Mice | EVERYTHING You NEED to Know

hello everyone it's chris here today i'm going to talk to you about proper rodent control and there's going to be a lot of information here and i know you want to skip down to the good stuff where i talk about traps and poisons and whatnot but it's important you watch this video the whole way through because traps and poisons alone will not help you effectively get rid of your rodent problem and it certainly won't help prevent them from coming back after the infestation has gone away so please watch the whole way through without further ado let's go ahead and get started all right no doubt you clicked on this video because there's some sign you saw that made you believe you have a mouse problem so let's talk about the signs of infestation how you can identify that it is actually a mouse problem all the time i have customers coming to me telling me you know they have mouse poop and i have to tell them it's not mouse pooped it's actually something else so let's talk about different types of poo which is probably the easiest way to identify a mouse mouse poo it's about a quarter of an inch long has pointed edges and there's usually a lot of it mice poop about 50 times a day you know after about a week they could potentially have 350 poops around just from one mouth so a lot of times people think they have a massive infestation of mice when really it's just a few mice they poop a lot so it can be deceiving other types of poo that you might have confused with mice there's there's actually skink or lizard poo if you find the poo in the garage and it's about an inch long and three quarters of an inch long it has a white calcium deposit at the end of it that's actually a skink or a lizard that is not mice that is not rodents at all if it's in the attic and there's like a pile of poo and it's a neat pile um it's probably not a mouse or a rat or a rodent they don't poop in neat piles it's probably a bat bat poo looks a lot like rodent poo because bats are essentially like flying rodents so it's all in the pile look up it's probably where the bat is perching and it's actually a bat problem you have not a rodent problem rats poo the poo of rat is around three quarters of an inch long can even be smaller maybe half an inch long usually has blunted edges also if it's in the attic it could potentially be a chipmunk chipmunks like to get in the attic too and it'll be big sometimes a different color like a shade of green and that's a different problem altogether uh mice poo is much smaller than that and if it's very small um like about a millimeter and a lot of it maybe it looks like somebody dumped crushed pepper somewhere those are cockroaches cockroaches you know i don't know maybe even usually they're going to be in the attic those smoky brown roaches or wood roaches um so yeah that's roaches if there is piles of seeds potentially in your crawl space area maybe on the sill plate mice tend to bring their seeds and eat in the same spot every day so you might see piles of shells of seeds in a nice neat little pile and that's also a sign that you have a mouse problem and of course if there's bite marks and nibble marks and stuff in your food and holes in your bags that could also be could be a couple problems but if you know this mouse poo around the food as well they can you can rest assured it's definitely a mouse problem now your pets may be acting strange if your dog is staring at the wall or your cat is staring under the you know fridge or oven or whatever now those are also signs you might have a mouse problem there might be a mouse trapped under there you might hear them at night mice are nocturnal so you might hear them biting gnawing scratching chewing they could be fighting other mice they make a lot of weird noises and if it's at night you could potentially be having mouse problems running around in your walls your crawl space your attic yeah okay so let's talk about the biology of mice and their natural tendencies and habits and how they're possibly getting into your house let's start with where they live first of all they live in tiny quarter-sized burrows generally at the base of dense vegetation or bushes so if you have thick vegetation around the house a lot of bushes there's probably some burrows at the bottom of there also these bushes provide them a food source and naturally they eat like seeds from plants weeds they also eat bugs thick foliage will be abundant in bugs and there'll be seeds also thick vegetation uh you know mice are prey animals and they need a place to hide from birds and snakes so generally they like to live under dense bushes and foliage plants to shade them from praying birds so if you have a lot of thick vegetation surrounding your house it's going to be a an area mice are going to you know come to your house because they seek refuge from all these other predator animals now once these mice have made their home around your house eventually they're going to figure out a way to get inside your house because they're curious and they want some more food if you have a tree with a branch you know touching the roof well mice are incredible climbers and they'll climb up that tree under that limb onto your roof and get it through the attic if you have an older house or maybe your crawl space door isn't on super secure or you got holes in your crawl space vents mice can fit through holes and cracks the size of a dime and so if you have any sort of area that's bigger than a dime leading to your crawl space they're going to get in and then once they're in the crawl space i mean it's already too late they're going to find a way up through a pipe somewhere to get inside of your kitchen or somewhere now once they find a route into your house they use that route pretty much every day they you know if it works why if you know don't fix it if it's not broken right once they find her out they use the same one they come back to their nest they wake up they use the same route again to get to your pantry or whatever and they poop a lot like i've already discussed they poop about 50 times a day so these routes can easily be identified because there's going to be poop all along the route now mice are super agile and they're actually pretty clever and some traps don't work because these mice can actually long jump about two feet and they'll jump over a trap if it's suspicious and they don't want to you know test it or step on it so even placing traps in the corners of walls and everything you might not just not be catching mice because you got a clever mouse and he's going to jump over your trap also mice can go a very long time without water they can get enough water from the foods that they eat strangely enough they can go four months without an actual water source because they're incredibly resilient you know lack of water is not an issue for them okay so now we're to the good stuff we're gonna talk about poisons and traps let's start with snap traps snap traps are probably the most ethical way of killing mice when they step on it it comes down really quick breaks their neck they die instantly so very ethical you do have to use a lot of snap traps one snap trap's probably not going to do the trick you're going to need like a lot you need to place them in a lot of different places being able to place many snap traps without putting them in the open so that your cat or dog doesn't lick them or you accidentally step on one it's a little bit of a struggle but that's the way these traps need to be used and you know i support them i like them you just have to use a lot glue traps not really the most ethical probably the easiest to use you just and cheapest to use they're very cheap you buy them you close up the little box or you just lay them you know flat and then you put them in the on the side next to your baseboard or under the fridge or oven and they step on it they get stuck uh i mean not very ethical you know it's a creature he's gonna step on it he won't be able to move he's going to die of thirst and hunger i've seen mice gnaw their own legs off that you know they get a leg stuck and they'll chew it off so they can get away it's just a really sad way for any sort of creature to go big or small and i generally really don't like using glue traps some customers you know request them specifically and i just you know i die a little bit inside because it hurts me that an animal have to die that way now catch and release traps a lot of people you know don't want to kill the mouse at all they want to you know they want it to die a nice natural death in the wild where it can get eaten alive like a regular animal you catch it in these little catch and release traps and you put it in your backyard and what happens he comes back the very next day mice you know they're not gonna you're not gonna learn their lesson and be like oh you got me i'm not i'm not gonna go in there again no they're just going to be super smart about coming in the second time and they're never gonna step on one of those catching release traps again they're gonna jump over it they're gonna go around it they certainly won't go anywhere near it the best thing to do with one of these cats and release traps is after you catch him you really have to like drive down the road a mile so there's absolutely no way this mouse will ever find his way back to your house and then he will die a natural death of getting alive by a bird or something and you can both rest happy poison is my favorite use it's reasonably it's ultra effective it's probably the most effective it's pretty ethical it's actually shown that they've done lab tests on mice and it shows that most of these baits and poisons they actually die with no pain or suffering whatsoever they just kind of go to sleep and then they don't ever wake up i like it for that reason also it's incredibly irresistible the formulas that these laboratories put together to attract these mice and after they eat it it's very effective they die and yeah now not all poisons are created equal if you're buying your poisons from the store that's pretty much good for the garbage can you can just throw that directly away into your garbage can because any crap you get from the store is just crap and waste of money what you really need is contract contract bait blocks this is the stuff the professionals use and they use it because it works and you can just buy it yourself instead of paying very high charges to know for a professional to come out and place it you can buy it yourself online and put it out now the great thing about contract is it's not transmittable so once a mouse eats it maybe you have a cat that finds the mouse and eats the mouse afterwards your cat will not be poisoned now if you have a dog and he finds it or an animal that finds the poison it eats the poison straight up that could be a problem but there is an antidote the antidote is vitamin k1 vitamin k1 can be found in leafy greens and kale spinach you can also buy vitamin k1 and pill form from the store if you have a very big problem you might want to consider buying a outside bait station it's a big big you know container big box to hold these baits you can put it outside on the side of your foundation if you live if you have your field by you and you have a lot of field mice coming in the house this will kill the mice before they can even get a chance to get your house because they already find a food source outside these big bait boxes they'll eat the poison in there and then they'll die now it's important if you're if you're putting these blocks inside the house good placement of these blocks generally i put them behind ovens a lot of ovens you can pull out the bottom drawer and you can place it in the back behind the oven a lot of times behind ovens uh there's no baseboard and it's not sealed between the drywall and the floor so there's a big gap there and mice like to get in through there so i would check behind the oven also behind the fridge sometimes behind the dishwasher but the easiest place to put this poison is behind the oven and the mice will find it it's just important that once you place bait you know somewhere in your kitchen under the sink behind the oven whatever i don't have too much food sitting out because if you know you have a chocolate bar sitting on the counter um the mouse is liable to eat that instead of eating the blocks the bait blocks so try to have no other competing food sources you know put everything away seal it in tupperware put in something that the mice can't get to and your issue you know should be over you know pretty shortly um this poison doesn't like it's not like they eat it and they die right there um it takes you know a few days to a week to really kick in and kill them and so you might your issue might not res you know it's not this isn't this is this is not an overnight success uh it's probably going to take you know a few days to a week okay there's also ultrasonic cell machines i mean this is just this is i don't know why people buy these or fall for this you know this is obviously a gimmick don't buy it there's absolutely no clinical studies or signs that they work this is just some foreign garbage that people are trying to sell you to make a profit for themselves but it's absolutely a gimmick and there's no proof that it works also no formal data exists for repellents like clover or peppermint oil or garlic or sulfur or whatever other things you know online the google says works there's no formal data for this it's probably not going to deter a mouse it's probably just a gimmick as well but if it makes you feel better you can put this out for yourself as well when mice die they're actually you know they're really small creatures and they don't smell i run across dead mice all the time they i've never smelled anything so you don't need to worry about a mouse dying in your wall or whatever it's like sticking up your house it's they don't smell okay so now that you have used your preferred bait and trapping methods and you've rid your house of mice it's important that you you know mouse proof your house so that you don't have any more infestations and the mice don't come back in the future as we've talked about if you have dense foliage around the house keep those things trimmed up don't have any thick overgrown bushes over your foundation and everything trim it up keep trees and branches cut away from the house so that there's no limbs touching the side of your house so a mouse can't crawl up a tree and up through a window or your eaves in the roof so yeah just make sure you have proper landscaping and everything's trimmed up mice love seeds and they love bird seeds and they will absolutely climb up a bird feeder and eat the seeds out of a bird feeder so if you have a bird feeder close to your house that can lure them closer to your house it's important to put bird feeders away from the house probably around 50 feet or so i see a lot of bird feeders right up on people's houses next to their porches and stuff and that's just attracting mice to the property if you have any dog food animal food you know bird seed and you keep the seed and food in the garage a lot of people just put the bag on the garage floor well you know mice are going to find their way to your garage and they're going to get into that bag of food and they're going to eat it all so if you have bird seed and dog food in the garage make sure you store it in a container that is sealed tightly so that mice cannot find it and get into it make sure you seal up all those cracks and crevices around the house as i've discussed already mice can fit through a hole the size of a dime so make sure your crawl space door is shut perfectly with no gaps in it a lot of times if you have crawl space there's those crawl space vents and they have a wire screen on them and a lot of times there's you know the screen is damaged damaged and mice will get their way through that hole in the screen also like a lot of times wires and stuff are going through there for from the cable company or maybe your hvac system has a hose going through the foundation and it's not sealed up properly mice can find their way through there if you look under the sink where your plumbing comes through the wall if you look behind the oven and the fridge and the dishwasher you're gonna have you know plumbing coming through the wall a lot of times it's not sealed up where the uh there's no like plate or there's no you know i don't know expandy foam or whatever that goes around the pipe and so mice can crawl on top of the pipe and through the pipe in the wall to get inside your house so make sure you caulk up or seal around those pipes and the gaps on the floor like i discussed behind the oven so that mice cannot find their way through sometimes a quick fix you can just use like a mesh copper like if you go in the cleaning section in your store there's these like copper dish pads or whatever used for scrubbing um or steel wool you can just shove those into those crawl space vents or whatever small holes you see mice will be will not be able to chew through uh steel or copper and or any type of metal mesh so that's all i have for you today guys i touched on a lot you know there's a lot of information i might have missed something if you found this video helpful or useful please hit the like button it really helps with the youtube algorithm and that will help reach other people who have mouse problems and they can watch this video we'll learn something and resolve their issues as well and if you really really liked it you know you hit the subscribe button really trying to get some more followers if you like this information please think about doing that if you have any questions please drop them down in the comments i might have missed something and i'll respond to you there but with everything uh good luck i hope your issue is fixed and until next time

Channel: Chris Van

Views: 89,505

Keywords: how to get rid of mice, how to kill mice, how to trap mice, how to exterminate mice, mice control, mice in the house, best way to kill mice, kill, exterminate, fumigate, pest control, mouse, mice, rodents, pesticide, traps, trap, bait, poison, infestation, infested, crawlspace, attic, walls, best, how to, best way

Id: _sNtgcjkkl0

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021