How to Get Rid of Mice
Get rid of mice with snap traps set on their routes, clean up droppings the way the CDC advises, and seal the quarter-inch gaps they use to get in.
House mice are active mostly at night, so you work from the droppings and gnaw marks they leave rather than from sightings. They keep to the same routes along walls, so traps set on those routes catch them, and the gaps they use to get in can be sealed.
You will end up with the mice confirmed, traps on the routes they actually run, droppings cleaned up without putting virus particles in the air, and their way in sealed. Plan on at least 15 days of trapping, the minimum the CDC gives.
Snap traps, which the CDC recommends over glue traps and live traps. Buy at least six. Peanut butter works well as bait. The University of California's pest program (linked in step 3) notes that the best bait is often whatever the mice are already eating, and flags peanut butter as an allergy risk, so use something else if anyone in your home has a peanut allergy. A flashlight for inspecting dark areas. Steel wool and caulk for sealing entry points. Rubber or plastic gloves for handling traps and cleaning droppings. Household bleach or an EPA-registered disinfectant, paper towels, and plastic bags for cleanup (step 3 explains why there is no broom or vacuum on this list).
Confirm you have mice and not rats
Mouse droppings are small, about the size of a grain of rice, and dark brown or black. Rat droppings are significantly larger, about the size of a raisin. This distinction matters because rats require different trap sizes and strategies. Check behind the stove, under the sink, in pantry corners, along baseboards, and inside drawers. Also look for gnaw marks on food packaging and shredded paper or fabric (nesting material), and notice any musky smell, which the University of California's pest program links to large or long-term infestations.
Good to know: Sprinkle a thin layer of flour or baby powder along a baseboard where you suspect activity. Check it in the morning for tiny footprints. This confirms the travel route and shows you where to place traps.
Set snap traps along travel routes
Keep every trap out of reach of children and pets. Behind the stove and refrigerator and at the back of cabinets and drawers work well, and the CDC lists all four as trap sites. Place snap traps perpendicular to the wall with the trigger end touching the baseboard. Mice prefer to run next to walls for safety, so they meet the trigger as they follow their usual path. Use peanut butter as bait. Apply a pea-sized amount to the trigger plate and press it into the grooves so the mouse has to work at it rather than licking it off without triggering the trap. Set at least six traps. The University of California's pest program notes that a house mouse seldom travels more than 30 feet from its nest, so space traps no more than about 10 feet apart along walls where you found droppings or activity. The CDC's trapping advice matches this layout, with the baited end against the wall so the trap forms a T with it. Skip glue traps and live traps. The CDC's reason is that they scare the mouse into urinating, which raises your own chance of getting sick.
Check and reset traps daily
Check every trap each morning. Wearing gloves, spray the dead mouse and the trap with disinfectant and let it soak for 5 minutes, as the CDC cleanup instructions describe. Seal the mouse in a plastic bag, put that bag inside a second one, and throw it in a covered outdoor bin. A snap trap can be reused once it has soaked in disinfectant, been rinsed, and dried. Re-bait and reset it in the same spot. If a trap has not caught anything after 3 days, move it to a different location along the same wall. The CDC notes that house mice are less cautious than rats and tend to be trapped quickly, so a trap that stays empty is sitting off their route. Keep trapping for at least a week after the last catch. The CDC's trapping page says to keep baited traps out for at least 15 days, and longer if you are still catching mice. The reason for patience is breeding. According to the University of California's pest management program, a female house mouse can have 5 to 10 litters a year of about 5 or 6 pups each, and her young can start breeding at 5 to 6 weeks old.
Heads up: Never touch a dead mouse or droppings with bare hands, and never sweep or vacuum droppings, urine, or nesting material. The CDC warns that doing so can put tiny droplets containing viruses into the air. Before you clean a room, shed, or cabin with droppings, open the doors and windows and leave for 30 minutes, as the CDC advises. Then spray the mess with a bleach solution (1 part bleach to 9 parts water) or an EPA-registered disinfectant until it is very wet, let it soak for 5 minutes, then wipe it up with paper towels and mop the area. Wash your gloved hands before taking the gloves off, and your bare hands after. On hantavirus, the Minnesota Department of Health says the common house mouse does not carry it. The CDC names the deer mouse as a spreader of the hantavirus that causes illness in the United States, and deer mice turn up in cabins, farm buildings, and sheds. Unless you are sure which mouse you have, clean every mess this way.
Seal every entry point
Traps only deal with the mice already inside, so this is the step that stops new ones replacing them. Walk the perimeter of your home, inside and out, looking for any gap a quarter inch or wider. The CDC describes it as a hole the width of a pencil, and that is enough for a mouse. Check where pipes enter walls, around dryer vents, along the foundation, at door sweeps, and around window frames. Never plug a gap with foam alone, because the University of California's pest program lists expanding foam among the materials mice gnaw through. Fill small gaps with steel wool first, then put caulk or expanding foam around it to hold it in place. For larger gaps, including around pipes, the CDC lists hardware cloth (wire mesh), lath screen, cement, or metal sheeting. Check the garage and laundry room too. Indoors, the CDC's checklist adds spots that are easy to skip, including behind appliances, under sinks and washing machines, around water heater and furnace pipes, floor drains, attics, and crawl spaces. Outdoors, it adds the eaves, soffits, and roof gables, plus every hole for electrical, plumbing, cable, and gas lines.
Remove food sources and nesting material
Store all dry goods (cereal, rice, pasta, flour, pet food) in airtight hard-sided containers. Mice can chew through cardboard and thin plastic bags. Take out trash daily and use a trash can with a tight-fitting lid. Clean up crumbs and spills immediately, especially behind and under appliances. Remove clutter from the garage, attic, and basement. Mice love nesting in cardboard boxes, old newspapers, and fabric piles. Replace cardboard storage boxes with plastic bins with lids. Put pet food away after meals and do not leave food or water bowls out overnight, as the CDC advises.
Monitor and prevent long term
After the traps stop catching and you have sealed all entry points, leave two or three traps set in high-risk areas (behind the stove, under the sink) as early warning devices. Check them weekly. Inspect your foundation and exterior walls once a season for new gaps. Cut back plants that touch or climb the walls. The University of California's pest program calls house mice excellent climbers, and a shrub against the wall gives them a way up to gaps near the roofline.
If you are still catching mice after 15 days, look for a gap you missed. Go back through the indoor and outdoor spots in step 4, re-check every patch you made, and read the FAQ below on when to call a professional. If fresh droppings show up in a room you had cleared, set traps there again and look for a gap around the nearest pipe or vent. If you find roaches behind the appliances while you are sealing, our guide on how to get rid of roaches uses the same steel wool and caulk.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
No. The University of California's pest program states that high-frequency electronic devices are not effective. In May 2001 the FTC sent warning letters to more than 60 manufacturers and retailers of ultrasonic pest-control devices, telling them they needed competent and reliable scientific evidence for their claims. The same announcement describes the agency's earlier complaints, which alleged that rodents become accustomed to ultrasound and return to their nesting and feeding areas with the device still running. Extension guidance agrees. Nebraska Extension reports little evidence that electronic, sound, magnetic, or vibrating devices drive established mice out of buildings. Save your money for snap traps and steel wool.
Traps are better for home use. Poison (rodenticide) works, but it creates secondary problems. The University of California's pest guidance notes that poison often leaves mice dying inside the structure, which can mean inside a wall or ceiling you cannot open when the smell starts. Poisoned mice can also be eaten by pets, hawks, or neighborhood cats, transferring the poison up the food chain. Snap traps give you a confirmed kill in a known location with no secondary poisoning risk. If you do use bait, know what you are buying. The EPA limits consumer rodenticides to bromethalin, chlorophacinone, and diphacinone, sold in ready-to-use bait stations. The stronger second-generation anticoagulants are registered only for professional pest control, because they pose greater risks to animals that eat the bait once or eat a poisoned mouse. The CDC's advice is to save poison or bait stations for infestations that persist, follow the label exactly, and keep bait out of reach of children and pets.
A single sighting tells you very little, so judge by the evidence instead. Clean up the droppings you find, then count the new ones that appear over the next 24 hours. Nebraska Extension puts one house mouse at about 50 to 75 droppings a day. At that rate, 200 new droppings in a day means at least 3 mice, so add traps along every wall where the new droppings appear.
Yes. Mice are excellent climbers. They can scale rough vertical surfaces like brick, wood siding, and stucco. They can also jump 10 to 12 inches up onto a flat surface and squeeze through gaps as small as a quarter inch. Upper-floor entry points include where the roofline meets the wall, gaps around attic vents, and openings where cables or pipes enter the building. Do not limit your inspection to ground level.
Call a professional if you are still catching mice past the CDC's 15-day trapping window despite consistent trapping and sealing, if you suspect the infestation is in the walls or attic where you cannot reach it, if you find rat-sized droppings (different pest, different approach), or if there are health concerns like a family member with a compromised immune system. The CDC adds one more case for a professional, which is evidence of rodents in your heating and cooling ducts.
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