Have you recently begun hearing scratching noises coming from the walls of your home?
If so, have you considered the possibility that you may have mice in your walls, and not a poltergeist?
At any rate, learning how to get rid of the mice in the walls is a piece of cake. We’ll show you how.
Step 1: Identify Where They Got Into Your Crawl Space
If there are mice in your walls and crawl spaces, they had to come in from somewhere. Maybe multiple “somewheres.” That said, searching crawlspaces, attics, and foundations are a great places to start.
You want to look for holes as small as a U.S. quarter or even smaller. Of course, larger holes obviously afford mice access as well. However, the smaller holes are the ones they feel safest using. Finding these access points is the first major step in getting rid of mice from your walls.
Tracking down the access point is essential as it will allow you to draw a line in the sand and declare war. Blocking the holes, after tossing some poison inside, and placing some traps around, is a good start.
3 Ways to Get Rid of Mice in Your Walls
After you locate one or more entry-ways that mice are using to get inside of your crawl spaces, you will be able to take the fight to them. This includes everything from using traps, to cats, poison, and mouse-sized rodent-seeking killer robots (haha… had you going there for a second didn’t I?).
1. Traps
Our first option is the trusty mouse trap. Without sounding bias straight away, this option is by far your best chance of avoiding the problems mentioned above.
Related: Guide How To Set A Mouse Trap
You must be cunning in your placement and devilishly seductive with your bait. You can do the latter of the two incredibly cheap, and may already own this tempting treat.
Peanut butter is irresistible to some humans, nevermind a hungry mouse. Setting a trap using bait that will draw the mice out of their nests and darkened unreachable spaces is a key.
Most traps are very cheap, and also fairly effective. Their downfall however is not any mechanical issue, rather the human error of total reliance on a job finished. Traps must be checked and cleared daily in the case of mice occupation.
A trap will only catch one mouse in the very best scenario, if only set once.
Traps will do the job, but as long as you abide by the following rules:
- Set multiple traps
- Set them in potential run areas and darkened spaces
- Bait the traps with attractive enough treats to draw them out
- Check traps often
- Clear and reset all traps until you are confident you have culled the total population
- Try different mouse baits
Even leaving the odd trap here and there will go a long way as a precautionary measure for prevention of infestation and to remove any rogue mice you may have missed
2. Poisons
This may seem like the best method, leave a delicious treat which the mice can not ignore, containing poison, then hey presto, your mouse problem is over. In truth, it is naive to see it going that straight forward.
With poison, one of the most common problems in utilising it within your home, where the mice have access to all areas, is the speed of extermination. Because it is not instantaneous, it does not leave a mouse in a position to be removed. Realistically, what is stopping the mouse from digesting the poison, then scurrying away to only befall its poison whilst in an air vent, tight crawl space or deep in the wall? Nothing…
Premeditated extermination choices will save you hundreds of dollars by avoiding added work, such as the removal of the decaying pests. The option of poisons in this particular case is one that may be futile, and cause more damage than it solves.
3. Create A Containment Area (Trap)
If they are deep in the walls and you know where they run frequently, you can even create a faux environment trap.
Giving mice a sense of security is one of the best methods you can use. Although it is not for those shy of a bit of handy work. Drilling in your own walls may get messy if you don’t know what your doing, so I do recommend finding a helping hand who may understand structural jobs such as this maybe even a plasterer who can cover up the damage with ease after.
The trick is to drill a small hole in what may be a common run spot, or any wall that you think they may make their home. Then place a secure box containing a trap alongside the wall and drill a corresponding hole in the box to create a false environment. A cardboard box and the smallest DIY skill set will do the trick, especially if your baiting using a tempting treat.
Disposing of Dead Mice
Once you’ve successfully captured or killed the mice occupying your walls, its time to take the trash out. Literally.
Wearing gloves, place the dead mice in plastic bags, double bagged, and outside in a garbage container (or bury them). After that, head back inside to clean things up.
Spray disinfectant and mop up around the area and you’re all done. Make sure to toss those gloves away outside or in a double bag as well, you never know what germs you might have picked up during the battle.
If you’re left with a bad smell, you can check out this guide here
How Do Mice Get Into The Walls?
On first hearing mice in the walls, it almost seems abstract that mice could be manifesting their small societies within the literal confines of yours.
But the walls of a house create a great unseen network for mice to roam free and undetected. Once they have found entrance to the house, they will have the ability to reach every crevice of your home, all whilst right under your nose.
This doesn’t limit them to just the walls, as you can imagine. Once entrance it granted, the mice will seek as a sustainable home for the long run. The usual grounds for such an environment are either in the high up lofts which rarely see human interference, or the opposite end, down in the dark basement, perfect for rodent life to flourish in freedom.
Challenging their authority can be a tough and arduous process, but doing so from the first hint of their existence in your home is imperative to ensure you can mitigate any damage to your property and health.
A systematic front of protrusive extermination and permeation of their unnatural new habitat to remove all sustainable aspects of it, will be your only way to remove these pests from the borderline invisible housing they inhabit within your walls.
How Concerned Should You Be?
The unintentional harm caused by mice is due to the clashing of interests between the homeowner and the mice themselves. Being relatively unclean, they will defecate almost anywhere (food included), eat whatever they want (without cleaning up after themselves) and will ruin the homes foundations and furniture solely to make a comfortable nest.
All these things can harm you and your house, whether it be through potential diseases and bacteria carried by the mice or superficial damage done to your house resulting in infrastructural weakness, there are repercussions to allowing them to live with you.
Although we think we have left the bubonic plague in the 14th century, its biggest promoters still infest our homes, and the nightmarish visions of diseases still exists.
In the U.S.A alone, over the last 18 years, there have been on average seven cases of the plague per year, the CDC reports, ranging from 1-17.
Rodents are known to carry a multitude of diseases, of which can be deadly to humans in some cases, the plague is one of the less common diseases out of the bunch.
Another, omnipresent and almost unavoidable disease, if brought into your house with infestation, is Hantavirus. The reason it claims this notoriety is down to its ability to spread in multiple ways and can be extremely damaging if left unabated.
Transmission of this disease, as well as many others, can have multiple outlets:
- Rodent urine interaction
- Droppings interaction
- Undetected transmission into food from feeding mice
- Airbourne in cases where nests have been disturbed
So i’m sure the severity of having mice in your house should be clearer by now, if not already.
In that case, how do we tackle them once they have integrated into the walls of your home?
Final Thoughts
Mice in the walls of your home may be a discouraging enemy, as they are hidden and hard to get at but it is crucial that you remove them as swiftly as possible. Indeed, you should take every measure necessary to ensure the safety and security of your home and health.
Locating the entry hole, or area, the mice are using to access your home, blocking it, and eliminating any critters that stick around is the deal in a nut-shell.