5 Effective Strategies to Prevent Mice in Your Kitchen

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Getting rid of rodents can be a painstaking process if you’re trying to keep them out of your home without hurting them. It’s no wonder though, considering many of us grew up with cartoons like “Tom and Jerry,” watching the endless battles of clever mice outsmart their diligent hunters. Mice can be witty little creatures, but this is a lot less cute when they’re tearing through your pantry and leaving droppings on the floor.

As prey animals, they have keen senses of smell and hearing to track down food and avoid bigger animals. Mice are skilled at jumping and running to hide from danger, and they’re also nocturnal, making it more difficult to see their activity during the daytime. These characteristics allow mice to invade spaces in your home without a challenge. The best thing you can do is create an environment that doesn’t appeal to them, and we’ve put together a list of the safest ways to repel rodents.

The main reasons mice are in your home are food and shelter. By cutting off the food supply in your pantry and cabinets, they won’t have a reason to stick around. Mice can chew through cardboard and thin plastic, so it’s a good idea to transfer items like cereal or crackers to more durable containers. Any items that mice have already infiltrated need to be disposed of immediately, as they can carry hazardous germs.

Mason jars are already the safest choice for freezing, and they make for equally good closed and sturdy containers to store things in the pantry, like oats, grains, and any other food that comes in thin packaging. If you’re storing additional items in coolers, make sure they are thick and have tight lids (not styrofoam) to keep mice out. Canned items like beer and soup are probably fine to leave alone, but make sure to sanitize the lids before using them.

Storing all your food either in the fridge or a sturdy container in the pantry isn’t always enough — the smell of food alone can lure mice into your home. Getting rid of lingering food crumbs and taking out the trash regularly is an important part of the process, because mice can chew through trash bags. 

Run and then clean your garbage disposal regularly to eliminate odors, and avoid leaving dishes in the sink overnight (besides, leaving pots and pans dirty for hours is a mistake that can shorten the life of your cookware). Sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping will make your kitchen floors sparkle and eliminate sneaky crumbs, further helping to keep mice away.

Rodents have sensitive olfactory systems, and this makes certain smells very unpleasant to them. They dislike some spices, such as cayenne pepper and cinnamon. You can sprinkle these around your kitchen on their own, or mix them with a liquid, such as vinegar or rubbing alcohol, to be the carrier. Just soak some cotton balls in the solution and place them around your home. 

Mice also hate peppermint, , which contains menthol — the component that’s responsible for mint making our mouths feel cold. Peppermint tastes and smells refreshing to humans and terrible to mice, so consider using an essential oil diffuser or looking for cleaning agents that have peppermint in them.

Mice nest in dark and concealed spaces, meaning you’ll need to search through all the nooks and crannies of your home to find where they’re entering from. This might require pulling out the refrigerator and oven to look for cracks in the walls or vents. Check the corners of the pantry and cabinets, look under the sink, and inspect any other doorways. 

Mice often sneak in through cracks around doors and pipes as well, and you can seal these off with steel wool and a strong silicone sealant. Most importantly, the kitchen should be kept free of clutter where they can burrow.

If nothing else works, there’s only one non-lethal way to deal with mice that are already in the house, and it’s by using a trap. For those with pets, it’s a good idea to order a catch-and-release trap online because while domesticated cats and dogs might be good at sniffing out mice, it’s not safe for them to come into contact with the rodents, regardless of whether these little creatures are alive or not. 

Catch-and-release traps offer a safer alternative for all parties than the traditional pedal trap, which poses a risk of snapping down on your fingers or your pet’s paws by accident, not to mention killing mice. Use some peanut butter and spread a little bit inside the trap as bait. Once the mouse is inside, you can release it back into its natural habitat.