Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Eco Friendly Solution To Keeping Mice Outside of Your House

With the chilly temperatures of Fall showing up these days, I thought it was time to post this natural solution to ridding your house, garage, etc. of the mice that have a habit of deciding that they want to set up winter residence in your home. Late one evening last Fall, as I was walking down the hallway on my way to bed that night, I heard the distinct scratching and nibbling sound of mice in the wall between the hallway and the bathroom.


Here it is late at night, not exactly a time when I was in the mood to be dealing with this sort of problem. However, the thought crossed my mind that a few weeks earlier I had been reading an article in one of the natural health magazines while waiting in our naturopathic doctors office that mice absolutely abhor the smell of peppermint! First, I was wondering if we had any candy canes leftover, but I figured even if we did they may not work. Then, I remembered that we had a small bottle of peppermint essential oil. I got the bottle out of the hall closet and found a large wad of cotton balls and got busy. I took my stash of cotton balls and peppermint essential oil bottle down to the mechanical room in the basement which is where we usually had in the past put out the mice bait bags. I put 3 or 4 drops of the peppermint essential oil on each cotton ball and put about 6 cotton balls spaced around the mechanical room. I then went around the rest of the basement and put cotton balls all around in the basement area too.


I then went back upstairs to finally go to bed, and by the time I got back upstairs there was not one sound of any mice scratching and jumping around in the walls. The next day and night I checked and sure enough not a sound or trace of them. Needless, to say I was very pleased that this easy natural solution solved the problem. Throughout the rest of the Fall and Winter I continued to refresh the cotton balls about once a month with drops of the peppermint essential oil and we never had any further mice problems. This year I am going to expand my peppermint cotton ball territory out to our detached garage and evict the mice from there too!


This is a great green idea as there are no toxic chemicals involved and it also gives the areas a great fresh minty aroma! Give it a try and see for yourself!

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