To Get Rid Of Mice Think Like A Mouse
In order to get rid of mice from your home you have to think like a mouse - become the mouse.
Put yourself in a mouse's shoes just for a moment and really get in touch with what you are up against as a home and/or building owner.
How to get rid of mice
Here you are as a mouse and you've come accross a property that looks just like yours (in real life). The first things that go through your mouse mind are, where can I find food and shelter so I can eat and not be eaten. So you quickly move into a safe place which could be in the form of a shed, pile of bricks or wood, safe spot under a deck or porch or if really lucky a gaping hole in the exterior structure of the home.
With plenty of food and no predators threatening your existence you are able to build a family which will grow quickly and be as sustainable as the availability of food and shelter allows. Now imagine a few things change your environment, a local predator has picked up on your presence and is picking off family members here and there or separating you from your food. You start to feel stressed and under attack, a natural defence mechanism automatically goes into over drive - reproduction. You start to reproduce at an alarming rate, which ensures your community of mice has the greatest chance for survival as well as triggering a need to find a more secure setting for survival.
The onset of cool weather is another motivating factor for you to seek out safer, more comfortable living quarters. As a single mouse or mice in numbers you have time on your hands to investigate your surroundings. Or you are simply on the run having vacated a not so safe habitat. The homes and buildings of humans are a wonderful escape offering free run of its structure including wall cavities, attics, basements, floor cavities, cuboards and dark quiet corners of the owners living space like closets, furnace room and kitchens.
Now here is where you have to really stretch your imagination and acceptance of what it is like to be a mouse because they have characteristics that are nothing like being human. Imagine seeing a hole, any hole, that is 1/10th the size of your head and body and not thinking twice about whether you can get your entire body through it. Doesn't this conjure up an entire new possibility of how you would exist, where you would go, what you would do, it is like being granted super powers to pass through any size space at anytime.
As a kid we used to crawl through our homes milk box until our shoulders became too broad to fit through. A full grown mouse does not have this issue as you will continue to fit through the same small holes throughout your life. As a mouse you will easily collapse your head and body to the diameter of your nose at any age. So as a mouse its not like you move into the house through small holes that you can't get out when you grow, you just have no need to leave the house because there is plenty of food, warmth and security where you are.
After thorough investigation of the outside of your home mice are no dummies, they have found all the entry points from the foundation up to the roof line and take the path of least resistance. Now we humans are are accustomed to the concept of the 'path of least resistance' but what is the path of least resistance to a human is not the path of least resistance to a mouse. As a mouse it could mean scaling a 10 foot wall, chewing through building material and crawling through 10 feet of unpleasant insulation and other obstructions and materials builders bury behind the nice facade of drywall. To the mice its a walk in the park.
Infact as a mouse your are going to find some nice fiberglass insulation - the pink stuff - and spin it into a fuzzy nest for your and your family, map out your food source and live a happy life. Ahhh, but to you a happy life doesn't match up with the home owners interpretation of a happy life. See, what comes natural to you is a nuisance at minimum and a massive threat in the worst case scenario to the home owner. As a mouse you need to gnaw on everything and anything and this tends to make noise particularly at night when the home owners are trying to sleep. And often electrical wires become objects for gnawing risking fires.
As your relationship with the home owner increases in tension - mostly of the home owner - you get bolder and leave visible traces of feces in closets and cupboards sending the home owner into a sense of feeling violated and this leads to you noticing interesting green cube like food that is making your family sick and wooden platforms with food on top snapping your families necks and your family goes into reproduction overdrive once again as your natural and automated way to combate threats.
That goes on for a while and eventually the poison kills all the mice but not before a few of your family leave the house feeling sick and you either die out side and your body with the poisons are consumed by a cat, doge, bird or raccoon or you are captured by one of these animals and consumed, either way they get poisoned too.
So the home owner thinks they have won but they do not realize that your cousins are soon on their way to find your entry points and move into where you once had it so good. Following the urine trail left by you and your family they easily and quickly occupy the house. A few weeks later things start all over again.
This is typical and now that you think like a mouse what do you think you have to do to keep mice out of your house for good since poison and traps are temporary stop gaps?
Put yourself in a mouse's shoes just for a moment and really get in touch with what you are up against as a home and/or building owner.
How to get rid of mice
Here you are as a mouse and you've come accross a property that looks just like yours (in real life). The first things that go through your mouse mind are, where can I find food and shelter so I can eat and not be eaten. So you quickly move into a safe place which could be in the form of a shed, pile of bricks or wood, safe spot under a deck or porch or if really lucky a gaping hole in the exterior structure of the home.
With plenty of food and no predators threatening your existence you are able to build a family which will grow quickly and be as sustainable as the availability of food and shelter allows. Now imagine a few things change your environment, a local predator has picked up on your presence and is picking off family members here and there or separating you from your food. You start to feel stressed and under attack, a natural defence mechanism automatically goes into over drive - reproduction. You start to reproduce at an alarming rate, which ensures your community of mice has the greatest chance for survival as well as triggering a need to find a more secure setting for survival.
The onset of cool weather is another motivating factor for you to seek out safer, more comfortable living quarters. As a single mouse or mice in numbers you have time on your hands to investigate your surroundings. Or you are simply on the run having vacated a not so safe habitat. The homes and buildings of humans are a wonderful escape offering free run of its structure including wall cavities, attics, basements, floor cavities, cuboards and dark quiet corners of the owners living space like closets, furnace room and kitchens.
Now here is where you have to really stretch your imagination and acceptance of what it is like to be a mouse because they have characteristics that are nothing like being human. Imagine seeing a hole, any hole, that is 1/10th the size of your head and body and not thinking twice about whether you can get your entire body through it. Doesn't this conjure up an entire new possibility of how you would exist, where you would go, what you would do, it is like being granted super powers to pass through any size space at anytime.
As a kid we used to crawl through our homes milk box until our shoulders became too broad to fit through. A full grown mouse does not have this issue as you will continue to fit through the same small holes throughout your life. As a mouse you will easily collapse your head and body to the diameter of your nose at any age. So as a mouse its not like you move into the house through small holes that you can't get out when you grow, you just have no need to leave the house because there is plenty of food, warmth and security where you are.
After thorough investigation of the outside of your home mice are no dummies, they have found all the entry points from the foundation up to the roof line and take the path of least resistance. Now we humans are are accustomed to the concept of the 'path of least resistance' but what is the path of least resistance to a human is not the path of least resistance to a mouse. As a mouse it could mean scaling a 10 foot wall, chewing through building material and crawling through 10 feet of unpleasant insulation and other obstructions and materials builders bury behind the nice facade of drywall. To the mice its a walk in the park.
Infact as a mouse your are going to find some nice fiberglass insulation - the pink stuff - and spin it into a fuzzy nest for your and your family, map out your food source and live a happy life. Ahhh, but to you a happy life doesn't match up with the home owners interpretation of a happy life. See, what comes natural to you is a nuisance at minimum and a massive threat in the worst case scenario to the home owner. As a mouse you need to gnaw on everything and anything and this tends to make noise particularly at night when the home owners are trying to sleep. And often electrical wires become objects for gnawing risking fires.
As your relationship with the home owner increases in tension - mostly of the home owner - you get bolder and leave visible traces of feces in closets and cupboards sending the home owner into a sense of feeling violated and this leads to you noticing interesting green cube like food that is making your family sick and wooden platforms with food on top snapping your families necks and your family goes into reproduction overdrive once again as your natural and automated way to combate threats.
That goes on for a while and eventually the poison kills all the mice but not before a few of your family leave the house feeling sick and you either die out side and your body with the poisons are consumed by a cat, doge, bird or raccoon or you are captured by one of these animals and consumed, either way they get poisoned too.
So the home owner thinks they have won but they do not realize that your cousins are soon on their way to find your entry points and move into where you once had it so good. Following the urine trail left by you and your family they easily and quickly occupy the house. A few weeks later things start all over again.
This is typical and now that you think like a mouse what do you think you have to do to keep mice out of your house for good since poison and traps are temporary stop gaps?
