Mice can squeeze into cracks and crevices the diameter of a dime. Because they can get into your home through holes you didn’t even know existed, it’s important to learn how to keep mice out of your garage. If they gain entrance into your garage, they can easily take up residence or get into your living spaces.
What Attracts Mice to Garages?
Rodents have adapted to live around humans, as they’ve recognized that homes and garages provide safety from the elements and predators. Because rodents are omnivores, they eat food that humans don’t think they will eat. For example, rodents will devour bags of pet food, bird seed, and grass seed. People tend to store their garbage cans in their garages, providing a massive food source for the tiny pests. Because some homeowners don’t spend much time in their garages, mice can live inside them in relative peace. They build their nests and have babies. Eventually, the young mice grow up and move on to build more nests and continue having more mice. Many garages have doors that don’t shut fully. That small opening between the bottom of the garage and the concrete pad makes garages easy for mice to enter and exit. Consider other openings that mice can use to access your garage, especially rotting access doors or windows with broken glass.
Ways To Keep Mice Out of Your Garage
The best way to prevent mice from moving into your garage is to seal the entrances, but this can be a costly endeavor. You can also use traps and bait.
Spring Traps
The typical mouse trap uses a bait tab that releases a spring to snap a bar onto the rodent eating the bait. Mice will stop to eat a piece of cheese, but you can also tempt them with a dab of peanut butter or a slice of fruit. Place the traps near the suspected entrance points or where you find a nest or droppings.
Sticky Traps
Glue traps use a waxy adhesive with an attractive aroma. Mice crawl onto the glue and become permanently stuck. These traps work, but they are inhumane as mice die slowly of dehydration, hunger, or exposure. If you use glue traps to catch mice, check them regularly and end the mouse’s life as quickly as possible.
Live Traps
Live traps are cages with doors that snap shut once an animal walks over a trigger. Mice enter the trap to eat the bait, then get stuck inside. Once you’ve captured a mouse in a live trap, you must figure out where to release the mouse. If you live in a residential neighborhood, you’ll want to take the mouse far away so it won’t get into anyone’s home. The best place to release a live mouse is in a forested area, far from homes and farms. Before you commit to using live traps, remember the mouse will either become a nuisance for other people or a meal for an owl or hawk.
Rodent Bait
Another DIY solution to a rodent problem is rodent bait – a poison the mice eat. After they devour the poison, they return to their nests where they suffer from the painful internal bleeding it causes. While the bait effectively removes pests, household pets and children can become seriously ill if they find it and eat it.
Keep a Cat or Dog
Your household pets can catch mice in and around your home. Young cats are often skilled at catching mice. Terriers, especially rat terriers, are experts at finding mice and rats, as they can smell them from far away. Research shows that mice tend to avoid building their nests in homes with cats and some dog breeds. Remember that pets will bring their catches to you because they want your approval. Don’t punish your cats or dogs for showing you what they’ve accomplished. Instead, reward them so they continue to remove rodents from your garage and home.
Professional Pest Control
Rather than doing pest control yourself, the best choice for rodent removal is professional pest control. The expert technicians know how to remove rodents properly and effectively, so you don’t have to worry about disposing of dead mice bodies. If you don’t remove mice from your garage, the pesky rodents will chew on things inside of it. They could chew on electrical wires in your walls, machines, and vehicles. When you have mice in your garage, the best way to remove them is by calling our Houston pest control experts at Stampede Pest Control.