Hey, I like mice, actually, but a lot of people don’t – and you might even be one of them. And you know what else? Even I don’t like mice in my kitchen. Found little tiny mouse footprints in my butter once and that was a big fat nope. So how to get them out.
You could use mouse traps and poison, of course, but then you have a dead body to worry about. I once found one poor mouse caught in a mouse trap that didn’t kill him immediately. Poor guy was up all night in that thing. More nopes.
Why Peppermint Oil?
Three big reasons here:
1. Like I just said – no dead mouse bodies you have to clean up the next day.
2. All natural remedy that doesn’t have a harmful impact on the environment or other critters (like your pets), if the wrong curious creature got into your stash.
3. It prevents the mice from coming in.
This last point is the biggest sell for me. I don’t want to have to deal with how to get the mouse out of my house once it’s already in. I just want it to not come in in the first place.
How to Use Peppermint Oil to Get Rid of Mice
First things first: get the right peppermint oil. Not all are created equal and stocking up on the wrong product could render every step that comes after it ineffective.
While there are plenty of guides out there which will tell you which oil is the best, it’s all too easy for them to be biased, or even worse: sponsored. Instead, look for mixtures that are 100% peppermint oil, rather than some diluted form. You can also look for some that are formulated specifically for getting rid of mice. Check out the reviews beforehand to see how the product worked for other people.
Next, make sure you’re using enough peppermint oil. Don’t get stingy about it and use one little drop per cotton ball. Do you want to get rid of the mice or not? Generally speaking, 5 drops of peppermint oil per cotton ball should do the trick.
Finally, when placing your peppermint-soaked, mice-repelling cotton balls, make sure you’re placing them at the places where the mice might be entering your home. It’s not enough to just… have them around.
If you’re going for an even spacing, like putting cotton balls at regular intervals throughout your house, you’re wasting cottonballs (and the more expensive pepperming oil!) and you’re probably not actually repelling the mice. If you’ve got a cottonball in some random corner of your house, the mouse is just not going to go in that corner.
You need to find out (or at least make a best guess?) as to how the mice are getting in and place the cotton balls there. The scent has to be strong enough that when the mouse is trying to enter your house, they won’t want to come near that entrance. If none of the entrances are available to the mouse, they’ll avoid coming in.
Now, keep in mind that this isn’t a one time fixes all problems solution.
You need to keep those cotton balls fresh and smelling like a toothpaste candy cane at all times to keep those mice from wanting to infiltrate your home. Replacing each one with a new cotton ball and five new drops of potent peppermint oil should do the trick to keep your house sans-mouse.