4 Tips for Keeping Mice Out of Your Victoria Kitchen

When mice get into your home, it is partly because they are looking for food. Therefore, it makes sense that they may choose your kitchen as the place where they finally settle down. It is not only unnerving to have mice in your kitchen, it is also dangerous because they can contaminate your food and your preparation areas. If you have a current problem with mouse intrusion, Skedaddle can perform mice removal in Victoria.

Mice have a very sensitive olfactory sense and are able to detect even faint scents of food from long distances. Here are some tips to prevent mice from getting into your kitchen in the first place.

1. Sweep the Kitchen Floor

While mice may gorge on food when it is plentiful, they do not need large amounts of food to survive. Consuming three to five grams of food is enough to sustain them, which is approximately the same as the weight of a small handful of paper clips. It doesn’t take many crumbs to add up to five grams, so it is important to keep the floor clean and free of crumbs by sweeping frequently. If possible, you should sweep the floor every day. This is also important because crumbs on the floor are easier for mice to access.

2. Clean off the Counters

While it is easier for mice to find crumbs on the floor, they are good climbers and are not deterred by the height of a counter. Therefore, you should clean off the counters at least as often as you sweep the floor. In fact, it may be a good idea to run a disinfecting wipe over the counters after every meal.

At first, sweeping and cleaning often may seem like a chore. However, the more often you do it, the easier it becomes because you don’t give dirt a chance to accumulate.

3. Keep Food in Sealed Containers

If the goal is keeping mice out of your kitchen, then the boxes and bags that food comes in when it is purchased aren’t very good for deterring them. They are often made out of materials such as cardboard, wax paper, or cellophane that are easy for mice to chew through. Instead, you should keep your food in tightly sealed containers that mice cannot chew through and that control smells that might attract them to your kitchen in the first place. Plastic containers may not be effective at keeping mice at bay as a persistent mouse may eventually chew through the relatively soft material. Glass and metal containers are more effective at protecting you and your food from mice.

4. Don’t Leave Pet Food Out Overnight

The same ingredients that make pet food healthy for your dog or cat also make it attractive to mice. Therefore, you should transfer your pet’s food to a sealable container and don’t leave food in your pet’s dish overnight during the period that mice are most active. Any uneaten pet food should be cleaned up after 30 minutes anyway to prevent it from spoiling, and because pets can gain weight quickly, allowing them to self-feed can be hazardous to their health. It is better for your pet to control its portions, and avoid leaving food out overnight is one way to do that.

Despite what many people think, the mere presence of a pet is not an effective means of pest control. If you do not already have an infestation, the smell of a pet in the home might be enough to deter mice, but the opposite is not true. In other words, getting a new pet will do nothing against a current mouse infestation and may end up harming your pet as mice can expose it to disease.

Skedaddle’s process of wildlife removal on Vancouver Island includes safely cleaning up where the mice have been and sealing entry points thoroughly so they can’t come back. Find out more about our humane removal process.