Addressing problems with mice in the attic

Perhaps you have already heard it: the scratching sound of tiny little feet as they pitter-patter around the home. These are not the 2-year-old children or the grandchildren.

These noises come from an entirely different source: mice.

Critter culture

Perhaps homeowners don't know how many mouths they are feeding in their homes. With a mouse population they might be feeding another 6-12 sets of teeth – maybe more. Worse yet, they’re not grateful for the hospitality and these guests don’t flush after making their donations.

Home inspectors find it common to observe mouse “hallways” and trails in attic insulation. Attics can be a true blessing to a mouse. Attics are protected from the elements, are free from predators and are much cleaner than the mud-caves their ruddy little mouse-cousins live in. Best of all, attics provide ready access to food in the kitchen and the rotting cookies in a child’s sock drawer. The attic can be like the high-rise critter couture condo for uppity mice who enjoy the high life at the homeowner's expense.

How to know if they’re there

Sometimes the little varmints will make things easy on the homeowner. When they think the homeowner is away or sleeping the scratching begins. This is a dead giveaway of uninvited guests. Don’t think that not hearing them means that your home is varmint-free. The vast majority of homeowners and renters have no idea that they are a condo for critters.

For those of us living without the joy of tiny scratching sounds, there is only one option: head on up into the attic and look around. Usually homeowners can see the mouse hallways and burrows just by poking their head through the attic hatch. Hallways on the surface of the insulation will be an inch or two deep. Burrows will be equally obvious: one-inch diameter holes going down into the insulation where no man has gone before.

Meaningful mouse massacre

Some home inspectors have seen homeowners place poison pellets in the attic hoping to eliminate the problem. This is akin to Russian roulette for the sinuses: when the mouse takes the bait homeowners get to hope that the little varmint chooses to walk outside to die. Otherwise, homeowners have a decaying carcass in their walls, in a child’s sock drawer or right there in the attic. Unless one likes the smell of decaying carcasses, rotting mice don’t smell good at all.