No matter where they go in your house or how often you see them, mice are never a welcome intrusion. Beyond the skittishness that their presence might engender, mice can be quite a nuisance when it comes to their destructive habits, including chewing through wood, plastic, wires, and even your garage door opener cables.
Once you have a mouse in your garage, it can be hard to stave off a total invasion. After all, mice can reproduce quite quickly, with anywhere from three to 14 little mice per birthing and a three-week gestation period. That means that before you know it, your garage and house can be overrun by far more mice than you’d ever expect. That means if you think you have a rodent problem, it’s worth addressing it as your first priority.
Though an exterminator is always a reliable choice, you might prefer to test out a few homemade solutions first to save money. If you’re looking to tackle this DIY, we’ve got a few tips to help you out.
Are the Mice Already There?
If you currently have any mice in your garage, get them out of there before you go about mouse-proofing the whole place.
If you’re a little skittish or concerned about setting mousetraps or poison, for whatever reason, there are a few humane options to get rid of the mice without offing them in the process.
If you get rid of any food or little treats in your garage and make it clear that the space is occupied by humans by spending some time around your garage, your mice will slowly figure out that your garage won’t be a productive place for them to spend their time.
There are also some cool humane mouse traps on the market, and this one won’t subject the mice to any pain whatsoever. Fill the trap with peanut butter and wait for the mouse to make its way to the trap, then bring it outside far from your garage and release it back into the wild.
Mice can infiltrate anywhere, even places we don’t expect them to.
If you’re a cat owner, leave your cat in the garage and we’re pretty confident that your feline will know exactly what to do.
Mice are pretty averse to white vinegar, peppermint, and other scents such as these, so try spritzing and spraying these aromas around your garage; there’s a good chance that this trick will keep mice away from your valuables.
Simply dab a few cotton balls with peppermint essence or oil and spread the cotton balls generously around your garage, especially in the cracks and crevices from where the mice might be entering and exiting.
None of these tips and tricks will be enough to permanently keep mice at bay, though; while these are effective temporary solutions to get rid of your current mouse problem, you’ll want to conduct a post-proof of your entire garage to ensure that mice never find their way back in, destroying your garage and its contents in the process.
Create an Inhospitable Environment
In order to keep mice out for good, you’re going to want to get your garage into great shape, taking care of everything from disorganized clutter to loose food items.
- Get rid of the untidiness and fix up the space
The less of a mess there is, the fewer places the mice have to hide
- Store all food items and trash in tightly sealed containers
Whether your food is in the form of scraps in the garbage bin or dog food in a kibble bag, you’re going to want it to be sealed shut so mice don’t see it as a potential source of nourishment, which will always keep them coming back.
- Store your garbage outdoors, if possible
While the aroma of fresh garbage isn’t too appealing to us humans, mice tend to love it, as it means there might be food nearby. To avoid attracting mice, try storing your garbage outside of the garage.
- Keep the firewood outdoors
Mice tend to drift toward firewood as a resting place to nestle in.
- Keep your floor spick and span
You’ll have better visual access to any holes and cracks in the wall and floorboards that mice might be entering your garage through, and you’ll know what to try to patch up.
Preventative Measures
With all the mice kept away from your garage, you can start to think about insulating the space.
Chop down any branches, twigs, and leaves on and around your roof.
This preventative measure will keep squirrels from pouncing on your roof, which is harder than you might think; squirrels can jump up to nine feet forward.
It is important to insulate your walls to prevent rodents from making nests in them.
Get Your Walls Insulated
Choose from a vast array of materials to insulate your walls. You’ll find that this will keep pesky mice, vermin, and rodents out of your walls for good.
Of the many insulation materials available to you for fitting your walls, we recommend polyurethane spray foam. Instead of the more traditional icynene spray foam, polyurethane spray foam will fill your walls completely and keep all rodents away.
Spray foam is not a rigid insulator; this means that rodents could technically crawl in and around it. However, this insulation does not have any properties of a food source, so rodents will be generally disinterested in claiming it.
Polyurethane foam has a bitter taste, so rodents will generally stay away from chowing down on it.
Fill in the Cracks
Although mice will never chew on metal materials such as steel and aluminum, they might chew through plastic and other softer materials, so it’s worth keeping tabs on the state of your walls and floors in the garage to make sure their integrity is still intact.
If you find holes in your walls or floors, you can cover them up with spray foam.
Insulation will usually not be too much of a deterrent to mice in and of itself, but the more filled in the holes are, the more you reduce the chances of a mouse being able to access that interior space.
If the area in and around your garage door is where the mice are entering and claiming your space as their territory, you might want to consider getting your garage door fixed up or replaced altogether.
What type of garage door would you need?
If you’re looking for a door that is insulated enough to resist rodents, we have you covered. However, you’ll have other considerations to keep in mind: What style are you looking for in your door? Do you want any special technology linked up with the door?
In terms of keeping rodents and other animal invaders out of your garage, you’ll want to think exclusively about metal and aluminum doors.
A door with great insulation will serve you best when it comes to keeping your garage space mouse-free.
A galvanized steel door will be your best choice for keeping rodents out, as it is impossible for them to even begin to chew on this material. We have those doors available for purchase.
For example, we carry the R-16 and R-12 construction garage door models; our Standard+, Townships Collection, and Acadia 138 are both made with polyurethane foam injected at high pressure within the metal infrastructure, which will keep mice at bay.
Here, you can see our insulated R-16 door, filled with polyurethane foam.
Fitted with weatherstripping, our garages will keep your interior space temperature-controlled and completely insulated, fixing your mouse problem while keeping your garage space in great shape.
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