Moving to Woodland in 2017. Personal Story. Part 4

Unregistered Household Inhabitants.

The Dog that tried his best
helping to deal with mice.

For those who are tired from the endless run in the city, moving to countryside might sound like the most romantic idea in the world – peace and silence, no crowds, just nature – and that’s how it is. It’s beautiful. But living with nature in natural environment means a bit more than just enjoying the beauty of nature and planting the garden. It also means that nature will come in your life in different forms not always in a pleasant way. 

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)
Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

Life happens outdoors and indoors with or without you willing it to happen. And endless love for nature won’t save you.  Not the most pleasant part of countryside life, especially if you are in an old house that requires looots of renovations that will last for years. That’s our case and we are dealing with it. So, this time about sharing living space with unpleasant household inhabitants. Identifying the first two „enemies” who love living with people was easy:  mice & fleas. So, first things first:

How to get rid of mice living in countryside?

Oh  boy, this was an adventure, and the short answer is you can’t get rid of them entirely. They will always be somewhere around, and that’s definitely not the worst thing that might happen. In natural environment they are food for big birds like eagles and owls, for bigger reptiles, and mammals like cats, foxes and others. Outdoors they will eat from your garden, roots and vegetables make great snacks for them, but that’s not the biggest issue. The biggest issue for us was getting them out of our home indoors. First months of living here I heard them dancing everywhere, especially at night and I have no doubt they were running over me while I  was asleep. I don’t want even imagine that. 

Our old dog was annoyed by the mice as much as we were. He was trying to catch mice, but his size and lack of agility didn't allow him to be a good helper with this. So, we had to go to the war. Against mice.

Block their ways

Firstly, you have to block their entrances into the house. In an old  building there might be more of mice  ways and tunnels than you could expect. Every crack in a wall or floor is their opportunity to get into warmth and to your food kept indoors. If the house is renovated before you move in, great! If not, seek for strong materials to fill those cracks and holes with until you can get to proper renovations. But, if you keep doors and/or windows open in summer (as we do) they will get in unnoticed.

Don’t leave food available for snacking

The second thing, do your best to store your food in containers that mice can’t get through. Leaving cookies overnight on a kitchen (or any other) table is a huge NO – they will feast on them. We also lived through a period where we were washing dishes not just after meals but also before – because the mice shit all around showed that they might love playing on our dishes as well.

The mythical powers of aluminum foil

I was digging internet for natural methods of getting rid of them – those little, cute looking fellas were really disturbing. One of those short-term methods I found online as great helpers where covering surfaces with aluminum foil. Of course, I  had to try, especially because internet told me it works. And it did help. For 2 days. Then the mice learnt that aluminum foil doesn’t do anything bad to them and returned to their old trails without caring for shine and noise aluminum foil makes. They didn’t eat their ways to food covered  with foil in our home, but I’ve heard it’s not a big deal for mice in other households – they just eat their way through aluminum foil. So, it’s a solution for a day.

Peppermint & Cloves

This comes from the depths of internet as well:  peppermint and clove aroma is way too strong for mice and they don’t go where these aromas rule. So, I brewed a strong infusion of peppermint herb and cloves to wash floors with. I generously added peppermint & clove essential oils to the water. The aroma was so strong it was too strong even for myself. It had to work.

That  was the night the mice moved from the floor to walls. And ate a few plants I had started indoors to plant outside later.

I heard them running on walls and from times to times falling down and that was worse than hearing them moving around on the floor.

I also scattered cloves around the places I’ve observed as their highways. Did that help? I don’t know. I was mixing different methods  on early spring because the presence of mice inside the house was pretty disturbing.

Heroes of this War

We won the war with mice through friendship with cats. We befriended an outdoor cat that already lived outside around our house. We really wanted to get him to live indoors with us, but he is such a wild creature that he panics every time he is indoor and the door is closed. Whole summer we were trying to the get that cat indoors. He entered only when he was sure the door won’t close, and those rare days when he came indoors, he was extremely fast bringing out of the house freshly caught mice. That helped. A little bit. This cat didn’t necessarily need our indoor mice as he had a wide world for hunting outdoors.

In  October we spotted another cat visiting our household and she moved indoors to live with us. Our new cat turned out to be the greates huntress ever. For the first few days she was catching mice and bringing them to us to show what she has caught for us. And, to be honest, we were tired enough from the war with mice, that we celebrated every victory our cat brought us. Since we live with one cat outdoors and one indoors, we haven’t heard from mice anymore.  We won the war with mice through friendship with cats. I don’t know any better method. The cat turned out to be the greatest weapon.

And as the cat doesn't care for cookies and mice are scared to from the cat we actually can leave a dish of cookies on a table and it will stay untouched :D 

Our heroic huntress

The mice lived around here in countryside and they will always live here, but I want to keep them outdoors. So, I sometimes leave veggies in the fields not too close to the house where they can easily find and feast on them.

Encounters with some especially unpleasant hitchhikers from insect realm are on the way in the next post of this „Moving to Woodland in 2017” series.

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)
Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts.