I hear them occasionally in the attic of my NEW house. It drives me crazy. We ended up putting a box up there with 2-3 mouse traps. Once every week or two we check the traps. Haven't heard them much lately, so it is working...

Decon works well. I've never had a mouse die inside. they go off looking for water after ingesting the Decon.

"Rodents can carry rabies."

Only a single case in the US has been reported of a rodent carrying rabies.
They can carry a lot of other things depending on the area (Hanta Virus, plague) but rabies is not one of them.

Well its back. 2 1/2 weeks latter and I hear scratching behind the wall in the same spot as before. When I was in the attic before I did not see anything but I cant get close enough to the wall because of the angle of the roof. How can I get this thing out of there?

Mark

Wish I could offer a sure fire solution, but here are suggestions. We too have an all brick house with aluminum soffit. Through the years we've had mice scratch in a certain wall, a few days later it would die & stink horribly. If you put poison in your attic you'll never know when the mouse mice eat it or if future mice might eat it; however if/when they do, they will die & stink. But it works. Get one of those plug in things that offend mice-I think they're called Pest Offense or Rat Zappers. Get moth balls & throw them around the attic. Mice hate that smell. Walk the exterior perimeter of your house. Get down on your knees & really look for any potential hole & fill it, especially gaps at the bottom of the brick. If you have an attached garage go over it with a fine tooth comb. Keeping mice out of the garage is difficult. We found 3 places of possible filtration in the garage--one around the garage door, another under the step landing where you enter the house (we took off the steps & the builder had never sealed between the concrete & drywall so there was an open invitation for them to climb into the walls); finally there had previously been an electric baseboard heater in the garage. We removed it & completely sealed the hole. We always keep a trap in the garage though.

Awhile back there was an article somewhere about mixing 1 gallon vinegar with 2 gallons water & sprinkling it around the outside perimeter of the house to keep mice out. They don't like the smell & avoid the area.

Good luck. There's nothing like a mouse in the wall to make you question your sanity. Especially in the middle of the night when you're laying in bed & can hear them in an adjacent wall.

Heard that bugger again last night and so did the wife. She thought it was something on the roof. I just went along with it because I did not want her to freak out. I told here it was a squirl on the roof. So I was up in the attic again and did not see any traces of mice but my big problem is I have blown in insulation in the attic and the roof pitch is so that I cant get near the out side wall to get a good look. So I was outside the house today and It looks like there were 3-4 droppings on the window ledge. This is about 1 1/2 feet from were i heard the mouse scratching. I got a small mirror and there is a quarter inch gap between the fascia and an aluminum strip above the window. This could be how the bugger is getting in and out. Now how do I trap this thing without hurting other animals? I thought about a snap trap on the window ledge or even poison. The problem is I have so many squirls and other animals I dont want to harm them. Should I put the trap out at night? Mabe an electronic repel plugged in withan extension cord and toss it in the attic were I think that mouse is? I figure I some how need to drive that mouse out of there. I really dont want a dead mouse in the wall. That is why I am reluctant to use poison. I need to correct this problem pronto! I was doing research on this and found out that mice can reproduce every 28 days.

Maybe fasten a glue trap to the window ledge using double sided carpet tape. If you catch something you don't want to hurt just release it.

I bought some new style traps that look like a hockey puck. it has ahole in the bottom where you put the bait in and then you wind it up. It has a hole in the side where the mouse enters and it has a very sensitive trigger on in when released it dewinds and traps the mouse. I used peanut butter as bait. I figured that birds or other animals wont get caught in it. I set this out last night on the window ledge but no luck yet. I did put some in the attic to day also. I heard that mouse again last night. Sounds like he is building himself a nice home in my wall. I hope I catch him soon.

Maybe you can try the electronic pest repellers; we have several in the cellar and laundry room - thus far they work effectively.
If fact I would call one of the pest companies, maybe they could find the entrance..

And the suggestion that a caught live mouse be set free in the woods - insanity ! Kill the SOBs, or give then to the neighbors snakes.. And the squirrels are also pests.

Bring on the snakes..

I did buy those electronic pest repellers yesterday at home depot. It does say that it does not help for pests in the walls but I thought I would give it a try. My problem is how to get them out of the wall? If the mouse was roaming all through out the house that would be a whole diffrent situation. He may have a large supply of food in there. I have traps set but so far no luck. I have heard them every night in the same spot in the wall. I am goin back up in the attic today to see if I can spot something. With all that blown in insulation, it is hard to move around.

I've heard that mice can eat anything, including cellulose insulation.
Maybe the installer can "uninstall" the insulation, at least where the mouse is.....

I am guessing you have bats in there...maybe. But bats would be hibernating now...I think.LOL!
Bats can enter an amazingly small space....and leave at night to look for food...but where they are finding food in Michigan in Februrary I don't know!
But we had a bat flying around the church the other day.
Linda C

Well blue, I think I am in the "same boat" as you - only what I first thought was mice indeed turned out to be bats. In MA. In wintertime! We had a new roof put on this Fall and apparently instead of flying out when they removed the old roofing, the buggers went down into the walls. I thought bats migrated, but these bats are sleepy and hibernating. Every now and then (if it's real windy and cold) they will squawk (sounds exactly like the sound you make when you try sucking something out of your teeth). Once we locate the spot (usually right under our bedroom window), my husband will remove the baseboard and take one or two out. They are sleepy and cold but still alive. I am told bats will not chew through material or screening to enter, so if you find any possible entrances (the moulding at corners just below the roof line, or cracks) just block the entrances with caulking or screen. Unfortunately for me they are not able to get out and are looking for warm spots in the walls. My hope is there's only one left! It's so icky. Good luck.

I havnt heard any noise in the wall lately. I am going to check the traps I have set in the attic. Im sure my noise is from mice and not bats.

Well I am happy to report I have not heard any scratching in the wall in weeks. Its been pretty cold and I have been to lazy to climb up in the attic to check the traps. I will do so and report back to what I found.

Hi, every night about 5 am my husband and I heard chewing or scratching in our bedroom, like halfway up the wall. Today we saw wood dust outside on the rocks under where I heard the noise. He says it could be a BIG bug or vole, I thought it was bat as I had heard not only chewing or scratching but wings. We do have field mice here in the woods, it's every single night about 5 am, wakes us up. What could it be? Found a hold under the drain spout, huge hole and we plugged it, pulled siding off and found no holes or anything. Help. Email me direct at ownedbyferretsinpa@hotmail.com as I'm losing my mind each time I hear this thing dig/scratch.

I don't know about getting it out but I did learn an expensive lesson allowing critters in :( They show on tv how a tiny field mouse can squeeze through weep holes. Someone said they now sell things that you can pop in your weepholes to keep critters out. My critters got in via the air conditioner where it connects to the house. The builder left large holes. Critters got in and destroyed the wiring plus chewed off the ac pipe insulation which caused condensation to build up in my wall (both up and downstairs). End result - black mold growing on the inside of my house.

For holes other than weepholes, buy some of that liquid foam from the hardware store and fill up all of your holes. That stuff works well! No more problems after that.

Ok, again at 5 am this morning. First we heard it walk across the roof lightly, I think it could be in the attic crawl space, hubby says no way he or anything else could get in the gable and there is a screen behind it, I thought this thing might of came in thru the attic and gotten into the wall. Anyway, 5 am I hear it walking and then it started, chewing/scratching, drives me nuts. I quick ran out back and turned the spot light on the corner of the house we hear it from but nothing was outside the house, and hubby said it was still doing it even when I put the lights on outside. They are tearing down trees in the lot right next to us to build a house and will so be excavating, I'm afraid we'll end up with more. Do you think it could be a field mouse?

Ok, hubby blocked up that corner outside where we think this animal is getting in at. No more scratching at that corner. NOW, we heard in a different corner of the house at 5 am this critter scratching/chewing. He blocked that up before he left for work, but I think I hear little feet walking around now. If we block all four corners/plug them up, will this animal eventually die in there? I still think it could be up in the crawl space attick, what do you all think?

Did you get your mouse yet? I can't emphasize enough that you must find where the mouse is getting in at. Mice can get in through a hole as small as a quarter inch. Look carefully all around the exterior of your home for any cracks or spots where the critter could crawl into. Seal any and you should get rid of it. Even if you have gotten rid of one mouse, more will show up unless you seal any openings. We could not figure out how a mouse was getting in our attic until we looked carefully and found a small hole. One we sealed it up we had no more problems. By the way, use peanut butter on a mouse trap, they love peanut butter.

It might be birds. I had a sparrow infestation in my attic crawl space. The screened ducts under the roof had been torn and sparrows were flying in and nesting under the eaves. Sometimes they would fall down behind the walls and I would hear scratching and chirping right next to my bed. I waited until fall (didn't want to disturb the babies in their nests) and had a handyman/roofer type put new screens up on every vent. I haven't had any problems since. They did leave droppings at the top of the house because they would perch just outside the vents to poop!

Well, it is mice that we have. I have seen these littel gray mice in my basement, and it's all because of the land next to us being excavated for a new house going up. So far they are not in my kitchen but I know that is next, how do I get rid of them as I put baited traps out and they will not go in/on any of them. HELP as I'm terrified of mice.

What kind of traps? What are you baiting them with? Are you putting them in the paths that the mice travel?

Have you tried to find where they are entering your house?

Help! I've had 3 mice (I think Mice) die inside my living room closet wall in the last 5 months! I am so sick of the stench I want to move. How could they be getting in? Do you think I could have a nest of 100 of them in the wall. We can't figure out where they are getting in. I think they are scaling the drywalled inside garage wall, crawling in through a crack and then falling inside the same wall (must be a death trap). My husband says no way they could climb a smooth surface up 20 feet>--Help! Any ideas? I am going insane because of this!

I can't believe how many people are saying mice can't climb this or that, or squeeze in through this or that...

Mice can get into just about anything. Space capsule or maybe submarine level of construction, otherwise, it's pretty much all up for grabs. Weep holes, you name it.

Drywall is far from smooth and those little bleepers can grip the paper fibres in drywall quite nicely, thank you, Smooth, smooth metal, might repel them but even then...

There's an Aussie saying "like a rat up a drainpipe" which I take to mean a drain from your eavestrough.

The poisons do have their drawbacks but many have a dessicant effect, so they will dry out - and eventually the stink will go.

Check corners, around electrical outlets, and most importantly, pipes, drains and vents - all should be totally sealed, and/or have a snug fitting metal collar. Even then, mice will find a way, it's a contest til you find the current hole.

I rented a older house for some years and I progressively got all the entry points but was still stumped. In the end, just before I moved out, I discovered one tiny hole, no bigger than a dime, in a corner, which is how they were getting in. Nail some tin or similar over such things.

I'm having the same problem. It's in the wall and a very noisy chewer. I just went throgh tearing out another wall that stunk for weeks and I just couldn't stand it. I flashed the cavity from the inside, reinsulated, dumped a half box of mothballs in before replacing the drywall. They now picked a different spot. I'm thinking of taking the injector syringe from an inkjet refill kit to inject a repelent through the drywall. HAS ANYONE EVER TRIED THIS?

Also, a GREAT product I use in my garage and shed is "SHAKE AWAY". It's dried fox and bobcat urine. Although it doesn't smell that bad I only use it in areas that aren't easy to keep sealed. Also, if you suspect having them in your basement, using SHAKEAWAY may chase them upstairs. But, it does frighten mice so well that it's been said that they are known to chew their way out! It's about $15-$20. I got mine on eBay.

My parents have a mouse problem under their wood basement. They claim that I brought the mouse in when I was potting some garden plants. *grin* In anycase, the mice in the house have become deformed with inbreeding. We Live trap the mice and let them go outside. They don't get back in because we have sealed all the holes.

What we have that seems to make a great mouse catcher is a weasel that moved in. Every now and again we hear mouse mass murders happen under the house. Mom watched the weasel chase a mouse down the wall and through a hole for electrical. (the house isn't finished yet) Around the same time period Mom was working on the computer and a mouse came and licked her bare foot. Suffice to say that from that point forward it was open season on the mice.

We don't use poision as we have animals but the live traps work really well. That and my sisters would declare open season on US if we tried to kill the mice. As long as there are no chew marks on their gaming consoles I think the mice are safe. :)

I also have a mouse in the wall. It chews incessantly and sounds like it is going to come through the wall. Can mice actually chew through drywall or the adjacent wood floor? I put poison in the attic and I am going to look through holes ( although i'm SCARED to go in the attic), but, how long can the mouse actually live in the wall without food? Should I expect him to die soon? YIKES!!!

Bump. How's everyone's critter situations?

If you can't seal the house and if you know which wall they are getting in, you can cut a hole the size of a junction box out of the wall and place the poison in the wall through the hole. Install a junction box frame in the hole and cover it with a blank faceplate. You can paint the faceplate to match the wall. This will give you future acces to your problem spot. If the critter comes back you can remove the faceplate and put in more poison.

ok, I am freeking out!!!!!!!!!!!!! I believe there are mice in the walls of my house, how the H**L do I get them out? I'm completley grossed out and I can'e sleep because I am paranoid they will crawl in my bed.....HELP!!!!

I've read all the postings and want to believe the scratching sound, behind my bedroom wall, is just a mouse. I just can't believe a mouse can make that much noise. It's loud! Sounds like something much louder. Happens consistently around 5:00 AM and then nothing the rest of the day. This does not make any sense to me. Why would I not hear anything at any other time of the day?

I can laugh about it now, but when we were first married (30+ years ago) we had mice in the walls of our first home. I can still see my husband standing on the bed mattress tapping the ceiling to get the mice to shut up only to put his hand through the thinly chewed tiles. Then we had to put duct tape over the hole so they wouldn't run over the edge into our bed. It definitely wasn't funny at the time. Someone told us to put Exlax tablets in the walls and around perimeter of the house (note: we had no kids or pets). We eventually got rid of the mice we aptly named the "mouse house" because we'd find them everywhere. My sympathies to those battling the beasts.

I've had this happen too. It's often difficult to determine whether they're in the wall or just in the corners of the attic. Where we live it's a country-like setting and when it gets cold, they want in bad. And they have had great success in getting into the crawlspace and tearing down insulation. If you start to see/hear them in one spot all the time, focus on finding a hole. After our remodel they were getting in around shoddy plumbing work - two small holes to the outside, then up into the house around drain pipes and so on. Wire mesh and steel wool are the best thing to keep them out. Or combine that with Great Stuff, but just plug those holes.

As far as getting rid of them, I prefer the old fashioned solution. They really haven't built a better mouse trap. Peanut butter and a spring loaded trap will bash in their tiny litty brains and then you can bury them somewhere. No problems with days of gagging over decomposing bodies. The poison does dry them up eventually, but its still stinky.

One word: warfarin. I keep a block in the basement. They rarely die in the house but when they do there is no smell that I have noticed.

Put moth balls in the attic, soffits, wherever you think they hang out. And warfarin.

Then seal the obvious holes. But don't count on sealing as the sole preventative. Mice are masters are gnawing their way through anything but metal. So use the warfarin.

And don't panic. It's a mouse, not a rabid child molesting radioactive alien monster. Keep things in perspective.

Warfarin will not kill your kids or cats or the cute deer that sometimes drops by your back yard. It will kill mice and rats and other small rodents.

Hi everyone! I'm new to this site. I'm from Sydney, Australia and I'm a 23 year old female.

Anyway I need some help. For the past 4 nights I've been hearing what I'm pretty sure is a mouse in one of the walls of my bedroom. I've been hearing this freaky chewing, gnawing noise coming from the wall that's between my bedroom and the neighbours house.

I'm not sure if the mouse is in my room or not I can just hear it gnawing at night and it's freaking me out to no end. I don't think there's any holes in the walls from what I can see. There might be but not 100% sure. I'm not sure how the mouse got inside the wall in the first place either. We don't have an attic and either do the neighbours so that possibility is out. I'm thinking that perhaps it could have gotten inside the wall through a hole in my neighbours wall and that's why I can hear it from my bedroom?

I think our walls are made from drywall so if there isn't already a hole in my wall is it possible for a mouse to create a hole by chewing the drywall? I've been asking around everywhere and some people say yes a mouse can chew its way through drywall and others say not so people giving me a million different answers doesn't help me at all. I want to know straight out can mice chew through drywall? Yes or no?

Like I said I'm not really sure if the mouse is actually in my room or not but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the wall. I've put a trap in my room just in case the mouse is actually in my room.

I'm really scared of critters and bugs so much so that I haven't been sleeping properly because of this noise because I have no idea where it is. I've been sleeping downstairs the last few nights because I've been so scared. Any help would be great! If I don't get enough sleep soon I know I'll end physically sick. I just want the mouse to go away!

Do you guys think that maybe the mouse will die eventually if it's in the wall? or go away by itself?

Woke up this morning to the scratching noise in the wall above my headboard in my bedroom. I know it's a mouse because my neighbors on both sides of me have been fighting the war on them. I live in a townhouse, I also have 5 cats.
There's no way I can get past the "stuff" in my attic to even get close to my wall where they are. If I put a box of poison up there will it draw them out from the wall or are they stuck there? Are they getting in from my neighbors house??
Help! I'm terrified of these furry creatures and the noise is LOUD. My 5 cats are always going under the bed so I'm sure they are not in my actual house, unless they have a death wish.

We've been hearing scratching and chewing about head level in our bedroom for weeks. It goes on for hours after dark - until sunrise. I can't sleep! No one has answered the question yet: "Can a mouse chew through a wall?"

I should have said that the scratching is right at eye level when we're in bed. There is a window on top of brick that we just plugged. It may be caught between a lot of 2 x 4s. Not sure.

"Love to eat them mousies,
Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they little heads off...
Nibble on they tiny feet."
B. Kliban

"We've been hearing scratching and chewing about head level in our bedroom for weeks. It goes on for hours after dark - until sunrise. I can't sleep! No one has answered the question yet: "Can a mouse chew through a wall?"

Don't know about a mouse chewing through a wall but squirrels can. I witnessed a small black one chewing right through my living room ceiling while I was watching TV. Another one chewed through an air conditioner vent outside of a brick wall. It was getting colder and they were looking for a place to get out of the snow.

An animal control person said if you want to get rid of these bigger animals, leave a radio on in the attic, etc. Turn it to a station with erratic music (hip hop?!) Raccoons, squirrels etc hate this kind of noise and will sometimes move on. If not, you've got to trap them so they don't chew electrical wires that can start fires.

We also had problems with mice and didn't want to use sticky traps or poison so we bought an electronic rat zapper. The directions recommended baiting it with dried dog snacks (nothing wet).

Worked like a charm. We got at least 5 mice within the first week. It takes 4 AA batteries and a light flashes to let you know when you have 'caught' something. All we had to do was dump the little buggers in the trash and reset the device.

A link that might be useful.

www.ratzapper.com/

i've had mice in my house for a bunch a years, but for the past few months i felt the urge to get cleaner and more hygenic so i did and the mice left for a while, as more time passed by i felt lazy again so the rats started to appear more often. I think i have rats in the walls. i start to hear scratching when i'm often in my room alone. whenever someone opens the door or i move around to make sound the noise stops but i know their still in their. I don't know how they got in their. they only explanation i can think of is this huge hole in the wall. i have 3 holes in the wall over all in my house, due to not having doorstops, so the door just bangs on the wall causing a hole whenever someone opens it. but the holes are in the middle of the wall, so i don't get how they could get up their. my bed is near the 2 holes. but the front and backboard of my bed are mahogany wood, and is painted with smooth brown paint, so it's really slippery. i can't set up traps in the attic, because first of all i've never been in there. second there's probably a billion rodents or bugs in there because i've had them for years, and third i'm not even sure it's an attic i've just been told it is one. It's on the roof of my garage with a long string hanging down that your supposed to pull to open stair steps i think that lead up to the attic. i'm not sure i've just seen people on tv do that. i really need help now, because with my work and leaving the doors open a lot for people to come in, the rats come in too i guess. How do they come in anyway, do they just follow through the door or trashbags or something? Well thanks anyway for any help i might receive. - yo-hizzae

P.S. i've tried rat traps for years, but i think they already what happens when you do that. i don't want to try poison, because i hate the smell when the rats die. I also have this rodent killer spray, but you don't see rats in plain sight that often, so it's sort of useless.Any other suggestions would really work. oh and i don't like scented candles, i'm afraid my house will burn down. Thanks again for the support

i need help quick, it's getting disgusting and sooner or later the rats will come out of the walls and will start roaming my house leaving creepy scratching sounds and "presents". Like they've done before. I need as much as info i can get. i would have searched how to get rid of them, but all the websites say the same things, so i thought it might be better to ask real people who have experienced this trouble. Thanks for the help

The newer Victor 'Easy Set' traps are a lot better than the older ones.

They use a large plastic paddle to trip the trap.

They can even be used without bait (though they have a bait recess molded in) if placed on the path the rat or mouse travels.

Just moving onto the large trigger sets them off nicely.

We were convinced there was a mouse in the wall. House built in 1965. Sounded like the mouse was chewing on insulation of electric cables. Finally cut out piece of wallboard.

Found old style insulated cable (like a coated fabric)chewed away for about two inches. Copper wire insulation also chewed away on one wire. (I.E.: Yes, a bare live wire.)

1) Repaired chewed away insulation.
2) Wonder whether this has been going on in other walls over past years.

Oh, and there was a bone yard of old-mouse skeletons, and some less old dead mice, all in the place under where the wire had been chewed. (Electrocuted??!)

3) I put a temporary cover over the hole in the wall.

Any suggestions as to how to drive mice out of walls at this point? I'm not up to tearing out ALL the wall board!

But I'm happy a did open it up to find the potential fire hazard!

We've had this problem for several years. Tired of dead stink we decided to take action tonight (at midnight). After cutting the first large hole in the wrong place we located the mice above it. The two (different species) mice were on top of a pile of carcases. We tried to vacuum them out to no avail, so we taped the cage to the wall. This took hours and a lot of distress on my part but it actually worked. I now have 2 mice to relocate tomorrow and I can finally figure out how to stop this problem!

DH and I live in a retirement community. I keep hearing noises in the wall of the sun room of our cottage. They have a contract here with an exterminator and he came to check it out when I reported the mice(?) in the wall. All he did was move an outside trap that was already there from a previous infestation. (Mice were actually in the house that time but they plugged the hole and we never had them inside again.) But they seem to be in the walls now, either mice or chipmunks. He couldn't find any entrance holes from the outside to the walls, so I don't know how they got in the walls. But they freak me out.

What can be done when they're in the walls? EEEEK!

Oh dear, I am not sure how to get them out the walls. But I believe they can walk up the wall, so maybe if you were to bait some traps with peanut butter in the attic, it might entice them up there and that would be the end of them.

I recently learned that mice can get in your house through the weep holes in the brick. My cousin had mice getting in this way. She had to call a pest control company to come out and they put bait out and also placed some sort of wire over all the weep holes so the mice could not get in anymore.

I live in a one floor cottage, so there's no attic.

What happened to original poster? You didn't finish your story?