How to Get Rid of Mice in the Garage

Your garage is more than a place to house your car—it’s a workplace, an area for innovation and creativity, a place to store and keep your well-invested equipment. When you think of your home, the last thing you want to think about is mice in the garage, and those tiny teeth they possess chewing through all of the important wires that may be exposed.

The fact is: mice love garages. They’re easily accessible and make for great nesting grounds. Garages aren’t difficult to invade, as holes and access points go unnoticed for some time by homeowners, which is enough for an army of mice to set up camp inside. With food on the outside and a shelter on the inside, the garage is the perfect place for mice.

Fortunately, there are many ways to keep the mice out of your garage. While tedious, it’s essential to go through the checklist of potential reasons why mice are getting into your garage in order to keep them out.

Mice are a bit like water, if there’s a way to get it in, they will. The best way to keep mice out is to cut off the things that may attract them and find ways to keep them outside.

Cut Off the Food Supply

You may not think twice about that extra fridge out in the garage or opened bags of fertilizer, straw, grains or pet food, but the mice sure do.  Mice will remain in your garage so long as there’s food to keep their bellies full and negate the need to hunt outside of the structure.

To prevent mice from seeking shelter in your garage, make sure all of these food sources are properly bagged and stored.

Bags of grain and fertilizer are often flimsy and you might overlook potential holes or tears, and so it is in your best interest to store these mice-attracting food sources in a sealed bin or container.

This goes the same for things that tend to spill easily, like birdseed.  Examine the floor of your garage, behind tables, under workbenches, or beneath cluttered areas to see if there are any spills that need to be cleaned up.

Without the supply of food being readily available, this is one reason for mice to not shack up in your garage, and one of the most important ones.  As with any animal, a food source isn’t what only attracts them to the shelter, but it keeps them sticking around too.

Get Rid of Any Nesting Material

Mice love to build nests.  They do this for multiple reasons, and the more you understand about why they build nests, the better chance you have in getting rid of the infestation.  Nesting behavior allows mice to regulate their body temperature, which is especially helpful in your garage during colder nights.

Building nests also allow mice to protect their litter and young mice pups, giving their offspring a sense of security and protection.  Nests also protect the mice against other predators, hiding their bodies in a mess of hay, grass, and other various materials.

Essentially, nests prolong the survival of the mice, and as soon as you rid your garage of materials these nests can be created out of, the sooner the mice will pack up and vacate your garage.

Garages have a tendency to collect things that should’ve been thrown away, like pieces of paper, straw that came loose from its binding or packaging that was neglected and not tossed in the garbage.

All of these items make great material for mice to collect and build nests.  Go through your garage and clean up anything that looks like it might make for an excellent bedding material for mice.  By doing so, you’ll not only complete the dreaded task of finally cleaning the garage, but also ensuring the prevention of mice setting in there for good.

Clear the Clutter

Garages tend to be cluttered.  For many of us, garages are the place to store the things we don’t want to bother fitting in our homes.  Extra furniture, various lawn care equipment, gas cans, tools and anything to do with the cars that are kept in our garages.

Of course, this unavoidably leads to clutter, which in turn, leads to mice.  Why is this?  The more clutter you have, the better hiding spots you’re providing for these furry little rodents.

Stacks and stacks of stuff, containers and piles of unsorted objects are all modes of protection for mice.  They can scurry, dart and burrow in the piles of things you keep in your garage, and the best part is they’ll likely go unseen.  Mice are nocturnal creatures, so the likelihood of you spotting these scurrying critters at night in between the cracks and crevices is slim.

Going through your garage and tossing and organizing its contents is a springtime, yearly chore anyway, and by doing this job, you’ll be saving yourself headaches in the future by avoiding any possibility of a mouse infestation.

Combined with bagging food sources and disposing of nesting material, cleaning your garage is an essential part of the process to keep your garage mouse-free.

Seal the Deal

Finally, examine your garage one last time and ask yourself this: how are the mice actually getting inside?   If you have a mice infestation, it’s possible these critters have found their way inside your garage by taking advantage of gaps, holes and vents.

Check the weatherstripping on the garage door itself.  If it’s old and deteriorating, replace it. This will help keep the mice from getting inside and protect your garage against getting wet – an added bonus.

Does your garage have an exterior door?  If so, examine the seal around the door and make sure there are no gaps or areas where a mouse can squeeze through.

Examine vents, air conditioners and plumbing.  Mice are able to get through holes the size of a fingernail, and if they are already in your garage, then it’s very likely they have found a small hole to get through.

Your local hardware store will carry products designed to keep mice out, like vent covers and seals.  Using these to your advantage will ensure that there are no potential gaps around the exterior of your garage and you will be able to keep out mice.

Keep Mice Out of Your Garage

Once you have rid your garage of food, nesting materials, clutter, and protected the exterior against access points, your garage will be mouse-free.  It’s important to continually check the inside of your garage, even after you’re sure the mice have abandoned it, because catching these rodents early on will save you headaches in the future.

Taking these precautions of bagging up food, cleaning messes off of the garage floor, getting rid of unnecessary trash, and organizing to prevent clutter are all ways to stop mice from invading your garage and at the same time, help to keep your garage clean and usable space.

In some cases, it’s close to impossible to keep critters and drafts out of your garage if it’s old and worn out. If your garage has seen better days, and you’re looking to replace it entirely, Danley’s has you covered with the best garage building in all of Chicagoland. Get a free quote now to begin your new garage project and join the over 100,000 homeowners who’ve trusted us.