House mice are the rodent most people actually find inside their home. They're small enough to fit through a hole the size of a dime, they breed year-round in heated homes, and a single pair can produce 60+ offspring in a year.
Signs you have mice
Pepper-grain-sized droppings along baseboards and in pantry corners, gnaw marks on cardboard and food packaging, faint scratching in walls at night, and the distinctive musky urine smell. One mouse seen in daylight usually means several in the walls — mice are most active at night and only show themselves when the population is high.
How they get in
Garage door corner gaps, weep holes, A/C and plumbing penetrations, dryer vents without screens, and gaps around the meter box. We inspect with a flashlight along every exterior penetration and seal openings with copper mesh and silicone — anything that can pass a #2 pencil is mouse-sized.
Trapping plan
Mice are neophobic — they avoid new objects for a few days. We deploy lots of traps in known runways and leave them set for the first week. Snap traps and multi-catch stations work; glue boards have a place under appliances. We avoid interior bait because dead mice in a wall void create a secondary odor problem.
Pantry and kitchen cleanup
Move dry goods into glass or hard plastic containers. Empty and vacuum the pantry, paying attention to corners and the area behind the stove. Pet food in a sealed metal can. Without these steps, even good trapping can take weeks to fully resolve.
Mice scale with food and entry points. Cut both, trap aggressively, and seal everything down to a pencil width — that's the playbook that ends the problem.