It’s pretty clear that having mice in your home is not a pleasant experience. Even if they seem innocent, mice can create dangerous conditions in your home. However, getting rid of mice doesn’t necessarily mean buying a slew of mousetraps and cheese. Mice can be easily avoided around your household by simply adding the scent of peppermint in corners where they congregate. Yes, that’s right, peppermint.

How to Use Peppermint to Keep Mice Away

Although natural remedies aren’t always the answer when getting rid of pests (like using cucumbers to get rid of cockroaches, along with many other methods that don’t kill cockroaches), peppermint offers a successful natural remedy that works when trying to repel mice. This has to do with the nature of mice, which rely mostly on their sense of smell instead of their vision. Mice have incredibly weak vision but a strong, keen sense of smell. Which makes sense as to why mice typically go for a large chunk of stinky cheese, right?

Peppermint obviously has a strong scent, one that mice dislike. According to Victor Pest, peppermint contains very potent menthol compounds that irritate their nasal cavities. A whiff of peppermint certainly does keep them away.

Grow Peppermint Plants for Mice

Now, you can use two ways to incorporate the smell of peppermint into your home. The first is growing peppermint plants and leaving them around the house. The smell deters them from entering or roaming around in the first place.

Spray Peppermint Oil for Mice

If you don’t fancy a home full of peppermint plants, then you might prefer using peppermint oil instead. Spray the essential oil in different areas of your home that mice can access. If you’re trying to catch the mice, strategically spray the peppermint oil in places that don’t have a mousetrap. In theory, this should lead them to wherever you have placed it.