Best way to deal with mouse infestation

[Aleko Petkov]

Two adjacent units (in Los Angeles) have reported and caught numerous mice over the last three weeks. Never had rodent issues before. I haven’t seen food left out in either unit, they are generally pretty tidy.

I’ve sprayed the perimeter of the building with rodent repellent, and have laid out baits and traps inside. The bait hasn’t been touched, but the glue traps are catching something like 5 mice a week! The other unit has also caught some with a live bait trap (she drops  them off at the park, several miles away)

Is it time to call an exterminator or should I keep putting out glue traps and hope they goes away?  I mean, that’s a pretty steep rate of death, even for mice.  I expect the exterminator will just put out more bait and traps, and charge an arm and a leg for it, but it doesn’t seem like my efforts are enough. 

I’m surprised by the scale of the infestation and how suddenly it happened - is this typical?

[Nathan Gesner]

I have a rental in the country we've been renovating. I saw fresh evidence of mice every week even though the house had no food or water source. I built bait stations using PVC pipe, simpler than what this video demonstrates. I placed four of them on the exterior of a 1,400 sq.ft. home and I set a couple glue traps inside the home. 75% of the poison was consumed in a couple weeks. I haven't seen any evidence of mice inside or caught any on the glue traps.

As long as they get into the poison outside, it should prevent them from ever seeking food inside.