5 Reasons the Mice Keep Coming Back (And the One Thing That Keeps Them Out for Good)

For anyone who has tried traps, poison, sprays and bags, and still hears mice or rats in the walls at night.

One mosaic, a big left panel and two stacked right: (left) droppings on a white quilt beside the pillow, the bedside lamp's base at the frame edge, phone flash; (right top) a cereal box on the pantry shelf with its bottom corner chewed open and crumbs on the shelf paper, daylight; (right bottom) the dog's food bag on the basement floor by the stone wall, its bottom corner chewed through and kibble spilled out, flash A live mouse nibbles at the spilled food by the chewed sack.

★★★★★4.8 from 2,147 Reviews

By the MintKeep Research Team · Updated this week

1Nothing You’ve Tried Keeps Them Out for Long

Some of it even seemed to work for a night or two...

...then you heard the scratching again.

"THEY CAME BACK." A big brown rat eats spilled cereal on her kitchen floor next to a chewed hole, beside the traps, the mint bag, the peppermint spray and the ultrasonic plug-in she tried (Sofyre port, pair pages-485).
★★★★★

Nothing I put out lasted.

The mice just waited me out.

Donna K., verified buyer

2You Can’t Smell When the Mint Stops Working

Live with a smell for a few days, and your nose stops noticing it.

So the bag behind the stove could have quit weeks ago... and you’d never know.

But the mice know.

They follow their own scent trails back to your pantry and onto your bed, leaving droppings and urine right by your pillow.

A cloth mint bag gone pale and flat on the floor beside the stove's back leg, droppings on it and around it (the buyer's own complaint: "My mice poop on these pouches"), dust and a lost bottle cap; phone flash into the gap A live mouse pokes out from under the stove, sniffing toward the bag.

So We Built MintKeep to Stay Strong

It’s a small unit you plug in low on the wall, where mice run.

It warms a bottle of mint clicked in underneath, so the smell stays strong day and night, all month...

...to you, a light peppermint smell instead of the smell of mice, and to a mouse’s nose, far stronger, every single night.

So there’s nothing on the counter when you come down for coffee.

Two frames of her kitchen: a mouse runs away from MintKeep into the pantry along a green arrow; the same floor, empty (Sofyre run-away pair, pair pages-485).

3Nobody Remembers to Swap It in Time

Mint only works if you swap it about once a month.

Skip a month, and that’s the month they come back.

So you’ll never have to remember to order.

A rural mailbox on a post at the end of a gravel drive, its door open; inside, a small plain cardboard mailer with its flap open and a MintKeep refill bottle standing in it; autumn trees, a fence and a field behind, overcast daylight
Carol, a white woman about 66 in a blue cardigan, standing in her front hallway beside a hall table, hands clasped in front, smiling a little; the MintKeep unit in the outlet low on the wall beside the table, small but clear
★★★★★

I always forgot to change the bags.

Now the refill shows up in the mailbox, and I click it in.

Carol B.

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4Your Mint Wears Thin, So They Walk Right Through

A woman told us her mother planted mint along the foundation of their farmhouse.

Mint growing thick along the fieldstone foundation of an old farmhouse, white clapboard above, a cellar window in the stone, autumn daylight

As long as that mint grew, the mice stayed out of the house.

A mouse finds its way by smell.

To a mouse, strong mint stings the way a whiff of ammonia stings you, so it backs away.

That row of mint made a line all around the house, and it grew back every day.

The mint was never the problem.

Bags and sprays fade, and the line breaks.

We Call It the Mint Line™

MintKeep puts that line inside.

Plugged in low where they run, it sends mint across their path and keeps it strong all month.

So the mouse running along your baseboard to the pantry meets that sting every night...

...and it backs away the way it came, so in the morning there’s nothing new on the pantry floor.

Plug one into every room where you hear them or find droppings... the kitchen, the basement, the garage, your bedroom.

MintKeep in the garage wall outlet low beside the steps up to the door into the house, the front bumper of the family's silver car at the frame edge, a metal trash can, a broom, a coiled hose and muddy boots by the step, open garage door daylight A brown rat crouches by the trash can, far from the unit.

The ones already in your walls come out into your rooms every night, because that’s where the food is.

When every room stings with mint, they back off hungry... and a mouse that can’t get to food leaves to find a house where it can.

And the ones that used to slip in after dark turn back, so you stop hearing them in the walls at night.

5Mice Don’t Mean a Dirty House

If you’ve ever felt embarrassed about mice in a house you keep spotless...

...you should know they didn’t come for dirt.

On the first cold nights they came in for the warmth.

Under a spotless kitchen sink: neat bottles of dish soap and cleaner, a folded rag, a clean shelf liner, and at the back the gap where the pipe goes into the wall, its edge gnawed wider; no droppings A mouse peeks out of the chewed hole around the pipe.

As one woman wrote: “It wasn’t even a dirty house to attract them, they just got in because they can.”

But cleaning up after them is the part that can hurt you.

A 67-year-old woman in Oregon took a shop vacuum to the guest loft before her family came.

The dust from the droppings carried hantavirus, and within a week she was gone.

It kills about one in three people who catch it.

So when you find droppings, never sweep or vacuum them.

Spray them with bleach and water, let them soak five minutes, then wipe them up with paper towels.

And the scratching you hear in the ceiling at night can be teeth on the wiring.

In Maryland, a rodent chewed the wires above a 77-year-old man’s ceiling, and the fire it started killed him.

That’s why keeping them out beats cleaning up after them...

...with a line of mint in each room, there’s nothing by your bed to sweep up.

Thousands have already thrown out the traps and bags and switched to MintKeep.

An open kitchen garbage can full of old snap traps, glue boards, a poison bait box and faded mint bags; behind it, on the wall, the MintKeep unit in the outlet

What Changes When They Stay Out

And it costs less than one visit from the exterminator.

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What Buyers Are Saying

Gloria, a Black woman about 68 in a cardigan, at her farmhouse kitchen table with a mug, the counter behind her clean, the unit low on the wall by the pantry
★★★★★

Three autumns of traps never got rid of them.

Now I sleep through the night, and there’s nothing on the counter in the morning.

Gloria T.

Ray, a white man about 72 in a flannel shirt, leaning on his workbench in the basement against the block wall, hands in his pockets, the unit in the outlet low on the wall beside the bench
★★★★★

One in the garage and one in the basement.

I haven’t set a trap since, and my wife stopped asking me to listen at the walls.

Ray D.

Michelle, a Latina woman about 47, and her mother, about 78, side by side on the mother's floral couch, an afghan over the back, Michelle's arm around her mother; the unit in the outlet low on the wall beside the end table
★★★★★

I set them up in my mom’s kitchen, living room and bedroom.

She told me she’s sleeping in her own bed again.

Michelle S.

A flat round seal in the page's forest green (#24433D) and lime (#CCF46F), words "90-Day Money-Back Guarantee" in Poppins semibold, no gold, no ribbon clip-art (pages-240)

Every Order Comes With Our 90‑Day Money-Back Guarantee

Most mouse repellents give you 30 days.

MintKeep gives you 90, long enough to see the first cold months through.

If the mice don’t stay out, or you’re not happy for any reason, you get every penny back.

The MintKeep retail box standing, the unit and a refill beside it on a light surface in soft daylight; the box carries the logo, the category name and one outcome line, no count and no price (page-class: the package on the product page)

★★★★★4.8 from 2,147 reviews

Plug One In Wherever Mice Get In, and Never Find Another Dropping

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