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There are loads of methods on how to catch a mouse, but there are some natural remedies to catch some mice without using a trap. These natural methods will avoid you the pain of disposing the live or dead mice that you have caught using the traps. Consider the following natural suggestions:

Peppermint oil: it has been proven that mice like sweet, luring scent of food and that’s why they come and invade your home. Peppermint oil has a strong smell as we all know and it not only masks the smell of food but also keeps away any lurking mice as they hate the smell.

Mint: similar to the peppermint oil, mint is also known to repel mice. Just sprinkle some fresh mint leaves in the areas you know the mice like to frequent and you’re done. But make sure that you replace the old leaves with fresh ones on a regular basis.

Mothballs: mice usually look for comfortable hiding spots. You might find them in the boxes where you keep winter clothes, or in any old furniture. Just place some mothballs wrapped in tissue paper and place them in those areas. Mice will keep away as they hate the smell of it.

Seal of entry points: when you were not looking, the mice would have got in your house, but now that they have, make sure others don’t follow. Find out the potential entry spots of the mice and seal them using steel wool. They are way more effective than conventional wood or newspaper.

Onions: onions as we know have a very pungent smell and can deter mice from frequenting if placed strategically all over the house.

Flour or baby powder: these are useful when you’re tying to find out the access points and the most frequented areas around the house. Just sprinkle some around the suspected areas and look for signs of mice tracks.

Ammonia: along with peppermint oil, mint and onions, ammonia is supposed to be really strong and is known to cause irritation to even us. So all you have to do is take some, dilute in water and place it all around the house. But be very careful if you have pets or small children in your house. In that case try to avoid this method.

Remove food supplies: as we all know prevention is better than cure, so remove the top reason of the mouse’s to do list which is food. Once they don’t find things to eat they will look for other sources. So make sure you remove all the edible food items from scurrying places and keep them out of reach.

You will know that you are living in an area where there have been mouse sightings, to make sure they don’t pay a visit to your house, keep these remedies in mind and learn how to catch a mouse without complications, traps and maybe an army of exterminators.

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For the last three years I have teamed up with my nephew to make homemade wine from grapes. The grapes are fermented, pressed and transferred to demijohns with the extra going into gallon jugs. All this process takes place at his house and then I bring my share home.

Now the purpose of sharing this information about where we made the wine is important because for the last couple of years after I brought the wine home there has been a large number of fruit flies in my house. The fact that the whole process was not done at my home there shouldn’t be any or just a few fruit flies flying about. Fortunately this wine season the flies were not as bad as the last one. However, in the previous year my wife and I would be having dinner with a glass of wine and when we went to have a sip there would be a fly or two floating in the wine and or flying around the glass trying to dive in. These flies became very annoying. How do I get rid of these little monsters was the question that kept running through my mind. Then the idea came to me – make a homemade wine fruit fly trap.

I set up the trap and to my astonishment it worked fantastically. Every day the number of flies floating in the wine increased. As this was my first time doing this, I didn’t know how long to leave the wine before replacing it with fresh wine. To my surprise, after three or four days they had turned the wine into vinegar. I had heard this was possible and was one of the big reasons to keep fermenting wine covered. From that point on I would change the wine every two or three days. By end of the first week the number of flies that were being caught in the trap was decreasing and within two weeks they were gone. So this wine season just past I was all ready for these little pests.

To make a homemade wine fruit fly trap all you need is a short wide rimmed glass, plastic food wrap and of course homemade wine. Pour wine into the glass to a level of a quarter inch and tightly cover with plastic food wrap. Then puncture small holes (just big enough for the flies to enter inside the glass) in the plastic wrap in the center of the glass away from the rim of the glass. The reason for keeping the holes away from the rim is once the fruit flies are inside the glass they will walk on the plastic wrap staying close to the rim and you certainly do not want to give them a chance to escape.

Bed bugs, like the ones your Mom used to warn you about, are becoming a serious nuisance in metropolitan areas like Seattle. They first came to my attention a couple of months ago, and my initial reaction was something along the lines of a guffaw. “What’s next?”, I laughed, “an invasion of unicorns?” Sadly, and disturbingly, bed bugs are real, and they are nasty little bastards.

Essentially, bed bugs are like fleas that drink the blood of humans, as opposed to animals. They tend to live in your mattress and like to crawl onto their “host” in the hours just before dawn. Their bites leave pink or reddish welts, similar to mosquitoes or small spiders. Often, small bloodstains will be visible on the sheets or mattress which, along with their tiny egg sacks, are usually the only evidence to be found during the day without a thorough inspection.

(Ed. note…. I wish I could take my laptop in the shower…just writing about this gives me the heebie-jeebies…)

Bed bugs are highly contagious. They hop onto your clothes while you sleep. They can then be carried around the house, or dropped into a suitcase, if you happen to be traveling. It is widely believed that bed bugs are spread primarily by travelers who pick them up or leave them behind in hotels, which explains why most bed bug outbreaks occur in large cities. According to several pest control experts I’ve spoken with, the number of bed bug related service calls has increased 10 times in the past 2-3 years. Bed bugs calls are quickly becoming the majority of the business for many companies like Eden and Orkin.

(ed. note… after finally stuffing myself into my haz-mat suit, the heebies are subsiding… the jeebies, not so much…)

What can you do about it? CALL A PROFESSIONAL IMMEDIATELY! I recently worked with Eden to treat a bed bug infestation in an apartment building owned by one of my clients. They were fantastic. And green. They use a cedar-oil-based product that kills the bugs and smells like the hamster cage I had when I was a kid.

After several treatments with both traditional chemicals and green alternatives, the bugs finally gave up. It was difficult, time consuming, and incredibly expensive. Prevention is the key when it comes to bedbug treatment. Here are a few tips:

1. Do NOT buy used furniture. EVER. These things can live undetected for months in couches, mattresses, etc., even without food.

2. Inspect hotel beds end keep your bags up off the floor. Even though you rarely hear about it, hotels are one of the primary distribution points for bedbug migration. Horrifying? Yes. Still true? Yes.

3. Keep your house clean. This should seem obvious, but bugs, of any sort, have a much easier time hiding in dirty, cluttered spaces. So don’t be a slob…and encourage your tenants to clean up after themselves.

4. If you DO find bedbugs, call a professional IMMEDIATELY. They can give you all sorts of advice on how to get rid of them.

Rob LeRoy is the Marketing Director at Dwellings Seattle Real Estate and Property Management in Seattle, WA. He has been an active real estate agent in Washington since 2004, and currently works as a freelance Internet Marketing Consultant with real estate agents and small businesses across the country.