The Amish Have Kept Mice Out of the House for Pennies — The One Thing They Put in Every Corner

The Amish Have Kept Mice Out of the House for Pennies — The One Thing They Put in Every Corner For a few dollars a year, one small brown bottle and a bag of cotton balls, I have kept mice out of this old farmhouse for eleven years without setting a trap. My name is Mammi Sarah. I am Amish. My Lancaster County farmhouse is a hundred and fifty years old, with a grain barn sixty feet from the door. My grandmother kept mint in every pantry corner, and my mother after her. Most folks hear scratching in the wall and reach for the bait box. What they are not told: the poisoned mouse wanders off and dies slow, and the owl or barn cat that finds it dies too. You pay to kill your best mouser. I will show you what I use, where to get it, which corners it goes in, and the thing no one tells you: a mouse lives nearly blind in a world of smell and runs the edges, one whisker on the wall. Guard the edge. I will not tell you it does what it cannot. Peppermint is a fence, not an army. It will not empty a wall that already has a nest, and the scent dies in a week unless you freshen it. Tell me in the comments what part of the country you are in, and whether it is field mice or bold house mice. I read every one. 🔔 Subscribe for more of the old ways. Next time, the one thing from my cupboard my grandmother laid in a white line along the windowsill to stop ants all summer.