BiggerPockets

Before you do anything, bait the crawlspace with mouse poison. Put a lot down there. $20 may solve it but you need to put enough down so all parts of the group eat it.

If that doesn't work. Ask the tenants if they want to keep a cat. No joke. I've solved mice problems this way before. I only do this in SFR's though where they don't know any of my other tenants and when the carpet is old.

Also, my lease specifically states that all properties are delivered to them rodent/pest free. If there are any rodents/pests discovered, they have 10 days from start of the lease to notify me. After that, it is their behavior that is attracting rodents/pests and is their responsibility to have them removed. Sealing a house won't solve a mouse problem if there's a food source there. They will find a way back in.

Exterminators are like counselors. The money's in treatment, not the solution.

Eddie thanks for thinking of my wife, she is better now. But I knew about the mice before she moved in. I thought I had taken care of the problem by sealing up an entry point, although they found another way in. So I feel as if it is my problem because the issue was there before they moved in.

While it could be the tenants' fault for being slobs and providing food for the mice, I keep a very clean kitchen and house and still get mice almost every year. It can be nearly impossible to figure out where they are getting in, they can fit thru a 1/4 inch hole and climb walls.

I use peanut butter and old fashioned mousetraps until the whole family is gone - then I know I won't have little corpses in my walls, plus I see when I catch them so I know it's working. I've tried some of the new and improved traps and nothing works like the old standard so far.

I have heard landlords who swear by allowing ONE cat for the FIRST floor tenant, even if they normally don't allow pets - solves the problem :-)

We had a tree rat problem in an apartment I was living at, in Los Angeles, and my apartment was immaculate. These suckers were BIG - well over a foot long. They got in the walls of the building and started to methodically hunt down everyone's kitchens in the building. They ate through walls, cabinets, you name it.

Traps didn't cut it alone. Sure, picking up the corpses of giant rats was a blast :roll: but the bottom line was that they had to spray the hell out of that building's perimiter. That stopped new rats from coming in, but we had to get the ones in the building, one by one. That took a good while - months.

I can still hear them running across the ceiling and in between the walls if I think about it. They ate the food in our drawers, ate the wires to our stove (that needed to be replaced), you name it. Scared the hell out of my dogs too!

So, as for finding entry points, ours got in through the basement garage and vents that led into different apartments. Once in the building (20 units, I believe) they just went from apartment to apartment through the common walls.

Anyway, that was one horrific experience!

Good luck in resolving your rodent problem, and we're all glad your wife is doing better.

That's rough Josh when the natural predators are no longer around to keep the numbers down. Josh's story brought up a memory.

I got away with this in Indiana but I don't recommend it in every locality. Had a groundsquirrel that kept coming into one of my properties and I couldn't get rid of him with traps or anything. I finally found where we was coming in at and turned the couch into a "fort" and sat in there with my .22 rifle. Sure enough he came back.....for the last time. ;-)

$1800?

You know what the pest control guy does for mice? He puts out bait blocks.

For about $12, you can out out the blocks yourself and save a couple of pennies.

Go on-line, open Jeffers livestock catalog, and order bait blocks by the bucket. I like the Tomcat brand, and so do the mice, yum-yum..

Put them underneath the foundations, behind the fridge, underneath the kitchen sink cabinet (you can probably slip them down where the drain goes through the base of the cabinet), behind the stove, and in the attic.

Pets, unfortunately, also think they are yum-yum, so if there are pets in the house, go down to the dime store and buy plastic storage boxes about the size of a shoe box. Cut a small round mouse size hole in one end. Now fasten the bait blocks at the other end by running a wire through them and through the walls of the box. Fasten the lid on with a couple of wraps of duct tape.

You now have a mouse feeder that no one can get into except the mice, and they can't pull the bait block out and leave it in the middle of the kitchen floor.

About a week after you put out the poisin, hire someone else, not the pest guys, to come and seal up those gaps in the wall. That's the sort of job I have my roofer do for me. (give the mice a week to eat and crawl outside to die before you seal up their escape.)

$1800. I don't think so.

Personally, rather than cats, I'd prefer a couple of hungry rat terriers or other ratting dog, if they would do the job in an apartment house. You may be able to rent them for as long as it takes. Not all cats are ratters...
http://puppydogweb.com/caninebreeds/ratterrier.htm

http://www.thebreedsofdogs.com/JACK_RUSSELL_TERRIER.htm

http://www.dogs-central.com/dog-breeds/norwich-terrier/

If you use dogs or cats, DO NOT set out poison, and let the dog owner know about all poison you have put out. It would need cleaned up first, and any rats have the time to die and be removed.
Ofgift

With regard to Ofgift idea of dogs, I don't know what is your policy allowing tenants to have dogs (Liability and such).
With regard to the repellent, I'm not sure how long it will last. I think it works like conditioning effect when after a while, the rodent are condition not to enter the area. That they I trained my dog not to s***t in certain areas...

Khalid, I had a mouse problem. They were field mice from the forest nearby. They are natural and will gravite toward the easiest food source. Sense of smell is great.

A cat was thrown from a car one day in front of my house and I had pity on him. Fed him and provided him a home (pet container) on the back porch. Dogs are inside, so he could not be. Now I have about 10-15 cats at any time living at my house. They will find a place to hide and live and the mouse problem just seems to go away on its own.

Just do not feed them too often as they begin to rely on the food itself instead of their own instincts for the natural food (mice and rats).

Go as far as rescuing a cat from the pound and require it be kept outside. It will live in the crawlspace and get rid of your problem as it will patrol the outside perimeter of its crawlspace after it notices where the mouse come in and or leave.

Ours are virtually wild, and will not even come around to eat until after you leave the food. But you will see them. Dont forget the water.