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Paradichlorobenzene, AKA mothballs. I keep them around anything that doesn't move very often as a general pest deterrent. The most effective rodenticides are anti-coagulants and are not kind to people or pets. That would be a last resort for me, but depending on your situation would definitely be the most effective.



They certainly work but, as you said, they are just as deadly to dogs and cats. We lost the sweetest Border Collie that way when she got into some of it in a barn. Now I put down some sticky stuff that will hold mice. It holds the mice until they die but just makes the dogs and cats go nuts until you take it off them.

I once lived in an old farm house with a huge mouse problem every autumn. I poisoned the varmints and they died in the walls. The place stunk of rotting mice for weeks. I adopted a 15 lb terrier the following year. He caught them at a rate of two or three every day as the weather got colder. The only bad part is that he would leave their little chewed up bodies on my favorite chair to demonstrate what a good dog he was. More than forty years later I still check my chair before I sit.

We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But when push comes to shove most of us are sheep who do what we are told. Worst of all, a lot of us become unpaid agents of whoever is controlling the agenda by enforcing the current dogma on the few rugged individualists who actually exist.