No one wants to have mice living in their homes. These pests can destroy things in your house and will generally be an annoyance.
Sometimes you might find pests living in spots that you won’t discover easily. They can hide in many different places.
Can mice live in couches? Is it possible that mice could be living inside of your couch right now without your knowledge?
Continue reading to learn about mice and if it’s possible for them to live in couches. You’ll also get information about what you can do to get rid of mice.
Mice Can Live in Couches
It’s definitely possible for mice to live in couches. In fact, this happens more often than you might think.
When a mouse gets inside of your home, it’s going to do its best to stay out of sight. It wants to hide and then scavenge for food when you’re asleep or away from home.
A couch is going to make a perfect hiding spot for mice. If a mouse can get inside of a couch, it can use the materials inside to build a very comfortable nest.
The inside of a couch will contain stuffing and soft bits of cloth. These materials can be used to build a nest very easily.
Sometimes it’ll be hard to notice that a mouse is inside the couch, too. The materials inside of the couch will muffle the sounds that mice make.
Even the gnawing sounds that mice make might be harder to notice. Of course, you should eventually hear something if you’re paying attention.
How to Notice Mice in Your Couch
Noticing mice in your couch will mostly be about looking for signs. You might hear the mice if you listen closely, but there are other signs to be aware of.
Have you noticed any mouse droppings near the sofa or somewhere else in the house? If you see mouse droppings anywhere, that’s going to tell you that you have a mouse in the house.
You might smell the mice as well. Mice are going to urinate and the smell will be quite easy to notice.
Mouse urine has a distinct musky smell that you won’t be able to ignore. There’s a good chance that if you have mice in your couch, the couch is going to start to smell bad.
There could be holes in the couch somewhere that you can spot. If you see any small holes or gnaw marks, it’s possible that it could indicate that you have mice.
Pay attention to your pets as well. Both cats and dogs will be able to tell when mice are in the house.
Your pets might act weird because they’re trying to alert you to the presence of the mice. Even if you don’t understand what the pet is trying to tell you at first, you might now realize that the behavior of your pet was a sign of mice.
How to Get Rid of Mice
Getting rid of mice isn’t going to be too hard overall. You can use standard methods to eliminate mice that you’d use even if the mice weren’t in the couch.
The best route to take is to set up standard spring traps. Set up traps in the areas where you spot mouse droppings.
This should cause the mice to get killed trying to look for food. It can be wise to set two traps right next to each other. This makes it a lot tougher for the mouse to get the food from the trap and jump to safety before getting killed.
Don’t try to use poison to kill the mice. You definitely don’t want to use poison near your couch.
Another option is to let your cats try to kill the mice. Cats are natural predators that will hunt mice down and kill them.
Many people have cats that are able to hunt down mice and get rid of them fast. If you don’t like the idea of your cats killing mice, you can always stick to using the traps.
How to Prevent Mice From Coming Into Your Home
Preventing mice from coming into your home will be easier if you keep things really clean. Try to avoid leaving dirty dishes in the sink.
Do a good job of sweeping the floor to give mice no reason to stick around. If they don’t have things to eat, it’ll be harder for them to survive in your home.
Don’t leave pet food out in the pets’ food bowls either. Mice will steal bits of food if you do this.
Keep pet food in airtight plastic containers that the mice can’t get into. You’re going to want to store other types of food in safe containers to keep mice at bay as well.
You should look around your home to determine how the mice are getting inside. There might be holes that you’ll need to patch up to keep the mice out.
Make the necessary repairs and try to do a good job cleaning. If you do your best, it should limit the number of times you’ll have to deal with mice in your home each year.
Should You Keep the Couch?
Whether or not you should keep the couch after mice have been in it will depend on how bad the damage is. If the couch is clearly rather messed up, it’s likely going to be better to throw it out and buy a new couch.
If a mouse was only inside of the couch briefly, you should be able to clean things up. You might need to repair some bits of fabric, but it could be okay.
Spray the couch with disinfectant and see how things look after you’re done. If you don’t like the way the couch looks or if you just feel uncomfortable, you can always get rid of the couch.
Many people don’t want to have to get rid of a couch so easily. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on new furniture, it likely makes sense to try to clean and save the couch unless things are really bad.
Final Thoughts
Having mice in your couch will be a very frustrating experience. You might not notice the mice in the couch at first since the materials inside of the sofa can muffle sounds a bit.
You will likely notice eventually due to seeing mouse droppings. Mice will also cause the couch to smell eventually due to urinating in the couch.
Getting rid of the mice won’t be too tough. You should set mouse traps and kill the mice.
Set the traps near the areas where you discovered mouse droppings if possible. It’s also wise to put mouse traps in areas where you think mice might try to look for food.
After killing the mice, you’ll want to try to keep mice from getting into your home moving forward. Keep the house very clean and try to fix any small holes that are allowing mice to get inside.
Clean your couch up and disinfect it as well as you can. Hopefully, it won’t be too messed up and you will be able to keep it.
If mice have been living in the couch for quite some time, you might want to throw the couch away. It’s unfortunate to have to do something like that, but it might be for the best if the mouse did a lot of damage.
I have two Associate’s degrees, one in Medical Assisting and the other in Computer Technician, and I am roughly five classes from a bachelor’s degree. Though I never ended up working in the medical field, I have five and a half years of experience in IT. I recently became a stay-at-home mom to my two young boys, and I’m so excited to start this adventure with them! In my spare time, I love to bake and read pretty much anything I can get my hands on.