Finding mice droppings near your griddle is not a welcomed site. Let’s talk about why mice like your griddle and how to eradicate them for good! From the natural remedies to the strong options, here is all you wanted to know (and more) about keeping mice off your griddle.
Finding mouse poop on a Blackstone Griddle or finding mouse poop on any griddle is a frustrating sight.
There are moments that you want to fire up that Blackstone griddle but then you get pissed at the sight of a mouse or other rodents, their droppings, their fur, or all.
The presence of rodents in your griddle is a significant safety concern and a health hazard too. Rodents are hosts to many diseases and they carry mites and other pests, all of which negatively impact your health and safety.
What Attracts Mice To A Griddle?
There are many strategies to keep off these rodents from your griddle but not all are safe. For instance, poison can be dangerous especially if you have children or pets within the home. If your cat or even dog also visits the griddle area, then poison could pose another hazard.
The first step to keeping mice off the griddle involves understanding what attracts them to it. This way, you’ll be able to eradicate the attractions and so minimize the chances of mice coming back to the griddle.
Just like humans, mice have their basic needs (food and shelter); huh, they don’t need clothing. Any condition that supports these needs will definitely attract mice.
Food
What kind of food do you prepare in your griddle? Mice love food, but they have a higher affinity for some foods than others. Coincidentally, just like people, mice love carbs.
Chocolates and butter offer the best combination of favorites for mice. Cheese has also been proven to significantly attract mice. If these are what you often prepare in your griddle, some mice somewhere long to share the taste.
A recent report by the state’s department of health states that using a small piece of bacon to trap mice would score you just right.
Mice love bacon, if you leave pieces of it, or barely fail to clean the griddle off the oil after cooking, you could be attracting mice.
Cleaning your griddle alone might not keep mice off, but leaving it all messy will most definitely invite them. The pieces of food and other debris could be what the mice need to fill their tiny stomachs and build a nest.
Shelter
How do you cover your griddle after use? The type of material you use could be the reason a rodent would want to visit and camp in your griddle.
Mice not only want food but also somewhere they can turn into a home. If you cover the griddle with fabric material, you’ll most likely be providing a warm place for mice to shield them from the outdoor wind and cold.
Some people recommend that if you have to cover the griddle, use an airtight cover, most suitably one made from wood and one which snugly fits the griddle.
Additionally, if after cooking you leave stuff that can be good nesting material, for instance, feathers, around the griddle, mice could take them for building materials for their nests. This could ultimately lure them in getting comfortable in your griddle.
Tips To Keep Mice Off Your Griddle
There are three basic tips to keep mice off from the griddle: removing the food source, creating a physical barrier, and using repellants.
Removing The Food Source (Cleaning)
Food is the primary attraction of mice thus removing it will go a long way in ensuring a rodent-free outdoor. It’s not everyone’s best activity, but it’s of course the best remedy if you must keep off mice.
Cleaning your outdoor griddle after use essentially takes at most 1 hour. The cleaning has to be thorough because rodents have a strong sense of smell; they won’t hesitate to visit you even at the slightest smell of food.
Cleaning your griddle and ignoring the surrounding environment is as good as not cleaning at all. Any food around the griddle or in your backyard will still attract mice. Be sure to clean the outdoor region.
This includes the bushes or plants in your backyard. If you store your garbage in the backyard, ensure that it is safe. Also, you must feed your pet elsewhere, other than near the griddle.
Create A Physical Barrier
Mice will find it hard to access your grill if you create a barrier. Griddle covers come in different forms made from different materials. Avoid using cheap covers that are made of fabric lining as they attract a mouse, due to their warmth.
Mice could also tear parts of the fabric and build nests therein your griddle. When people ask if they need a griddle cover, this is one of the many reasons I recommend them, it’s not 100% rodent-proof, but it does ad another layer of mice protection from your griddle.
If your griddle doesn’t come with a cover, you can customize your own using wood or metal. In any case, the wood or metal should be strong enough to resist any form of external pressure that can cause breakage. Be sure that the cover doesn’t have any gaps to let the mice in.
Using Repellents
Repellents are basically anything that scares off mice and other rodents. They could be in form of traps, scents, ultrasonic pest control, or poison.
Traps
If mice keep visiting your griddle even after using every other method to keep them off, you might want to try traps. Traps come in different types, some which capture and others which capture and kill.
The popular mouse snap trap will capture and kill within a short time. The glue mouse trap captures mice, grabs them, and makes them gnaw until they die. It might take several minutes, but in the end, you’ll have the mice dead.
Alternatively, once the mice have been trapped, you could unglue them from the trap and kill them. Be sure not to give it to your pet cat; the glue isn’t safe for consumption.
The live mouse trap is often preferred as it catches the mouse and maintains it alive just in case you want to release it or feed it to your cat. Be on time to release it before it starves and dies on the trap.
Rodent Control Scents
Particular scents are designed to keep mice at bay either by suffocating them or just making the air unbearable. Recommendable scents for mice repelling include:
- • Cloves
- • Mothballs
- • Commercial mice repellents
- • Peppermint
- • Ammonia
- • Camphor
- • Cat fur
Ultrasonic Pest Control
It involves a new technology that repels mice using electromagnetic waves and ultrasonic sounds. According to developers, the waves irritate mice thus makes them want to leave the covered area. You might not feel the irritation, but trust it that mice will.
Rodent Poison
Have you had enough of the mice and neither traps nor other methods keep them off from your griddle? Poison is a proven remedy to get rid of mice.
Use poison only if you are ready to hunt and dispose of dead mice. Poisons should be handled with a lot of care and are not suitable for use in homes with children and pets.
Other Methods Honorable Mentions:
- Increase the frequency of using your griddle: This helps to keep off mice that come to stay.
- Move the griddle farther from the fence: You might do quite a lot to keep off mice, but if your neighbor does nothing about them, then you could be at the risk of receiving these visitors. Don’t be surprised to see them climbing the fence into your home. For this reason, it’s advisable to keep the griddle a fair distance from the fence.
How To Disinfect The Griddle After Mice Are Discovered
Cleaning the griddle after a mice infestation is no different from the general cleaning procedure following the use of the griddle. There’s only one additional step; a natural remedy that involves the use of vinegar.
For more information about the disinfecting properties of vinegar, check out this from Healthline. For clarity, here is the step-by-step guide:
- The process begins by disassembling the parts following the manufacture’s guide.
- Using a brush or a scraper, remove all the mice feces, hair, food debris, and any other unwanted particles from the griddle
- Using a hose, sprinkle water on the griddle parts
- Use soap or a degreaser to remove extra or oily particles from the griddle. Rinse thoroughly with clean water
- Brush the griddle once more using a disinfectant or vinegar and rinse it one last time
- Dry the parts using a piece of cloth
- Reassemble the griddle
- Heat up the burners for at least thirty minutes to kill any remaining bacteria in the griddle.
Conclusion
Learning how to keep mice out of a grill is the first step in keeping your grill clean and sanitary.
It all begins by knowing what attracts the mice and removing it. Further, giving your griddle some good cleaning care, as well as using some barriers and repellents has also been proven to keep mice off.
Of these strategies, you might be required to use either one or two at the same time. In other cases, you might want to use all strategies depending on the level of mice infestation or resistance of mice to a single strategy.