This year, we discovered that our stove/oven became a mouse commune. They moved into the insulation as well as into the burners. We’re looking for a replacement that could be mouse-proofed. Is there such a thing? I suspect a closed, glass-top burner system would be a must.—Al Smith, Minden, Ont.
A glass top might help a little. Or not at all. “When we find mice in stoves, it’s usually because the access point is in the space around the wire for the stove’s plug,” says Lauralee Proudfoot of Cottage Country Pest Control in Victoria Harbour, Ont. “When it comes to appliances, wires through walls—or floors—allow mice to locate an opening and use their teeny tiny teeth to make the hole bigger.”
Most appliances have openings because they’re meant to have openings. “There’s typically built-in ventilation behind or underneath,” says Gary Ure, the owner of Second Nature Wildlife Management in Gananoque, Ont. “There’s probably not a lot of manufacturer concern given to making a stove mouse-proof.”
Cottage Q&A: How to keep mice out of your ride
Still, it’s worth shopping around for a modern, more modular stove, he says. Then, it might be possible to cover potential mouse entry points with hardware cloth. “The smallest screen I’d use is ¼-inch,” he says. “That way, if there’s any kind of material buildup—dust, for example—it’s not really going to build up, because the holes in the screen are large enough to let it through.”
That said, Ure admits he hasn’t personally tried this. Plus, you might not want to risk messing with the integrity of a new stove. Proudfoot suggests stashing peppermint oil-soaked cotton balls behind the stove or in the drawer underneath. “The peppermint smell lasts quite a while, and mice really hate it,” she says. “I have some people who use it to keep mice out of their cars. They only have to replace the cotton balls every couple of months.”
Ideally, you’d keep mice out of the cottage in the first place. But that can be damn near impossible. As such, a final word of advice from Proudfoot? “When buying stoves with mice in mind, I would recommend thinking not only about the holes it has, but also about whether you or a pest control technician could get into it if need be,” she says. “As a tech, I tend to prefer older infested stoves because I can open them up enough to deal with the mess.”
Got a question for Cottage Q&A? Email answers@cottagelife.com.
This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of Cottage Life.
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