Whidbey Island, WA
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Mice Don't Like Lavender
You may love the smell of lavender, but you may be surprised to learn that mice don't.
cIn our first season on the farm, we had trouble with mice getting into our camping gear that was stored in the garage and they'd made nests in our cars. My husband Al had set some mouse traps using peanut butter as bait and he'd gotten quite a few of those pesky critters. Then all of a sudden the traps weren't working anymore. We wondered what had changed?
I had heard from my piano-technician sister that people put lavender sachets in their pianos to keep mice from building their nests in their instruments, but I'd considered it to be an old-wives tale. Then I realized what had happened.
It was mid-July and I had started hanging bunches of lavender in the attic where drying wires had been strung. Lavender was drying nicely and it was a delight to go up into that attic. This was a joy for me, but, I guess, misery for the mice because they abandoned not only the attic, but also the rest of the garage, including the cars!
My neighbors returned from a four-month odyssey across the U.S. in their R.V. I'd been keeping tabs on their house while they were gone. I wasn't sure when they were getting back, so at Christmas I put a basket loosely wrapped with cellophane full of lavender goodies on their counter as a welcome home present. I left for my own trips for the next few weeks and felt secure knowing they would come back to a nice surprise.
They did come back to a surprise - mice in their house, all over the place. I was horrified, of course, and felt awful. But I hadn't seen any sign of mice when I'd last checked inside just before I'd gone on my trips (those guys can work FAST). But, she told me that they hadn't gotten into the lavender basket at all - everything in it, including the soap, was in fine condition. My weary neighbor wasn't too happy about her unwanted guests, but I was rather pleased that the lavender had repelled the mice.