Irish Spring Soap Keeps Mice Away – Fact or Fiction?

Many home gardeners and owners swear that Irish Spring Soap is an effective repellent for mice and other typical home and garden pests. But is there any truth to their claims? We’re about to find out!

A little mouse problem…

There is little more rewarding than growing your fruit and vegetables from your very own garden. It’s a gratifying feeling knowing you are eating your own produce.

But it comes with its challenges – specifically pests and rodents, including the cute, ever-elusive mouse.

Wherever food is available, you can be sure mice are not far away.

Once mice know about a readily available food source, they tend to stick around and explore the area more extensively. Inevitably, this means they enter your home, and you find not-so-pleasant gifts in the form of mouse feces.

Will Irish Spring Keep Mice Away?

Home gardeners are in a constant battle with the local fauna, such as deer and squirrels. They are trying new and inventive methods to deter mice from their prized gardens and homes.

Some have turned their attention to soap products, including success stories of how Irish Spring Soap was the solution to their rodent problems. But is there truth to their Irish Spring Soap claims?

While it seems to have worked for some, no concrete evidence indicates that Irish Spring Soap is an effective strategy for keeping mice away from your home and garden.

there is no clinical evidence that Irish Spring Soap keeps mice away

This isn’t to say that success stories are making false claims. Irish Spring may have had a role in keeping their mice away. However, it is likely a combination of factors that contributed to their success, such as the mice associating the smell with a human presence and feeling threatened. Or the mice may have moved onto more lucrative pastures.

Irish Soap alone will not guarantee to keep mice away. And in some cases, it may even encourage them to hang around!

Will Mice Eat Irish Spring Soap?

In some cases, mice and rats will indulge in taking nibbles and chunks out of the Irish Spring soap, as evidenced in this video by Mousetrap Monday below

This supports our conclusion that Irish Spring doesn’t always work to keep mice away from your garden and home.

So, what works if Irish Spring Soap isn’t a proven method for deterring mice? We’ll explore your options in the next section.

How to Keep Mice Away From Your Garden and Home

Before we get into methods for keeping mice away from your garden and home, we will be fully transparent and say, wherever possible, we always try organic, natural methods for keeping local fauna away from our gardens. A simple search online will reveal plenty of resources that will detail the best ways to install mousetraps, etc.

In this article, we’ll only be discussing humane, organic methods for keeping mice away (or not, as you will soon discover)

So let’s begin.

Do Dryer Sheets Keep Mice Away?

Another famous product people claim to be effective for keeping mice away: is dryer sheets. Like Irish Spring, these miracle bits of material that soften and fragrance your clothes in the dryer also have alternate uses.

Some home gardeners claim they help to repel mice and other rodents.

However, this has been disproven, and instead of keeping mice at bay, they used the dryer sheets as bedding for their homes.

Do Moth Balls Keep Mice Away?

Gardeners and homeowners are desperate to keep mice away because they have also trialed mothballs as an effective alternative to repelling rodents.

Unfortunately, like the two previous products, they are not a guaranteed solution. Turning our attention back to the Mousetrap Monday Youtube channel, you will see the effectiveness of mothballs in his experiment with mice.

The Best Way to Keep Mice Away

In our experience, prevention is the best way to keep mice away from your garden and home.

We know it sounds boring. However, removing the food source eliminates the reason for the mice to be around your garden and home.

Here are our tips for keeping mice away from your garden:

• Clean up organic materials – just because a garden is outside doesn’t mean it has to be messy. Keeping the grass trimmed and picking up any fallen debris or leaf litter will reduce breeding places for mice. Actively picking up organic matter such as seeds, flowers, and rotten fruit and vegetables will also limit the available food for the mice.
• Pack away your garden tools – like the previous tip, ensure your garden tools and equipment are neatly packed in the garden shed. Containers and objects around the garden provide hiding spaces for mice to move around. Packing it away means they will be exposed to natural predators, limiting their movement.
• Encourage natural predators – have you ever thought about owning a cat? Just the presence of a predator, like cats and owls, is enough to scare mice away from your garden and home. Actively encouraging them to hang around your house will help to keep the mischievous rodents away.

Will Irish Spring Keep Mice Away – Closing Comments

Irish Spring Soap is an effective cleaning and deodorizing agent with many uses. Many gardeners claim it is effective in pest control – but will it keep mice away?

We found no conclusive evidence that Irish Soap will always keep mice away. However, it has worked for some homeowners.

We find the best way to keep mice away from your garden and home is to maintain a clean and tidy space. It limits the opportunities for mice to move and breed, forcing them to move to more fruitful pastures.