Get cats. Lots of cats. Sorry, that won't help the smell right now.

I agree. If 1 has crawled in, others may not be far behind. See if you can find the entry.

Febreze really works.

The smell rarely last more than a week, and more often it's 3-4 days for well ventilated areas.

If you want to prevent it from happening again, inspect carefully where entry openings may need sealing. Especially around the foundation and any entry points to under the house or into the attic. Mice (if that's what it is) are small and can scoot through very small holes.

Just after our first Thanksgiving in this house, we started to notice ”the smell”. We narrowed it down, soaked old clean kid socks in Febreze, and tucked them into the gaps around the closet door where it seemed to concentrate. By the time 18 guests arrived for Christmas Eve dinner, the odor was gone.

Growing up, I was in charge of housework in our large farmhouse. I remember sticking the vacuum hose down into the area under the lint trap on the dryer in the basement and pulling it out to find a dead mouse suctioned to the end of the hose. I dropped the still running vacuum and ran screaming up 2 flights of stairs to my room and slammed the door. I remember later sniffing all our clothing, trying to decide what would have to be rewashed. I was not a happy camper. Sorry, other than checking your dryer ducts, I have no real advice.

I live in an old house and last fall I bought Irish Spring bar soap and cut it in to chunks and put some all through my house and the only sign of mice that I found this winter was some teeth marks in some of the chunks but never more that what I saw the first time.

Have you tried Fresh Cab? We used to use it for the occasional mouse and it seemed to repel them. I like the way it smells, but apparently mice don't. https://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Cab-Botanical-Control-Repellent/dp/B0119AY5FU

I empathize, Ninapearl. I, too, live in the boonies and small critters are a continual problem. The latest critters that think my attic and walls are for their personal use are Chipmunks. GRRRR They chatter all day long and then the night crew of mice serenade me until dawn. They're all climbers which means they can scale walls, etc to get to an entrance so make sure window frames are tight. Chimney are another favorite entry area. If you have a fire place, get a tight fitting door/cover for it.

But, if you've been fighting this battle of wits with these little darlings for a while...I'm sure you know all of this. There isn't a door jamb built that deters these critters. With their collapsible rib cages I've seen them slide right under the door leading into my garage.

My best weapon has been a black light. They're readily available at most hardware stores and all similar on line merchants. They're a battery operated flash light that one uses in a dark room which will identify the urine trails that these critters leave behind themselves as they merrily scamper through your home. If you can find these trails...you can identify their entry ports and seal them to prevent further entry. My home is very secure now thanks to my black light. It's an amazing tool. But read the directions. It'll not only hi-lite urine trails...it'll hi-lite any other spill or spray...such as pet mistakes...or spray cleaners. Mice trails are distinctive because they're small round deposits rather than large splotches. You'll see.

We had a couple places where mice could crawl up into the trim pieces on the corners of the house. Didn't want to use that spray foam there, so DD stuffed it with steel wool. That seemed to work.

I was also going to suggest steel wool. We are in the country and it seems they often would manage to shelter in the crawl space. I use a fairly fine gauge and have stuffed it around plumbing points everywhere as added insurance. Did the same at our lake condo.

Steel wool in the tiny gaps you can see works. It’s when they are already in, or you can’t see the gaps, that the mice can be a problem!

Gaps around and under doors can be effectively sealed with the trim finish and raised thresholds, along with sometimes multipart weather stripping.

The DIY adhesive types won't work. There are metal ones, sometimes springy pieces or ones with interlocking pieces that do fine. It's the work for a finish carpenter or someone with similar skills. Irregular surfaces under the door or on door edges need to be evened out first.

Also put fine mesh in your weep holes, if you have brick.

I am here to tell you that steel wool stuffed into cracks and spaces where wires and pipes enter the house, will rust, turn to dust and the meeces are back! I used kids polymer clay.....and it's been years and still tight.
Don't use poison.....they die in the walls and stink. snap traps are quick.
and the chattering you hear at night is bats....not chipmonks. They are not nocturnal.

This too will pass--and before you get to the store to buy the Febreeze. We were mice free for about 9mos. They were getting in through the louvers of the dryer vent. We had a mouse/bat guy come out to advise. He found many places. If you pencil tip can fit--so can they. Even though a new gap has appeared and they once again are getting in near my dryer...they aren't getting in the hole that had them stuck in our basement wall--where they died. WE have been STINK free for over a year now!!

thanks for all the great ideas, everybody! i miss having the black snake living under the deck. she disappeared while i was having a room addition built but while she was here, i rarely had mice in the house.

can't have cats because one of my danes has an over-the-top prey drive. a cat wouldn't stand a chance here. :(

If it's any consolation, Ninapearl, we have cats and still have mice. We have woods right behind our house and they occasionally get in. We used to live in a heavily wooded area and it was a losing battle. Every winter we would have 4-5 mice die in the walls. We never did find anything to eliminate the smell, except for time, but I haven't tried a few of the remedies suggested here. And we never did find where they were able to get in. We tried steel wool in various places inside the house, like around the pipes under the sink, but they pulled it out and went on their way. I don't do poison, but the snap traps worked decently well. Good luck.

When one becomes involved in this battle of wits with these little critters...one investigates every critter weapon known to mankind. And..I have just the product for you, Bluebell. Cluder puts out a product called Rodent Barrier Kit. It's a mesh product that comes in flattened sheets about 6"- 8" wide and probably close to an inch thick which is infused with razor sharp steel slivers. The mesh is a plastic/non rusting material so there's no worry about rust or the collapsing properties of steel wool. This stuff will last forever. However...one must be armed with heavy duty gloves [which the kit supplies] and cutters [which are also supplied] and there's no avoiding reading the application directions. If one ignores their care warnings...one will most certainly end up with little steel slivers embedded in ones fingers. It's nasty stuff...BUT...it works.

I have baseboard electric heat and the very installation properties of same are an open invitation to these smart little critters because the electric connections often leave gaps around the wiring. I spent a few long hours stuffing strips of this product under and around all my baseboard elements. It worked. Black light inspections have continued to show no more critter trails and I haven't found a piece of scat within miles of my interior since I applied this product.

I bought mine at Home Depot but I suspect almost all big box hardware stores carry this product. If you can find their entry port...you can block it with this product and save the angst of traps. The mice seem to sense that they can't...and shouldn't...permeate this mesh and they scamper off to other parts...hopefully not within your home.

My pest abatement service plugged exterior holes (and holes in the attached garage that had been eaten into the crawl space and attic) first by tightly tacking down a thick metal mesh with very small holes, followed by applying a very hard and expanding foam. It's been 100% effective, going on 10 years now.

The Xcluder DIY product may be useful in some situations but no one should have rodents in their walls or under the house providing a pathway to crawl through holes in interior walls. The approach you've described, Winter, will keep them out of the living space but not out of the house. If you can keep them out of the house, those holes can be plugged with products more suited to stop drafts and you'll avoid having dead animals smells inside.

I just bought this from amazon because the mice were coming in my bulkhead doors that lead to the basement. I was using just plain steel wool but that would rust into a million pieces. So far this is working well.Xcluder 162758A Rodent Control Fill Fabric