The best way to control mice in your home is never to let them get into your home in the first place. You can do that by ensuring there aren't any food sources or hiding places that might attract them to your house. But if there are already mice in your home, you need to find ways to get rid of them. One way to do that is to call an exterminator, but they may not be able to get out to your house immediately, or you may want to do other things to help fight the mice. You can do several things in combination with what the exterminator will do.
Specific Scents
There are some scents mice appear not to like. You can soak cotton balls in those scents or create little sachets of those things and put them in places where the mice tend to congregate. If they work and seem to repel the mice, great. If they don't work and don't repel the mice, not a problem, you are still in the same place you were before. Those scents include peppermint, cloves, pepper, and cayenne pepper.
Traps
Baited traps can be a good way to control rodents trying to make your house their home. When it comes to traps, you have several options. They roughly break down into live traps and dead traps. A dead trap will end with a dead mouse at the end of the process. When triggered, snap traps that break the mouse's neck would be an example of a deadly trap. Snap traps are generally inexpensive enough to toss the trap, dead mouse and all, and put out a new trap.
Live traps are sometimes called humane traps too. The goal of these traps is to end up with a living mouse. Some traps are designed to hold just one mouse, but there are bigger traps that can have several mice at a time. When these traps are triggered, you or the exterminator must take the trap somewhere to release the mouse. Make sure that it is far away from your house so that the mouse doesn't just come back to your home.
If you are worried about mice, the best way to handle them is to ensure they aren't in your house. But if they have already made it into your house, call a mice control service. You can get a jump on getting rid of the mice before the exterminator gets there.