Score one for me!

I need to give a big shout out to my friend Linda who shared a tip for keeping mice away: smelly dryer sheets! Apparently they don’t like the strong odor.

With high expectation and mild reservations, I draped dryer sheets along the edge of the tub where the mice seemed to be getting in. Then waited overnight…

Now, I have to be up front here. The dryer sheets I normally use are unscented ones – I don’t smell things very well and I know of folks who have trouble with heavy scents, so I just go without. In fact, I haven’t even used a dryer sheet in so long, I almost forgot they were there. When hubby reminded me of the non-scent variety that we have on hand, I rushed out to the local grocery in search of the worst smell I could find.

And the grocery has just “Spring Rain”, “Spring Flowers” and “Mountain Mist” on hand. Not even a regular scent. My heart sank as I tried to figure out which lovely outdoor smell would deter a mouse – it would likely love them all! In the end “Spring Flowers” won out. Fingers crossed it would be overpowering to a mouse.

When I saw two of the sheets on the deck floor peeking out from the tub cover skirting, I figured I had lost this skirmish. But NO! When the cover was raised, ever so carefully, not a mouse was in sight and no extra floating islands appeared!  Hurray!

Gonna give it a couple more days to see how effective the sheets stay. Hope to reclaim the hot tub for my own use by the weekend!