Mouse Droppings in the Pantry: What to Throw Out

Throw out the food in paper, cardboard or plastic packaging from any shelf the mice reached, and keep only undamaged metal cans and sealed glass jars that you wash and sanitize. Then clean up the droppings with a wet method, disinfect the shelves and watch for fresh droppings to see if the mice are still visiting.

Before you pull anything out, take stock. Check every shelf, the back corners and the floor under the bottom shelf with a flashlight. CDC points out that rodent droppings tend to pile up in cabinets, drawers and other hidden spots, so the mess you noticed may not be the only one.

Here is why the food matters. The FDA warns that food rats and mice have gotten into can make you and your family sick, and that covers pet food, bird seed and fish flakes stored on the same shelves. In a separate alert, the FDA said rodent contamination can cause Salmonella and other infections. It named infants, children, pregnant women, older adults and people with weakened immune systems as the ones at greatest risk.

Mice leave solid pellets and chewed holes, while pantry insects mostly leave webbing, pinholes and the bugs themselves. Look closely at the shape of what you found and at the damage to the packages.

CDC describes rodent droppings as tapered to a point at one end, and says they often have hair mixed in. Mice also leave chew marks. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension says mice usually gnaw clean-cut holes 1½ inches in diameter into cardboard and similar packaging. NC State Extension adds that mice bite into a package, take a small taste or two and then move on to the next item, so one visit can leave several opened boxes and bags.

Pantry insects look different. UC IPM says the first clue is often small moths fluttering around the kitchen or beetles on or near a food package. The other signs it lists are webbing tucked into tight folds of a package and very small holes in the container. If you see webbing, pinholes and bugs but no pellets and no chewed openings, you are more likely dealing with insects than mice.

No, not if it was in paper, cardboard or plastic. The FDA's advice is to toss anything packed in paper or plastic, then inspect cans and glass jars one at a time.

That rule holds even when a bag looks fine. A mouse can take a small nibble and leave, and a tiny hole in a cereal liner or a bag of rice is easy to miss on a dim shelf. So the open box of crackers, the paper sack of flour and the dog's kibble all go. If you are unsure whether something sat within reach of the mice, treat it as exposed.

Paper goods count too. The New York State IPM Program at Cornell advises discarding contaminated drinks, napkins, paper plates and cups along with the food. And do not pass any of it along. The FDA warns against giving it away or donating it, since that could put someone else's health at risk.

Not always. The FDA says you can keep undamaged metal cans and sealed glass jars, as long as you wash and sanitize them first.

Inspect each one under good light. The FDA says to throw out any can or jar with a dent, a crushed side, swelling or bulging, deep rust, cracks, holes or punctures, or a broken seal. Check the jar lids closely, since a broken seal can be hard to spot.

Then sanitize the ones you are keeping. The FDA gives two ways to do it. You can boil the cans and jars for 2 minutes, or you can soak them for 15 minutes in a mix of 1 cup of unscented household bleach (5.25% strength) and 5 gallons of water.

Keep that soak separate from the cleanup of the droppings. The FDA's 1 cup per 5 gallons mix is meant for cans and jars only. The droppings and the shelves get their own treatment, covered next.

Soak the droppings with a disinfectant and let it sit for 5 minutes, as CDC advises, then wipe them up with paper towels. Keep the broom and the hand vacuum away from that pantry shelf, since CDC advises against sweeping or vacuuming droppings.

Put on rubber or plastic gloves and empty the affected shelves so you can reach the back corners. Spray each pellet until it is soaked through, wait the full 5 minutes, and lift the mess out with paper towels. Seal the towels and droppings in a plastic bag for the trash. For every step of the method, from gloves to bagging, see the guide to cleaning rodent droppings safely.

Next, disinfect the hard surfaces. CDC's cleanup advice calls for a disinfectant on every hard surface once the droppings are gone, from floors and counters to cabinets and drawers. In a pantry, that means each shelf top and front edge, the wall behind the shelves, the floor and any plastic bins that held food. The Cornell program says you can disinfect and keep hard items such as silverware, while food and paper goods go in the trash.

Clean the pantry completely, then check it again over the next several days. CDC says old droppings alone make it hard to judge whether rodents are still active, but fresh ones on a shelf you already cleaned show that they are.

Make that check easy on yourself. Leave the cleaned shelves bare for a few days if you can, or line them with plain white paper so a new pellet stands out. A flashlight helps along the back edge and the floor. If a fresh pellet turns up, note the shelf and the date, since that narrows down where the mice are coming from.

While you watch, keep dry goods in glass, metal or heavy plastic containers with lids that close tight, so a returning mouse finds nothing to chew into. Look past the pantry too. If you also find droppings near the range, the page on mice in the stove covers that cleanup. When you want to judge whether the problem is over, the page on how to know rodents are gone explains what to watch for.

Call when droppings keep showing up after a thorough cleaning, when you find them in more than one room, or when you cannot find where the mice get in. Those are signs of an ongoing problem that cleaning alone will not fix.

A pest pro starts with an inspection of the kitchen, the pantry and the outside of the house to find the gaps the mice are using, such as openings around pipes and under doors. Next comes trapping, with traps set where the droppings and chew marks show the most activity. Then the pro seals the entry points so new mice cannot follow the same route in.

Ask how the company plans to confirm the mice are gone and whether it will come back to check the traps. This matters most in a home with babies, young children, a pregnant woman, older adults or anyone with a weakened immune system, since the FDA names those groups as most at risk from food that rodents have contaminated.