Said It Here

How to stop mice from coming up floor drains

To stop mice from using basement floor drains and open vents as highways into the home, some advise capping the drain. Others try duct-taping steel wool over it, though this raises concerns about causing a fire hazard near water heaters or burners.

Overview
People affected3 accounts across 2 forums
Workarounds found4 items attempted
Community agreement5 total upvotes

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    capping the drain
    Did this help you?
  2. 2
    duct taping steel wool over the drain
    Did this help you?
  3. 3
    Placing traditional and glue traps near the openings
    Did this help you?
  4. 4
    Putting copper mesh over the air vents like a fence to block access without restricting airflow
    Did this help you?
Tried another approach not listed above?+ Share your workaround ↑

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/homeowners2 people · November 2026

“I’ve used it myself in an old basement apartment that had a mouse highway through the floor drains.”source ↗

upward_childlike_ina · r/homeowners · 2 upvotes

“In our boiler room there is a drain from the water heater, someone advised we cap it to prevent mice or anything ever coming up.”source ↗

“Hubs instead duct taped some steel wool over the drain. Is that a fire hazard or any reason why we shouldn’t do that?”source ↗

Carolion700 · r/homeowners · 1 upvotes
r/Pestcontrol1 person · November 2026

“Mice are crawling through the open vents (circled red in my picture)”source ↗

“I’ve put traps nexts to the burners not traditional traps and glue traps and they are smart and don’t go near them.”source ↗

GeorgeLuasHasNoChin · r/Pestcontrol · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised