well, i too have heard that peppermint oil works to keep mice/rats away.. now let me tell you my story.. :wow:

i lived in an apartment.. there were some holes in our bottom kitchen cabinets, which rats had chewed so they could get in.. not wanting to kill them we at first just let them be.. then there were more.. alot more.. we tried blocking up the holes.. they just chewed new ones.. we tried the peppermint oil.. it worked for about a week and then they didnt care anymore and were back in full force.. we heard hot peppers/cayenne/hot sauce would deter them.. it didnt.. it did leave little red mousey footprints all over tho.. any food that wasnt in a can or inside the refrigerator/microwave they got into and ate just enough so that the whole bag/container/energy bar! was contaminated w/ whatever their dirty little mousey filth was.. basically we just gave the bottom cabinets to the rats, kept everything up in the top cabinets.. (spices/dishes) and kept anything edible in the fridge or the microwave (but our microwave was from an alley and had a wonderful cockroach nest in it).. we told our landlord we had rats and his solution was to board up all the outside holes to the underside of the house.. with the rats still inside the holes! so that meant their only way out and to eat was to go into our house.. at night, once the lights were off, you could hear the grinding chewing gnawing sound of them chewing their way thru to new holes.. if you went in the kitchen at night you would see at least 2 scurry really fast back to the cabinets.. oh they also lived in the oven.. that was awesome.. we would wake up everyday to a kitchen covered in rat poop (not just the floors, it was everywhere, the counters, the stove.. it was disgusting) and chewed up containers, even if they didnt contain food.. and we had a cat the whole time.. worse hunter ever.. best kitty ever tho (RIP kovitch!).. he did successfully kill and then completely eat one mouse tho.. he never did get a rat.. our final solution was to put cinder blocks/bricks/really heavy books along the entire length of the bottom cabinets.. it worked pretty well.. but they were still there chewing in the walls.. jesus im glad i dont live there anymore and that all the walls in all the apartments down here are made of concrete.. i just couldnt get myself to kill the guys.. they were gross, but they were just trying to live.. we really should have tried humane traps, but i was never able to find any w/o glue..

so thats my story.. peppermint oil works.. but only for a mouse or two.. not the hell nest of ratkind.. we called that house boca raton.. i hated it.. and that was were my kovitch died.. its doubly bad.. stupid boca raton..