How to Keep Mice Out of Your Piano

I was just falling asleep late one night when I heard some random notes playing from the piano in the living room. I knew that my children were long asleep so was completely confused by the playing notes. I don't live in a high crime area so wasn't concerned about burglars and beside that; I couldn't imagine that someone broke into the house to play the piano. I got up and looked around. I didn't see anything strange in the house and the notes stopped playing so I went back to bed. We had recently had a couple of mice in the house so I thought that they might be the culprit and there was nothing to do about that in the middle of the night. The next day I opened up the piano and took a look around. My daughter noticed that some of the keys were sticking recently but I thought maybe we just needed a tuning. We had only owned the piano for about a year and I thought this might be normal. As I poked around the piano trying to get a look at things, I saw a mouse run right under the keys. You might not think a mouse can fit under the keys of a piano but it scurried under the key like a rocket the minute it realized I was snooping around.

I've since learned that mice are particularly attracted to pianos and mice in pianos are not an uncommon problem. Mice appreciate the order and separate sections on the inside of a piano and can use different compartments for different purposes. They store food, and sleep in different places. The immediate response if this happens in your home must be to call a professional immediately and get the piano cleaned out and tuned. Mice can do much damage to a piano so you want to protect his expensive instrument. Once you have rid the piano of the mice, you'll need to focus on prevention of future infestations. You can do this by closing all the openings on the bottom of your piano. You can use steel wool for this by stuffing it everywhere there is a potential spot for mice to enter. Mice can get in small spaces so you'll also need to put some steel wool around the pedals also, and then check that regularly and replace it as needed. Playing the pedals will dislodge the steel wool so it's really important to check this regularly. The best prevention is to keep the mice out of the house all together. Set traps as a preventative measure and ask your piano tuner about putting something inside the piano to deter the mice. Of course, you can also just get a cat.