Question
Kenneth:
I've been using Corn Gluten Meal for weed control at three properties over the past several years.  It's working well on my weeds; but, I've noticed mice problems at all three properties.

Recently, I've realized I'm the only household having mice problems in all three neighborhoods.  I'm also the only household using Corn Gluten Meal.

Is there anything I can do about this?  I would like to continue use of the Corn Gluten Meal because I like the results but I can no longer have mice invading my home.

Answer
Mice and Corn Gluten are indeed a problem mentioned from time to time by organic gardeners, AJ.  One was posted publicly in a brief column on the subject in the University of Wisconsin Agricultural Extension Gardener's Newsletter (www.uwex.edu/ces/sars/newsletters/mg1099.pdf#search='corn%20gluten%20mice%20problem'). Besides causing a rodent problem, the editors also sounded a bit skeptical about the claims made for Corn Gluten as a weed-killer.  "It may attract rodents," they wrote. "Since it is a protein by-product, mice, rabbits and other rodents may be attracted to it."

Now, although I have not dealt recently with a rodent/Corn Gluten problem, I can definitely sympathize with your concerns.  Growing up in a house next to several hundred undeveloped wooded acres and fields, I can tell you that a Mouse population can explode practically overnight.  

If you have bags of Corn Gluten stored in your garage, the neighborhood Mice are most certainly having parties at your place.  

But only if you're storing bags of it.

The thin coating of Corn Gluten applied to your lawn a few times a year at most does not seem enough, to me at least, to support large numbers of Mice - and rats or other vermin.  

And yet, the increase in numbers would be supported by any truly organic program.  Even something like a mice-friendly Compost Pile might be a daily part of their dietary intake.  

Without pesticides or herbicides to make them sick, they could be living very comfortably at Chez AJ.

In the Midwest where corn is king, cornmeal invasions by mice is a big problem - one that is being dealt with by scientists.  Researchers hope to come up with some genetically engineered corn that, when eaten, will sicken the insects and mice that invade storage facilities and ruin the product.  They have actually succeeded with the insect problem.  The mice, they're still working on.

Going back to my childhood home by the woods in Glen Cove, I learned all about mouse traps.  The mice invaded the house every autumn, as winter set in, and set up living quarters of course in our kitchen.  I remembered this solution many years later when I lived in an apartment in Brooklyn.  Mice were everywhere.  Out came the traps.  Gone were the mice.

There are more advanced systems of repelling mice from your Corn Gluten storage facilities.  It surprises me that you have no squirrel problem (which I do!); squirrels will eat through anything that is not metal, they will chew through antique windows, through wood, through furniture, anything to get at that corn as well as birdseed and rabbit food.  AJ, this is one of the problems we are up against when it comes to caring enough about the world's children, about God's planet, about the water we drink, about Nature and everything else that is a priority for us, sadly not for enough of the rest of our community.  In years ahead, your non-organic, Corn Gluten free neighbors with perfect lawns will have many, more serious, even grave problems to face.  The visits of too many field mice will seem so very small by comparison.

There are allExperts who specialize in "Pests" which includes Mice.  I don't mean to back off your question - but they would know better than I how to get rid of Mice, and I would vote for that as you can see rather than switching back to the anti-green life you are considering.  Perhaps too would the very knowledgeable Mr. Jergenson, for whom I think your question was originally intended.  I am alas only the Long Island Gardener, and believe in living very, very Green.