I’ve just discovered that we’ve got a mice infestation. I keep a pretty clean house but the little blighters have decided to set up shop here anyway. I don’t like mice. They spread disease and chew away at your wiring. More importantly, my girlfriend is terrified of them, and she’s usually here about 4 nights a week.
I’ve already got one of those humane sonic mouse repellants, specifically designed to protect the entire house. However, they’re evidently not much good. As much as I generally love animals, I need to bring out the big guns. These little pests need to go away.
I can’t afford to get an exterminator in at the moment, and I’m not sure that the infestation is large enough to even warrant one at the moment. I’m hoping to get this sorted out myself. Can anyone recommend any good, proven traps which could help me out? Ideally, I’d prefer it if the traps didn’t use poison. Not only do I think it’s cruel, but my girlfriend quite often brings her little boy round, and you know how 3 year olds like to pick stuff up and put it in their mouths.
Any help you could provide would be hugely appreciated. Cheers.
You must have something that’s attracting the mice. Most likely foodstuff. Figure out what it is and seal it up or get rid of it.
Buy a dozen of your standard spring loaded mouse traps and bait with a dab of peanut butter. Place in traffic areas, where you’ve seen them scurrying. Wait.
If you need to re-use. Unload and rebait the trap.
I’m sure I must do, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. I’m positively fastidious about putting food away when I’m not using it, and I vacuum regularly so it can’t be crumbs of anything.
I’d considered this, but I don’t want to run the risk of my girlfriend’s kid tinkering around with one. I would imagine that a spring loaded trap would probably be strong enough to break a 3 year old’s finger pretty easily.
There are (at least) two kinds of sonic repellents: the whole-house one, that supposedly uses your house’s electrical wiring as a mouse-annoyer, and individual plug-in units that sent the sonic waves out only into the room it is in.
We had mice, so I bought both kinds (belt & suspenders style). This was two years ago, and I haven’t seen any evidence of the varmints since. Obviously I don’t know which device did the trick, but the whole-house ones seemed too good to be true; I suspect it was the single-room units that are working for us.
The repellants didn’t do anything for us. What worked was sealing the openings where they were getting in, bait traps, and poison. It turns out that they were coming in through the dryer vent, once I fixed that point of entry, the mice went away.
We called an exterminator and all he did was point out where they could be coming in, and put some bait traps down. They use the spring loaded ones that they sell at the hardware store.
Just put them out when you’re at work and pick them all up before they come over. Put out six and remember to pick up six. Doing nothing will ensure they stay around.
Right. And/or at night. The spring loaded traps are the cheapest and with peanut butter they are effective. Be advised they can also be a bit messy when they work. Just clean off the blood & guts and reuse as needed. Also what needscoffee said.
Quick Set. It’s a plastic clip, you squeeze it open like a clothespin to set, and to drop a dead mouse in the trash; and unlike the balsa wood kind, it’s less messy and more reusable. Also, I’ve snapped them on my own fingers and they’re not nearly as nasty. A tip, smear peanut butter on the inside of the trap above the bait lever too, because while they can sometimes steal bait off the lever without setting off the trap, they’ll put their feet on the lever to lick the ceiling above them, and WHAMMO!
The downside is finding the occasional live trapped mouse, since the spring is not as strong. Make sure you’re capable of finishing the job if you have to.
Glue traps work better than anything else I’ve tried. Of course, the downside is that you have to off the little buggers yourself, or if you’re squeamish throw them in the dumpster and let them starve although that always seemed cruel.
A word from the (belatedly) wise…be sure to put the trap where the cat can’t reach it. Unsticking kitty from a glue trap is a joyless task.
SS
When I had mice a few years ago I bought these to supplement our existing stock of snap traps. While we caught mice in the snaps night after night, these plastic traps never caught a single one. It probably depends on the mouse population (my understanding is that their feeding habits vary), but these didn’t work at all for me. They are cheap though, so maybe worth a shot.
I have friends who’ve sworn by the Tin Cat - it seems to catch well but it’s a live trap and you have to figure out what to do with them after. If you release them outside it has to be really far from your house or they’ll just come back.
The only thing that actually stopped our infestation was finding the entry points and sealing them up. In our case it was a hole in the drywall around the outlet that the fridge was plugged into. Try pulling out your fridge, stove, washer, dryer, etc. and see if you see little mousie poops or a black/grey greasy looking trail (gross, I know).
We tried glue traps at our shop once…well, twice. The first time we came in and found a tail, chewed right off of Mickey…second time, he stuck himself, rolled around a bit, and lost all of his fur.
Meanwhile, our three mighty hunters just ignored it (trap and mouse). Knew I shouldn’t have bought all those catnip filled mice-shaped toys.
The second one was lucky. I saw a mouse who’d torn off half his face and all the skin off his forearms! Those glue traps are the most vile, cruel way to go. Much better to get the spring-loaded ones that break their necks or backs quickly.
At our house, we hunted down entry points and used steel wool and caulking to keep them out. LittleCat took care of the ones who were still in the house.
I’ve gotten mice in all 3 types of traps - glue, plastic squeeze, and old school wooden. I got the best results with peanut butter on the plastic squeeze traps, and actually bread, in the old school wooden traps - the trick with the bread is you get it wet first and push it into the wood trap so they really have to dig to get it out. Glue traps seem to work too if you put them against the wall in between things (fridge and wall, range and wall, etc).
If you live anywhere in central Illinois, I could give you a mouser or two. Kills any mouse in the house, although they do tend to bring you one or two as a present. Last one was laid out on the kitchen table. "Look, Mom! Breakfast!’
Have some coffee (or like) cans filled with water around and some long-handled pliers. Pick up and head down in the water; fairly fast and painless end.
