Crap, I just saw a mouse jump out of the vent in my room. So, I guess this confirms that there are mice in the house. I’ve suspected it for months now, but I never had visual proof. Well now I do, so I need help. What’s the best way to get rid of them? Or if not that then keeping them inside of the walls and preventing them from sneaking out the vents. Would some sort of metal mesh work? I don’t want to come back from reading week and find the house covered in mouse crap. Help please? 
You can use live traps if you’re the soft-hearted type. A domestic catch-and-release program. Or you can go old school and kill the little bastards. My office is rather a ways out in the woods, and I always have mouse problems during the winter. At first, I was trying to live-trap the little guys, but it wasn’t really working, and after I found a mouse nest in the top drawer of my desk, made of gnawed-over office documents, I declared war.
I set out traps in strategic places. It worked like a charm, but what traps do to mice is not pretty to see. All the mice I got were clean, fast kills (most had a clean cervical break. Instant death. One had its skull bisected by the trap. Not nice, but very, very quick.)
If they weren’t so damn destructive and they didn’t shit all over the place, I’d just chalk 'em up as cute little seldom-seen pets.
I’d recommend against poison, however. They tend to die in secluded places and quietly rot, making your whole place a reeking charnel house for days on end. Best to avoid.
Mouse traps, with peanut butter as bait.
I’m going to second the recommendation on mouse traps. The mouse carcasses are ugly, and it’s unpleasant to have to throw them out, but it’s the only way that worked for me.
I was surprised that, once I made a point of never leaving even a single crumb of food around, and set out strategic mouse traps, it only took a couple of kills before the problem just went away. Either two mice were causing a lot of havoc, or the family decided to move to a less-lethal neighborhood.
The other downside was… it was the holidays. And all the Christmas cards I saw featured a cute little Christmas Mouse, with cute little nose and big soulful black eyes… just like the corpses I’d thrown out. I spent a very conflicted holiday.
A cat. Though sometimes they like to parade their catch from rom to room. It won’t eat all the mice but it will scare most of them away.
I have to say I’ve never actually had a cat for this reason but my grandparents had like four cats in their house and they said they always helped with the mice and rats that invaded them during the rainy season and winter.
Heck, even dogs help. My dog chased a rabbit sized rat (this was in Mexico City) out of the house in less than an hour. Never saw another rat in the house after that.
Sticky traps also work very well if they are placed in their runways (up against walls, the one inch spaces between the fridge and the counter) but they learn quick and its not very humane since its impossible to unstick them without hurting or killing them.
Thanks for all the advice so far. Just thought of one other thing: Do I need to be concerned about disease? Say they get into the cutlery and rub around on it, should I start washing everything before I use it? First time living away from home, with my parents a 4 hour drive away, I need all the help I can get. Thanks again. 
I had a bad mouse problem a few months ago.
I recommend glue traps, some plastic baggies, and some kind of euthanasia (I used a large ball-peen hammer).
The glue traps can be a pain though. I caught Metadog several times with them (she’s not very bright).
This is no time to get sentimental.
Mouse traps, the old type with a hefty spring to bring the bar down on the little buggers. Peanut butter will make good bait, as will anything of a similar consistencey, since it makes the mice stick around as they try to remove it from the trigger plate, so increasing the chances of a clean hit on the head/neck area.
I also recommend the old fashioned traps. Peanut butter with a Frito stuck to it was my bait of choice in the cafe where I work. We were a very clean place but the library that the cafe was in was being remodeled and due to the construction it was impossible to keep the critters out. They came up through a drain in the utility closet. Once the rebuilding was done and closed up, I stopped catching critters and discontinued the kill program.
Dead mice ain’t pretty, but little grains of “black rice” on the floors, and heading towards dry storage, are worse.
Also, you should probably think twice about using glue traps if you have a budding animal rights activist in your midst. They will wake up early in the morning, long before the adults rise, and convince their younger, gullible brother to ‘Free the Mouse’. Sadly, younger gullible brothers try to peel the mouse off the glue with bare hands, and Mr. Mouse does not enjoy it.
The mouse bit clean through his thumb.
More than one lesson was learned that day, though. I can still hear the sobbing half-hiccups as I bandaged the wound and mopped up the blood, “Ty was wrong! Mouses are not nice!”
Find the place where they’re getting in.
Plug up the all the holes with steel wool. They can’t get through that in either direction without swallowing enough sharp steel wire to kill them.
Find their favorite routes. Should be easy, there’s mouse poop.
Set snap-traps with peanut butter as bait along said routes. They’re mice, and therefore stupid.
Dispose of carcasses.
Repeat untill mouse infestation has been eradicated.
Make sure your cutlery is sealed away – not only for health reasons, but to seal off another source of food (likewise, make sure all scraps are disposed of properly, that there aren’t crumbs left lying around. The object of the mission is to get the mice to really want the bait in the trap.)
Mice cause a big problem as far as electrical cords, wires etc. are concerned. They’ll get inside stoves, washing machines and the like, and chew on the insulation. I’ve seen dessicated mouse corpses clinging to the wiring inside a washing machine, and seen the reports of stoves utterly blown due to mouse-chew.
Euthanasia, with a large ball-pen hammer, how humane… 
Reminds me of an old aunt of mine; she caught a mouse with a trap, by the tail; the poor thing was probably in pain, so the good old lady decided to put it out of it´s misery, splashed alcohol over the mouse and set it on fire. :eek:
Unless you want to have to kill lots of mice by hand, stay away from the glue traps. I had a mouse, bought a glue trap, and the little mousie got it’s face stuck and was dead when I found it. Wow, thought I, no more grody snap traps for me! Then I got lots of mice (babies, too) so after borrowing my sister’s useless cat, I bought LOTS of glue traps.
None, zero, zip of the other mice I caught using glue traps died. They just got stuck. Nine mice on eight glue traps.
Not being experienced in the fine art of mouse strangling, I drowned them.
In individual Rubbermaid-type containers.
One trap at a time, wait until the bubbles stop, into the garbage.
It makes for a really rotten evening.
BTW, I found out where they were nesting when the oven stopped working.
What you do is crank Optimistic to 11, scaring the mice out of the house.
Hmmm…sounds like a plan. I don’t know if it’ll scare the mice out, but it sure will scare my roommates out. And they’re about as annoying as the mice(and are probably the cause of mice, and seem none to concerned about it, but that’s probably a Pit-worthy thread). One out of two wouldn’t be bad.
Cats have always worked for me, but it’s probably a good idea to like cats and to be able to take care of them to use this idea.
When I was a teenager, I was in our basement when I heard my mom scream my name. I came running upstairs (trying to remember what I had done wrong). She started sobbing “Princess (our cat) caught a mouse… and it’s dead…”
Well I proceeded to investigate and found the cat playing with a quite alive mouse. My father and I were able to scare it out the front door.
Anyway, the cat always killed the mice she found after that before we had a chance to save it.
I’d love to get a cat but since I’m an university student who won’t be living here for 4 months in the summer, I can’t take care of it. And there is no chance, that I would be allowed to bring it home with me. Also, as I mentionned in a previous post, my roommates are lazy assholes, who would probably rather live with mice, than clean the house or even take care of a cat. My anger towards them is increasing daily, right now. Come the end of this semester they’re out.
We had a mouse infestation just about a week or less ago, though about 3 1\2 hours ago mum heard a wierd squeaking noise from behind a bookshelf. More on this l8tr.
But in MY house, there are 3 ways to remove mice.
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Live trap, it’s like a metal box with a trip-platform. When mouse is caught, dad would take trap outside with Chutney at his heels. (Chutney is the fattest and dominant dog of the three, Pepper is her half sister but we are looking after Henri for a friend. He doesn’t have the first idea about mice. Pep & Chut are cross fox terriers\Jack Russels, Henri is a poodle.) But anyway. Dad upends trap, opens door, mouse falls out and is prey.
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Live trap, release mouse on OTHER side of road in bush block. Funny story about this on request.
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Actively hunting mouse with dogs. Only works when you have just seen where the mouse has gone.
Here’s an idea. Now, instead of saying “mouse”, say “moose”.
Just for fun. :rolleyes: