A friend of mine had a mouse go into her car’s dashboard and doesn’t want it to die in there. How can she lure it out?
Get one of those glue traps (think Roach Hotel for mice) and bait it with peanut butter. Most mice are crazy for peanut butter. The glue will keep it from getting away.
I suppose dropping a kitten into the vents and waiting is out of the question?
I thought everyone knew that you bait a mouse by sitting very still and making a noise like a cheese.
** What follows is a bit graphic and described with a some vulgarity. Since this is General Questions and not some other forum, I think I should be upfront on what follows. It’s not out of hand or anything, but better to be safe than sorry.
With that out of the way-
The glue trap idea sounds pretty good. Keep in mind, however, that when you catch that sucker, it ain’t gonna be a pretty sight.
A few years ago in a different apartment than I’m in now, we had the normal fall invasion of mice (All told I think it was about four mice that had made their way indoors, but even one mouse was enough to send me over the edge- I’m phobic when it comes to mice. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I have a cat now).
I was the first tenant to see the mouse. To be precise, I’d been on the phone with the girlfriend and was blindly staring into the kitchen listening to the missus talk about God knows what. As I zoned away, I noticed something shoot out from under the stove and head towards the refrigerator. My girlfriend, who wasn’t about to break stride in her conversation, didn’t even notice I’d stopped saying “Ummm Hmmm” and had headed over to the kitchen to investigate.
But she sure noticed my scream once I saw the demon vermin, “AHHHHHHHH!!!”.
“What’s going on Chris? Is everything alright!?!”
“Holy fucking SHIT!”
“Chris!?! CHRIS!!!”
“Great! Just Great!! Now what the hell am I going to do!”
“What’s going on Chris? Talk to me!”
“A fucking mouse just shot across my kitchen floor… right in front of me!!”
“A mouse?”
“Yea a mouse. The some bitch just went under my stove!”
“A mouse?”
“Yea, you should have seen it. He took off from my stove and shot over to the fridge. Then, then, the bastard shot back to the stove again!! Now what the hell am I going to do!?!”
“It’s just a mouse, Chris”
“Whataya mean ‘just a mouse’, it’s a MOUSE! And that sucker moved!!”
“Have you always been like this?”
“What do you think he’s up to now?”
“Chris? Chris?”
“… you don’t think he’s going to come after me, do you?”
Obviously, I was freaked… and I didn’t care who knew or what they thought of it.
I immediately went up to the hardware store and picked up a boatload of snap traps… and a handful of glue traps… just in case.
I set 'em up just like everyone says to set them up- I baited them with chunky peanut butter and strategically placed them around the apartment. Then, I waited… and waited… and waited. I re-arranged the things about ten times. I even tried thinking like a mouse for a bit so I could, you know, think where he was headed.
I finally left and went over to evil girlfriends place… that was fun.
When I went back the next morning, I cautiously walking around the place checking out the snap traps that had benen placed around the apartment. One-nothing. Two-shoot. Three-dammit! Four-what the… Five-this is bullshit! Six-…maybe he’s gone.
It wasn’t until I hit the glue trap that I saw him. It was actually kind of sad, what I saw. The thing was stuck to the cardboard glue board and was desperately trying to get off. He was pulling and yanking and trying to get away. I could actually see his little body trembling with fear- the little guy was spent.
My determination and willingness to wage all out war on the sucker didn’t foresee this.
He was all mine… but he wasn’t dead. He was near death, but only out of fear… and that’s not too cool, dying like that.
What I finally did, and only found out afterwards was the recommended procedure with glue traps, was to carefully grab the cardboard thingy and basically curl it back upon itself. In the process of folding it in on itself, it snapped the mouse’s back.
Yuck… and pretty damn creepy.
Anyrate, I ditched the glue traps for the more humane snap traps. But… it took a whole lot longer. Like I said above, out of a bunch of snap traps, the only thing that caught the mouse was the glue trap… and they were all baited with the same chunky peanut butter.
So, if you go with the glue trap- which isn’t a bad idea in my opinion- be prepared to not only finish the deed off for the mouse, but be prepared to be check up on the trap to try and stave off the suffering that my mouse undoubtedly went through… it wasn’t pretty, or really fair for the mouse.
Jelly Belly [sub]TM[/sub]jelly beans work better than peanut butter for me and are less messy. The bean can be squashed onto the bait holder and the mouse has to work to release it and SNAP! The PB can often be licked off without activating the spring. I’venever had a Jelly Belly [sub]TM[/sub] fail.
http://www.idausa.org/facts/gluefacts.html
It explains the cruelty of them.
Who’s the Politically Incorrect guy who thinks terrorists aren’t cowards and cruise missiles are? He’s a PETA guy. I bet he knows about mice and cars. Buy a new one!
o:)o
We saw a mouse in our yard about a month ago. Unacceptable.
I put out several of the snap traps baited with cheese and deli meat. I should have put out a checkerboard cloth and potato salad too for all the good they did.
Next I upgraded to the Decon bait trap - the yellow wedge (is it suppossed to look like a slice of cheddar?) with the teal pellets inside. I put one on the arbor I’d seen the bugger climb near our bay window. And waited. Who knew if they’d eat any or not. Last thing I wanted was for him to try a taste, get mildly sick and never eat it again.
We didn’t have one mouse, we had five. Watching them tear at each other trying to get to the bait was like watching twister on acid. They devoured 3 BOXES over a couple of days. My wife and I just looked at each other, laughing pervertedly and shaking our heads, because we knew these gross little bastards were done for.
There’s nothing cute about a mouse. They’re disgusting, carry fleas, and watching their frenzy just grossed us out. Plus, we’ve got a toddler in the house. The thought of one of those vermin investigating her crib colored me obsessed.
Couple of days later, I started finding dead meeces in the yard. Stinky dead meeces.
Yep, what Lynn said. Go with the glue trap.
If you kill all the mice outside, guy, that’s an * awfull * lot of mice!
That’d work. But then you’d have to drop a ferret in next to take care of the kitten.
And then drop a dog in to take care of the ferret.
And then drop a python in to take care of the dog.
And then…
OK, maybe it’s not such a good idea.
That’d work. But then you’d have to drop a ferret in next to take care of the kitten.
And then drop a dog in to take care of the ferret.
And then drop a python in to take care of the dog.
And then…
OK, maybe it’s not such a good idea.
What kind of car is it?
I’d understand not wanting a Saturn that smells like Uranus.
cripes this is the best topic title I’ve seen in…forever.
jar
Find some CDs he doesn’t like an crank it up.
I don’t know the brand name, but we have a handy little gadget picked up from a farm supply store. It’s a galvanized metal box, about 8 x 6" with a hole on one end. The mouse goes in the hole and is swept by a spring mechanism into the other side of the trap. You wind the little spring door, and you can catch a half a dozen mice before emptying the trap. No bait is supposed to be needed (curiosity kills the mouse, too), but I think we used peanut butter.
I drop the whole trap into a bucket of water, say a prayer for my soul and the mouse, and shake the corpse out of the trap and into the field behind the house.
You can buy an attachment, which is a jar (you can fill with water) and a habitrail tube that attaches to the trap. Then the mouse drowns itself while investigating the tube. This sounds like death by misadventure to me. Does my karma stay balanced?
You’re gonna wake up in a long, thin plastic room connected to a larger glass room filled with water…
You could invite Richard Gere over to drop trou and stick his ass up near the vent.
Any non-killing ways to get the mouse out?
You can be arrested for cruelty to animals, Dude.