For the last 10 days or so, I have had an uninvited guest in my home - a mouse. This thing has been getting into my pantry, tearing into anything it can manage to chew through, and crapping out even more than it eats right onto my shelves. At first I chased it behind my fridge, where I found a hole dug into the wall. I covered up the hole with cardboard and duct tape, literally sealing its fate. The next day, it was back. And it didn’t bite its way through the wall. I purchased some traps and put them out around the kitchen. It managed to eat the cookies without getting trapped. At this point, I removed every item from the pantry and went over every inch of it, not finding any way in or out except through the door. Finally, I got a lock for the pantry door, assuring that it could not push and pull the door open anymore. Somehow, it’s still eating my food, shitting all over everything, and yet there is no sign of it when I checked today - I even checked inside every box. I am now fully convinced that I am dealing with a ghost mouse with a genius IQ.
Mice don’t have the ability to walk through walls, do they?
A mouse can squeeze through a hole no bigger than a quarter. Depending on how you feel about cruelty to animals, there are several ways to get the little bastard.
Since I consider mice to be vermin, I would have no problem using a glue trap (which should be secured to the floor, sice a mouse could drag it around and possibly get loose - I’ve seen it happen).
You could also get an enclosure that has a spring-loaded door. The mouse can go in, but not get out and you don’t have to kill it.
I would avoid poison since the little bugger is liable to crawl in a wall cavity and die, thus stinking up your house.
at this point, I would have no qualms with leaving it out a bowl full of drano to drink. and I AM an animal lover.
They were glue traps…I didn’t realize I had to nail them to the floor, since I had enough trouble getting my finger detached from one when I was setting them out. That bastard mouse somehow managed to get the cookie off of it and get away scot free.
I went all over every inch of my pantry. There are no quarter-sized holes in it.
There is rarely such a thing as one mouse. The one you chased may not be the one(s) who are still eating stuff. And I can also vouch for the fact that they can squeeze themselves into spaces you would never credit.
Squashing 1/2 a Jelly Belly jelly bean onto the food holder so he has to work to get the yummy gummy goo off virtually guarantees a good kill. The strong smell of the Jelly Belly style jelly bean really attracts them. Peanut butter is too easy to get off and cheese is even easier to remove.
upon closer inspection of the glue trap, it is covered in fur, and one of the sides has been chewed. I suspect that the mouse had quite a struggle getting loose from it. I replaced all of the traps with jelly beans, and as of this morning, neither them or any of my food has been touched. I suspect that although the mouse escaped with its life, it had quite a scare and learned its lesson. Either that or it knows better to stay off glue traps and is now cleaning up after itself.
If you’ve seen/trapped one mouse, you’ve got at least 10 in there. Forget about glue traps. Get some of the plastic mousetraps that look like steroidal clothespins, and bait them with peanut butter. They’re easy to set, don’t hurt you if you get a finger caught in them, and kill mice quite efficiently. Bonus is you can just pop them open, drop the mouse carcass into the garbage, and reset the trap for the next kill.
You can also drop the mouse carcass into the garbage disposal. WHIRRRRRRRR KA-chunka-chunka-chunka-chunk!!
Judging from the amount of initial “damage” caused, I did find it hard to believe that only a single mouse did it. However I still do find it strange that neither I or my roommates have ever seen more than one mouse at a time.
And I still don’t get how they managed to get into my pantry in the first place. That door has been sealed up and locked, and I am absolutely sure that there are no holes in the ceiling, walls or floor of it. As for the rest of my house, the building I live in is over 100 years old and there are too many small holes in the walls to be able completely seal everything. Despite that, I’ve lived here for over two years and have never had so much as an ant before this (or, as NYC is famous for, a roach). For now, I’m leaving the traps out, and buying more if I find any additional evidence of food tampering.