When can I remove all my mousetraps and walk around bare-foot here? I was told last August that I had mice, but didn’t see or catch one until November.
2 days ago I woke up at 2am to get a drink. The furnace was on so the walls were creaking, as was a box of cereal in my recycling box. Wondering why my old cereal box was having thermal expansion issues, I poked it and it stopped. I started to pick it up when a mouse flew out the end like it was on a spring and skuttled in to the kitchen. Not only did I still have mice, they were upstairs :eek:
I donned my protective socks, fastened on my headlamp, armed myself with the toilet plunger and set off downstairs to fetch a trap. I returned unscathed to set the trap next to the cereal box and returned to complete a fitful night’s sleep. In the morning, I checked my trap to discover the mouse!!.. had sprung the trap and licked off all the peanut butter. :mad:
I stopped by the hardware store yesterday to survey the state-of-the-art in anti-mouse technology. The glue-traps would require dispatching helpless squirming rodents, the warfarin-infused concoctions: finding decaying mouse bodies in inaccessible corners. Speakers and tin-cats fell to snap-traps based on price, so I returned to place them in strategically determined locations, one of which yielded a furry invader today (quickly disposed of).
According to my barber, the local ecoPest place only (!) cost 1000$ :eek: to get rid of the pigeons in her overhead awning. As that’s a bit steep for my budget, how can I know for certain that I’ve eliminated all the mice here, without worrying that I’ll meet another one in 3 months time?
My parents have had mice in their basement and sometimes their attic off and on for years. They leave traps set for months at a time with no problems, then they catch 3 in a week. (or someone opens a box and finds mouse turds, or evidence that mice have been eating stuff). Catch them, leave traps out for a while, then forget them until the next invasion.
Another vote for this. You can never be completely mouse-free because mice are always exploring, looking for new homes. All you can do is make your home as unattractive to mice as possible by sealing up all of your food in rodent-proof containers (and that includes the trash) and trying to seal up as many entry points as possible.
Since you have an upstairs, I guess it’s safe to assume that you’re living in a house. In that case, no, you can’t ever completely get rid of them.
However, my own anecdote is that I once had a mouse infestation in an apartment I lived in. I figured out that they had chewed a hole through the drywall, creating an entry into the cabinet beneath my kitchen sink. I figured this out because every time I saw one, it scampered towards that cabinet.
After trapping and killing the most brazen of the beasties, I stuffed the hole full of steel wool and spackled over it. They didn’t chew through the wall again–at least for the two years I lived there.
So, if your home is a tight ship and you can pinpoint their entry, you might stop them–for a while.
Fill all points of access in your kitchen cabinets with steel wool.
Clean yourself up. Stop leaving cereal boxes lying around, put them in secured cabinets or the fridge. Clean up the stove, mice like to hide in those and it’s a nightmare to get them out. Put garbage outside. FOllow trails of mouse droppings to find points fo access
The glue traps are effective, mice have fast metabolisms and need to eat constantly. They don’t last long stuck to one place, unless two get caught on one trap, then they’ll eat each other. In any case just toss them out in the dumpster, the cold will do them in soon enough. Nothing else is as effective as quickly.
I’m not sure of Warfarine is the one I used, but the pest control company uses blue blocks in small black housings. These work fairly well in conjunction with the above. I undersdant the mouse will not give off any smells through the process of decay, as the anticoagulant simply turns them into balls of dust and fur. I’m not certain of the exact chemical process but it’s fairly non-offensive.
I bought a house in November, and our two cats have found a total of three mice so far. Basically, if there are mice left, they’re going to have a hell of a time getting around with those sentries, so we haven’t had any problems.
So yeah, get a cat. You’d be amazed. On the down side, two of those mice were… difficult to recognize as mice. Cleanup was gross.
A decent trick for catching mice is the cheap-ass mouse trap. I did this a lot back when I worked at a summer camp and couldn’t use the other methods (snap traps and poison were not allowed): you take a large plastic bin, at least 2 feet deep with smooth walls (rubbermaid storage bins or garbage cans are perfect), and find a narrow (2-3") strip of wood that’s longer than your bin is deep.
Scrape some peanut butter into an upside down jar lid (like a pasta sauce jar) and put it in the bottom of the bin. Lean the strip of wood against the bin from the outside, such that a mouse could use it as a ramp to climb up. Leave it and check daily.
Of course, now you have to get rid of them… Normal mouse traps are easier, but in a pinch this worked surprisingly well as an ad hoc live trap.
I’d like to get a cat, but I live alone and I’m home so little that it wouldn’t really be fair. I suppose I could borrow my parents cat for a bit. She’s older and has no claws though, and is generally more likely to vomit on my carpet than catch a mouse.
I think the plastic bin idea is brilliant… I’ll implement that when I get back from my business trip on Wednesday.
I don’t buy that you can’t ever get rid of them. I mean, houses in Edmonton all have 2’ of cement foundation above grade, and even a mouse-sized hole means frigid drafts when it’s -30. I imagine a previous owner brought them in unnoticed in a cardboard box from the garage or something, as I have a hard time imagining mice sneaking in and out of here.
You could get two cats, but cats don’t care all that much if you’re not home a lot. As long as their kitty box is clean and they have food and water, they’re the ideal pet for busy people.
No offence, but I’m fairly certain that this is untrue. I put out poison a couple of weeks ago; I’ve found two dead mice which were plenty stinky and definitely not dust-balls.
I’m simply not familiar with the different names for the poisons, but the ones given to me by the pest control company, which they told me were not for sale to the public, do in fact do this. I have found the bait stations clogged with fur and dust, only later realizing that they were the remains of mice. These bait stations were placed near heater pipes, near openiongs that mice may enter through, where any smell would have been noticed right away. Nor was there any discoloration of the carpet that I could see.
Yes. For maybe 48 hours or so after the exterminators leave.
Because unless you fill completely all possible entry points into your house (which takes a carpenter-type, not an exterminator), new mice will soon re-enter your house. If the exterminator left poison behind, the next few sets of new mice will die, until all that poison is gone. then the next set of mice will make itself at home in your house.
You can always continue to call the exterminators a couple times a year or so. Though that will tend to get expensive.
Or, like Q.E.D. said, get a cat. They are cheaper than exterminators, and continue to be effective against mice as long as they live in the house.
We had a mouse in our apartment in university. We caught him in a humane trap, then since it was the middle of the night, we left him for a few hours in one of the tall rubbermaid tubs (over 2 feet deep), with the lid on. He escaped. I still don’t know how.
The rest of the story: We caught him again in a humane trap, put him in a small bird cage. He escaped. We then used a snap trap, and he managed to drag it the entire length of the kitchen, leaving a trail of blood behind him, before he expired. At his funeral we named him mighty mouse.
Not at all. My contract with them is yearly and not too expensive. They come around and get rid of all pests - except termites which is extra - and inspect the house professionally. They come 4 times a year. Once they came I never saw another mouse or signs of one.
