How to deal with mice behind a gas stove?

Factual Questions
1

Hey all,

So… after the mice were kicked out from under the dishwasher, they found a NEW home behind the gas stove. Not good. I’ve cleaned out everything I can reach, and they seem to be somewhere in the small gap behind the stove (although they could be possibly in the top of the stove itself, I guess.) (The gap is a couple of inches horizontally, from the wall, and a few feet long.) This small space is ONLY behind the stove because it’s wedged in so tightly (cabinets on either side), so the gap does not go straight through horizontally. (In other words, there’s no way to reach it from the open side, because the cabinet to the right does not have the gap. I hope that made sense…)

It looks like the top metal part can be unscrewed, and then… I"m not exactly sure what happens. But that seems to be where the mice are. They might even just be in the space behind the grills in front and the back of the top part of the stove, rather than in the gap behind the stove. (Please tell me if this is confusing, and I’ll post some pix of the setup.) I just got some no-kill mouse traps today, but even when the mice are gone (WHEN, I tell you!:p), that won’t solve the problem of… well…

(not very pleasant part coming up)
Every time the oven is turned on in the last week or so, half of the house smells like warmed mouse pee. YAY. It’s not one of the great smells. :eek: So really, the stove can’t be used right now.

So I’m going to need to SOMEHOW, some way, get behind that stove (unless the mice really are only in the space that’s literally built into the top of the stove itself.) I don’t see how it can possibly be pulled out. But I can get the top off, and I think I might be able to go from there…

One big question, though, is if the gas needs to be shut off. If the main gas pipe for the stove is BEHIND the stove, then I don’t see how to do it. But if I can just get that top off, I think that between a vacuum extension and a mop extension, I might be able to make it work. (Again, the mice would have to be gone by then, and I’d be cleaning up after them.)

So… ideas?? Has anyone else dealt with this situation before? If so, what did you do? What worked/didn’t work?

All info welcome! :slight_smile:

2

I don’t understand why it can’t be pulled out. It was pushed in when it was purchased, and the gas hookup is most certainly behind there, with a flexible connection. Open the oven door, grip it from the inside, palms up, and pull it straight out. Ovens are not very heavy at all.

Also, they are likely hanging out in the broiler area, which is where your oven flame is, which is why you get the smell of burning mouse pee. You should be able to pull that whole drawer out and hose it off, and likely access the floor once the drawer is removed.

3
  1. Are you a renter? if yes, call the landlord. Its his problem. Check your local laws - you may be entitled to withhold rent if the vermin are not eliminated promptly, or deduct if you pay for extermination & cleaning yourself.
  2. are you the owner? If yes
    a.If your stove is gas do not pass go, do not collect $200, call a licensed plumber to remove your stove safely.
    b. If your stove is electric, see (a), except call an electrician.

ETA: SDT has a good point, you might be able to access the problem area by removing the broiler drawer or storage drawer, whichever your stove has.

4

One old school remedy I’ve had success with is peppermint oil. Supposedly mice have a strong sense of smell and the intense odor of peppermint is too much for them to be around. So get a small bottle of peppermint oil and sprinkle it around your stove. You want it to be strong enough that you can really smell it. The downside is you’ll have to smell it yourself but it’s cheap, non-toxic, easy to use, and it does seem to work.

5

The faster you get rid of the mice, the less likely the range will be destroyed by them. Many years ago, a neighbor tore down a mini barn in their back yard, displacing scores of rodents. Some of them moved into our range. We didn’t know this until the sounds of frantic scrabbling after we turned on the oven.

The little monsters were nesting in the fiberglass insulation after stealing kibble from the dog’ bowl. The smell of baked mice and mouse pee was unbearable, so we had to pull all of the insulation out, which meant the kitchen got HOT when the oven was on.

6

First thing first:

[ol]
[li]**Find out where the mice are coming in and plug those entrances off **- Use steel wool (mice can’t chew through it) or use the foam sealant that electricians use to seal conduits and fill in the holes. Buy a cheap UV light to locate the mouse urine trails; this will lead to where they come in the house.Mice are incontinent so they dribble all the time.[/li][li]Clean the area thoroughly - Move the stove. Sweep and then mop the floor with the strongest disinfectant that you can stand. Be prepared to do this until you find no traces of mice (no droppings orUV detected urine traces)[/li][li]Open the stove and clean the entire unit thoroughly. - Apply some peppermint oil to the inside of that as well. It will dry and it will smell strong.[/li][li]Put down cheap snap traps (they are the best) and glue traps w/ either peanut butter or bacon fat on them - Mice are fairly stupid so they’ll get caught pretty quickly. Dispose of them when you find a mouse in them.[/li][/ol]

Gas stoves have a shut off valve at the wall if they are properly connected, so they are just as easy to work on as an electric unit. You just have to make certain that you have completely shout off the gas to the stove after you have pulled it away from the wall.

7

Please don’t use glue traps - they’re particularly cruel. If you have to kill things because they’re inconvenient, the least you can do is make it painless.

8

It’s a mouse.
It befouls your your home with feces and urine and it can also spread disease.
“Cruelty” is secondary to ridding your home of vermin.

Also, snap traps are not “painless”; they often crush the mouses neck and cause it to die rather slowly. Poison bait is usually Warfarin, an anti-coagulant which causes internal bleeding and slow death for the mouse.

9

Do the mice come out at night and bully you ? Never in my life have I understood how people can be frightened of, or worried by the presence of, mice. They are tiny, charming creatures.
I would live with them.

O/W hire a couple of cats.

10

We recently bought a house that had been abandoned for a few years and obviously had a mouse problem. When we turned on the oven for the first time, the most gawd-awful stench I’ve ever encountered filled the space. Absolutely nauseating. We pulled the stove out (this is a simple process, as others have noted) and stuck it in the yard to cool off, gagging the whole way out. I pulled it apart after it had cooled, and found that mice had nested in the oven insulation. It was a cheap range, and the problem seemed unlikely to be easily resolved, so we scrapped the range. This is the problem with mice in the house, people. Sure, they’re cute, but they destroy shit.

Anyway, my story had a happy ending because when we went to Craigslist to replace the stove, I found an absolutely fabulous Thermador 6 burner range for a mere $1000. It’s much better than the stinky-mouse one. So I guess my advice is to throw the stove away. :slight_smile:

Good luck to you.

Edit: I just re-read the OP. Are you talking about a wall oven, rather than a range?

11

Here’s another tip. Buy some paper lunch bags and set the traps up inside of them. That way when you catch a mouse, you can just pick up the bag and throw it all out rather than have to handle the trap and the dead mouse.

12

As opposed to blood spatter and mouse bits, decaying corpses, and the stench of death. Big improvement.

The OP is already using live traps, a sensible and humane choice I might add.

The question seems to be how to move a stove not how to kill mice.

13

D-Con.

Seriously, the poison. Best method I’ve found.

Comes in a nice little package filled with kibble-like poison pellets. Mice eat it, they leave your house looking for water, they die. Easy. Only reason not to use it is if you have pets or small children that might try to eat it as well.

I had an apartment, maybe 8 years ago - it was a split-level building, my unit was half underground. I had mice constantly - I could hear them gnawing on the inside of my fiberglass tub every night. About 2 weeks with D-Con placed all over - problem solved. And I never had to pick up a nasty mouse carcass.

14

Or, if you (for some crazy reason) prefer not to introduce anincredibly harmful bio-accumulative poison into the environment.

15

I once thought mice were cute until I found out how prolific and destructive they are. Now I have a few cats and no mice.

16

I once had to replace a stove because mice got inside it and pulled out the insulation for nesting material. So I agree with the others who say you should act quickly.

You are going to have to get behind the stove to clean things up back there, but that won’t be enough. You don’t want the mice to move to another part of the house. You want them out of the house. You’ve already had several suggestions, and I can’t think of anything I can add except to urge you to do something now, before the problem gets worse.

17

How long do you go before checking your mouse traps? If I had mice, I would check them DAILY until the problem was resolved.

Also, moving the stove to clean is only a temp solution.In the long-term, getting rid of the mouse infestation is a much higher priority.

18

Electronic mouse traps are the most humane (and non-messy; you don’t have to touch or even see the dead mouse) way of dispatching the little critters. I had great luck with this when I had a mouse problem in a previous house.

I think mice are cute too, but they’re also filthy and destructive, so IMO they’re only cute when they are outside.

19

Find a plastic or metal bowl 2-3 inches deep, ideally one of those flat cookie tins. Prop it up on a dinner plate, using a breadstick or a long cracker, holding up the tin like a vertical tent pole, with enough space under the edge for mouse entry. A mouse will slip in through the space, and nosh on the breadstick, until it falls, trapping the little fellow inside. In the morning, take the whole thing a good distance from your house and release him (or her). You can catch one a day this way, until they are gone,

20

I can’t believe everyone is missing the obvious!

Seal the windows and doors with duct tape; leave the gas on full.

Wait several hours*. Result! No more mice.

  • DO NOT light up a cigarette while you wait.