Ok, here’s the situation. I have a couple of mice (or very small rats)in my apartment. They are clever bastards, who have evaded every trap or poison that I’ve tried to catch them with.
Just now I caught one. He might be the only one. He’s in a plastic 7-11 cup right now. I had planned to execute him, of course, either by a humane labrotory style bag and smash, or by feeding him to one of the neighborhood cats if I was in a sadistic mood.
The problem is, I can’t bring myself to do it. He’s absolutly adorable. He’s tiny and has cute little pink paws.
So what do I do? If I let him go outside, he’ll proably come right back inside. I can’t get a box and keep him, because of my lease. And he’s proably carring Hanta, knowing my luck.
I don’t think I’ve ever killed a vertibrate before.
I’m mousehunting as well, and having no such luck. If I were so lucky as you are and caught one of the bastards, I’d make DAMN sure it would leave the house in a non-breathing fashion.
Eight traps with peanut butter in the kitchen. I must be using the wrong brand… picky little shits
Easy, find a friend who owns a snake. These people usually have all the rodent killing skills you would require to dipose of the pest.
Don’t hang around to watch if you’re squeamish. Also, if you don’t like the idea of the pest becoming a meal for a reptile, just think of the havoc that the Hanta will cause to the snake.
Seriously, it may be cute, but it’s not worth the trouble the thing might cause.
Might I suggest a simple test of fire? Burn the little critter at a tiny stake. A pile of matches will work wonderfully for this purpose. If he lives – saved by the grace of the mouse god – set him free to share his light with the world. If he burns – his soul will have been purified by the flames and gathered into the warm, fuzzy embrace of the great creator mouse.
Either way, your conscious is clean.
[sub]Note: In no way do I encourage or endorse cruelty to any living thing. I post only to amuse.[/sub]
If you’re SERIOUSLY squeamish, you can probably call Animal Control and have them come out to deal with it (depending on where you live). Don’t release it anywhere within a 5-mile radius of your house or it’ll be back shortly, and don’t count on the cat to kill it. Cats are suprisingly inefficient at killing creatures you WANT dead.
If you have one mouse, you’re likely to have a lot more. It might be exterminator time. Sure, they’re adorable, but I live in New Mexico, so when I think of rodents, I think rabies, plague, and hantavirus.
Of course, by now the little guy’s probably escaped back into your kitchen cupboards while you were agonizing over what to do with him.
Take it from someone who worked in a building with a rat infestation, kill the little bugger! Over a 6 month period, we had to kill at least 60.
I’m probably not going to gain any favor with some posters on the board but…there are a few ways you can off the little guy.
Put him down on the table, put a pencil over the back of his neck, and yank on the tail. I know it sounds awful.
Put it in a ziplock bag and toss it in your freezer.
You can also soak a cotton ball in starter fluid. Put the cotton ball and mouse in a ziplock bag. This works the same as carbon dioxide except the animal must be disposed or destroyed. **Do Not feed this to any other animal!!! **
Call your local school district to see if they have an outdoor learning center or a program for teaching children about animals. If so, see if they use carbon dioxide to euthanise their extra rodents. You might be able to take your critters there. I know in the district I used to work, we used carbon dioxide and gave the dead rodents to an owl farm in exchange for owl pellets.
Cut off it’s head, and stick it on a stake, and leace it standing in the kitchen on the floor for all other mice to see that they know the wrath of ura-maru!!!
or
just toss him far enough away that he can’t come back in…
maybe the sewer system?
I, too am a sucker for anything cute, but mice and the fleas that they host are vectors for some pretty nasty diseases. They also have a taste for the insulation around electrical wiring, so they can potentially burn your home down. I kill them promptly when I catch one; I figure that swift execution by me is more humane than leaving them to the tender mercies of my cats.:eek:—Tabithina
-Background:
When I was eight, this kid in my class set up this sharing thing with his three mice: every kid in the class would keep the mice for one weekend (it was a small class). So my turn came around, and yes, they are really cute and stuff, so I was playing with them in our backyard. Playing is actually too mild a term, because I was throwing one of them up in the air and catching it (sometimes not). Well, for all I know I had already killed the mouse by dropping it one too many times, but the real disaster was that once, it didn’t come down. I had thrown it onto the roof… I still feel bad about this. And no, I’m not cruel to animals. I have 4 cats and I love them bundles, and the feeling is mutual.
-Here is the second story, which is more current and relevant:
We found a mouse in the cabinet under our sink (more specifically, in our trash can). I instantly remembered my trauma story from childhood, I decided to set it free. Feeling very proud of myself, I put it on the ledge of our bathroom window. Then it fell off. Then I realized that we were three stories up. I actually cried over this. I guess I am cursed to kill any mice that cross my path…
I would never be able to willingly kill one. Of course, this might make me seem like a major wuss. Point taken. My friends and family deal with it
If you don’t want to kill him yourself, and can’t find a friend with a snake, you could always sic a terrier on it: most of the small ones were bred as ratcatchers. Even my lazy Westie terrier has managed to kill two rodents.
Unfortunately, both of them were my sister’s hamsters. Still, you can’t have everything.
One time we had mice. I’d be sitting reading a book with my semiautomatic BB pistol close by, and my mom would watch for the little critters.
“A mouse! Kill it!”
If you used the good old classic neck breaking mouse trap to begin with, you wouldn’t have this dilema. Crunchy peanut butter works best for bait. For some strange reason I am actually very good at catching mice. I must think like one.
Yeah I think I’m pretty good at catching them too. One weekend we caught 17 rats. They were huge! One rat drug the trap around the room (we followed the trail of poo) and ended up beneath my desk. What was really disgusting is that we didn’t find it until after lunch so it sat under my desk all morning. When the custodian went to pick up the trap, the rat started flopping around. I don’t remember how he killed it but I still get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.
BTW, we used peanut butter also. The custodian and I would take paper towels and cut them into squares. Them we’d roll peanut butter into the square and use it as bait for the traps.
Differing opinion, here…take it a fair distance outside and let it go. Mice are naturally outside critters, so it’ll have a fair shot at surviving. You don’t really have to kill it.
They are cute little cusses, but they don’t belong running inside a house. Just escort it out.
You could just buy a cage and some wood chippings and keep the little fellow as a pet you know. And then if he has any other friends in the building you could set up your own little mouse society with him as the unquestioned ruler and secret policemice to enforce his totalitarian control over the rodent denizens. Then you could make them all worship you as a great god and food provider, and make monthly virgin sacrifices on a little altar and…
Uh,
In any case, killing the mouse isn’t necessary, if you don’t feel like a new pet(or if the apartment complex doesn’t allow you to keep them (possible argument:he came with the apartement) just release it into the wild some distance off. (or someone elses apartement, or whatever.)
If you feel compelled to kill it, the easiest way (for you, at any rate) is to flush it. If you’re connected to a sewer system, it might not even kill it, but it’ll be out of your house.
One other thing…don’t even think that you’ve gotten rid of your mice, just because you don’t see any more. I’ve been told that if you see one mouse, you’ve probably got at least ten.
