I had a problem with mice in my fire wood. Mr.Wrekker brings fire wood up from behind the barn and stacks it in the garage. Nothing makes your heart flip flop like grabbing a log and a mouse running up your arm. A little too close to the inside of my house. I set traps and caught dozens out there. It was a constant battle til I discovered the moth ball trick.
The moth ball trick might also work on the ferocious spiders that lurk in woodpiles!
~VOW
I wish I’d known this trick years ago. The now-ex and I lived in the country. Hundreds of acres (only 5 ours) of yummy mouse-edibles surrounded our humble abode. The mouses preferred humble abode 2:1. Every edible item was in mouse-proof containers, so I guess they wanted warmth and TV. They were Hanta-carrying deer mice. They giggled at mouse traps, eschewed poison-in-a-box. Yes, poison-in-a-box is cruel. After literally dozens of times washing and sterilizing cupboards and their contents, I lost all compassion. Try steel wool, people said. The mice said, “Yay! We LOVE this stuff!”
If I’d only had mothballs.
Stepdaughter’s (v.2.1) caught a live mouse. I put him in a jar and carried him out to the garden to release him. As I came back to the porch, I saw the little bastard run under the house. He beat me back!
When you live in the woods all bets are off. The forest would like me to leave so it can take over. I have no, NO sympathy for something that wants in my house to pillage.
The moth balls work. But you need lots. After it rains hard repeat the application. I put them everywhere around outbuildings and the barn. Not in the barn, tho. That’s where the dog food is. So Mr.Wrekker still sets traps and shoots. He also has a barn cat.
Bugs and spiders will leave, forthwith.
Any beneficial bugs may be impacted. Like ladybugs or other aphid eaters. I even hang little pouches of moth crystals where I see wasps building.
It works if you can keep up the fight. And the smell doesn’t turn you off.
ETA, i wouldn’t do this if I kept bees.
I have no sympathies whatsoever for rodents or vermin. I tolerate (sometimes barely) ONE single four-legged beast. All others with more than two legs deserve to die. Period.
I am VERY picky about the two-legged beasts allowed on my property. I have a large husband with an Expert badge and he has guns. Warning: when he gets mad, he gets BIGGER.
I’ve had guests coo about the sweet little mousies and the cute little bunnies. They are allowed to take all they want.
We shall electrocute, poison, or step on all others.
~VOW
~VOW, I get it. Somebody was cooing over the feral piglets. (Oh, so cute, widdle piggie.) Nope. They are eating, destroying vermin machines. Carry every disease you can think of. They gotta go.
I just wish mothballs worked on them. Alas, no. I’ve seen them eating the mothballs I scattered around my pump-house. Nary a bellyache.
I ran into this when I moved to my current place. I was so sure I was not going to use herbicides because, blah, blah, blah. I pretty much have to use them or maintaining my place would be 40 hours a week pulling weeds. One of my personal things I object to is using poison on animals. I have no problem killing moles or voles with a stick or a gun or whatever but poisoning really rubs me the wrong way. However, moles and voles are turning my back yard into a WW I battlefield type hellscape. Well, maybe not that bad but pretty bad. I am on the verge of deploying some chemicals. I’m sick of hitting their raised tunnels with the mower and the big dead patches in the yard.
You need a digging dog to chase them moles out. Dachshunds and Bassetts are good at that. Of course your back yard will look worse.(:))
Protip, flooding them out with water won’t work, gopher bombs (smoke bombs, possibly poison laced) wont work and poison bait didn’t work either for me. (Little bugger just blocked the tunnel with the bomb and ignored the bait, guess tulips are preferable food). I did get rid of it eventually, either drove it off or killed it, not sure which
Oh, BTW, VOW, look up bunny bopping in Idaho, I think you’ll find it…joyful given how you seem to feel about jack rabbits
get a pure scottish terrier they catch mice better than cats and snakes …
I insist on Rat Terrier. No substitutes.
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GAWD! Feral pigs eating mothballs! Yet another reason why those beasts are NOT “good eatin’”
Can you imagine sitting down to the dinner table with an overcooked pork roast for the meal? Everyone is smiling and talking, and people start to eat…
“Unusual flavor. Did you use eucalyptus leaves on the pork?”
“Granny! We told you time and again not to slather Ben-Gay everywhere right before you come to eat!”
“Mommy, why does the meat taste like Vicks?”
“Everybody in the car. We’re going to Mac’s Place.”
“Maybe Sonic instead?”
~VOW
Alright! Now! Sonic it is!!
They are indeed poison, and so are the fumes from them. At your own risk, and those of anybody else who has to breathe the local air.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001236.htm
– I’d recommend adopting a cat (or better yet two, for each other’s company) from a good barn cat family; one who’s old enough to have learned how to hunt. The trick may be getting a barn kitten/cat who’s old enough to have had proper instruction from their elders, but who’s socialized enough with humans to make a good house cat. Around here many barn cats are semi-feral, but there’s usually a farmer or two around most places who doesn’t get their cats spayed but does pet and cuddle them.
Indoor-only cats, especially those from a long line of indoor-only cats, often don’t know how to hunt and some don’t even have much in the way of hunting instinct. But barn cats from a line of barn cats are generally all at least decent mousers – the ones who weren’t probably didn’t survive.
I’ve heard that tuxedo cats are the best mousers. We had one a hundred years ago, and she was outstanding at catching the little shits. We’d hear clattering in the kitchen, and then she’d bring us a mouse. We figured out she was playing a few round of mouse hockey before presenting her offering to us.
The cat I have now is incredibly sweet and loving. But seriously, he’s an idiot. When he and his brother came to live with us, I bought them cat toys, and they had no idea what to do with them. A bag on the floor was…there. idiots!
But…my cat is permanently velcroed to my lap, he’s ALWAYS with me when I don’t feel well, and he supplies me with plenty of purr.
If a FISH were to invade my house, he might be interested…
~VOW
snicker mouse hockey =)
My little Tiny Apex Predator [gotten because at 3 months old she caught her first mouse, and has been getting at least 2 a month in the year since then. We live on the top floor of our barn and the little bastards sneak in looking for our food]
Discovered her with her first mouse … we had a little grey catnip lifelike flannel mouse, and a previous cat had lost it. Well, early one morning in that funky sort of twilight, I saw this little kitty tossing the catnip mouse around and catching it. Until I heard it squeeking. :eek:
Mouse hockey is slightly better than cat poop hockey.
Just sayin’.
~VOW
The Siamese don’t play. They turn their noses up at any cat toy. Catnippy or not. Nope. Don’t play.
I had a laser pointer and tried it out when they were youngish. They just looked at me like I was crazed. With at look that said “Ple—ease”