Thanks, slumtrimpet. Will keep that all in mind. 
Lacunae, are these poisoned baits? Won’t they just die in some remote place until I smell them?
The other down side of poison bait is how it heads up the food chain. The mousies go off to die somewhere and get eaten by other wildlife which then also dies. Not so good.
Oh good lord. Please do not EVER use poison baits. They kill pets, strays, predators and raptors.
Drivers: PLEASE learn the difference between “Yield” and “Merge”. Thank you.
Sorry,** elemenopy**, I feel your pain, but I have to disagree with getting a cat just to catch mice. If you want him/her as a family pet for other reasons as well, go for it! But we’ve had some mouse issues this year as well and the cats have been USELESS. One is very good at catching them, then deposits them around the house to play with. Of course, they escape then my SO has to do the traps thing (I concur with Tomcat traps doing the job very well). He has no killer instinct. The other one is mesmerized and watches them intently but appears to have no interest in actually doing any WORK.
Useless. I’ve been threatening to trade them in.
Gross gross gross. We’ve only had a few, but I can’t figure out where they’re getting in. I’ve been cleaning, caulking, steel-wooling, peppermint oiling and the whole house smells like Pine Sol but still they come.
Das Glasperlenspiel you have my sympathy as well. There have been times that I didn’t have running water and it seemed that everything I tried to do required water.
A while back, I lived in an old trailer and would get mice. The first sign of mice was the poop in the cat kibble bowl. The bowl was in the bathroom, literally 6 feet from the bed that the cats helpfully held down 18 hours a day. Don’t get a cat just for their skill at killing mice.
That’s a learned skill, if the mother didn’t teach her kittens how to do it, they won’t ever be good at it. The cats I had at the time not only didn’t do anything about the mice, I doubt they even noticed that they were sharing their kibble with them.
Feral cats are awesome at killing and eating mice but don’t really transition well to being cuddly house cats. Our house feral will sometimes sleep on the bed with us, but that’s only because his kitten likes to and he wants to be close to his kitten.
My rant: seeing as how I have finally accepted that cooking will never be my super-power, I have turned to gardening. I’ve always been good at that and I love home-grown veggies. Last week, all of my seedlings were doing very well. Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, milkweed, assorted flowers, etc. Apparently, the pots of cat grass I keep going year around weren’t enough for the cats. Yesterday I came home to find that every single sprout had been eaten or pulled up by the roots. 
I’m quite a bit south of you and in a different country, but for a data point: We had to drill a new well about 5 years ago. It cost us $8K. I think it was around 400’ deep or so. We’re in our 60s and I’m hoping we won’t have to do this again before we’re dead.
The re-fixed fix didn’t work, so it’s on to digging it up :(. There is a cute little mini power shovel in the driveway (that Himself is longing to play with) and the dowser will be in tomorrow to find the wellhead. The builder thoughtfully buried it in the front yard somewhere.:mad:
The dog and cats think melted snow water “tastes funny”.
Reminds me of a stairway up to an organ loft in a church in Rhode Island. There was a beam right at head height (well, more at ear height) that had been known to claim victims and cause non-ecclesiastical language at excessive volume.
To alert users to the low beam, some kind soul put a picture of a duck on it.
So, my local PBS station has kicked into fundraising mode. Again. I know they need money. Will check–if my “sustaining” membership has expired I’ll probably re-up.
What annoys me is the “quality” of the specials run at this time. Hey, Rick Steves was in the station yesterday. But all the others are specials for old folks worrying about losing their minds or worrying about money or looking back at music that was on the radio when I was 10 years old. At least these crappy shows make me feel young–& I’m no spring chicken. But they are not what I like about PBS. (At least, after tonight, Masterpiece will be Downton-free.)
On the work front–there’s that excellent co-worker with one flaw. The hand lotion she applies several times a day that smells like rotting cantaloupes. Or maybe rotting cucumbers. The odor makes my eyes itch…
My Android phone got an update a few weeks ago and I really want to beat someone with a Webster’s Unabridged dictionary. The text prediction in texting and email was fairly decent before the update, but after the update I swear my phone is channeling a tech support desk in India. The only settings in options are language and turning it off.
The stairs at my grandma’s house had a low overhang about halfway down like that. Grandma was barely five feet tall so she never had a problem with it but anyone my size (5’8") or taller would risk a concussion if you weren’t careful going downstairs. My poor dad was 6’4" and had to practically crabwalk down the stairs. I hit my head several times, I think everyone except Grandma and my 5’3" mother did. Grandpa always said he was going to paint that overhang bright orange but he never did.
And a good source for hunter females is factories, warehouses or barns. Just remember that a hunting cat and a petting cat aren’t quite the same; they need to have learned how to hunt, and the best teacher is their mom.
Regarding the bolded sentence, I’ve heard this quite a bit, but I can tell you it isn’t gospel. I raised two orphaned barn kittens from about three weeks of age. They were then my little indoors-only snowflakes. When they were about ten, we had a couple mice get in. Those girls caught and killed them quite efficiently. They even worked together where one would flush out the mouse and the other would wait to catch it where it ran out. There must’ve been genetics/instinct involved as they were too young for their poor mama to have taught them and I certainly didn’t.
I’m sure missing those girls now!
While I would not like to get into an argument with someone as nice as you, Helena330, those were barn cats. Not house cats.
When you say barn cats, I hear that they were bred feral, much different than house cats. Fumbling with words now, but think about how some people adopt tigers as cubs with their eyes still closed. The tigers are raised with love and become wonderful pets that can do tricks on stage at Los Vegas. Then, suddenly, something happens to trigger the wildness and someone ends up hurt.
Feral cats are the same. Your wonderful girls were NOT house cats, even though they lived in your home their entire lives.
Gives up, can’t get the right words. Anyhow, thank you so much for taking those helpless kittens in and keeping them safe all of their lives.
I think I probably concur with you Flatlined. The most recent cats I’ve had that are good mousers were all four female, abandoned kittens and born feral. And three of them are tortoiseshells as well. All three have ‘tortitude’. So I guess the trick is to find some barn kittens, pick out a torty female and adopt it to achieve no more mice. Rescue organizations are a good source.
But, as with all things, there are no guarantees. The most recent kitty, although she’s a demon in every other respect, is allowing a mouse to stash seeds in the housemate’s purse and under her boots. sigh Maybe she’s just a bit young yet.
I think you’re trying to put too fine a point on it, flatlined. Their pregnant mama was a tame stray, dumped by someone as people tend to do that around horse boarding facilities knowing there are people who will take them in. I know there are feral populations but “barn cats” don’t always qualify. They aren’t always feral.
When we had Lucy - an ex-outdoor cat, found roaming in a trailer park - she would just watch a mouse run past her. Dot and Mayme, 100% indoor cats since birth, are the mousers. And, being such GIVING felines, they bring their prizes to me. Ugh.
There’s a remote contract available for programmers familiar with technologies X, Y, and Z. I wrote the book on X, Y, and Z, so I thought I’d be a shoo-in. Nope. No contact at all. Damn.
Drivers: PLEASE learn the difference between “Yield”, “Merge”, and “Right Turn On Red After Stop”. Thank you.