Since my wife likes to provide a real nice, warm and well stocked food-wise area for them to live, we have been over-run with the little bastards. She decided to get the glue traps and like so many other posters before, learned the hard way they need to be anchored or they end up stuck in some very “inconvienient” places. Why glue traps? Because the bleeding heart wife doesn’t want them dead. :rolleyes:
Well one day, Mr. Mousy Mouse drags the glue trap and gets stuck up under the stove. It takes the wife a good hour to extract him, and made a howling funny e-mail for me to read at work. It seems Mr. Mouse ended up losing a bit of hair off his backside…
Fast-forward a few days later. I’m sitting on the couch and out of the corner of my eye see a damn mouse running along the wall. He is hiding under the sub-woofer. I try to get him to run across one of the many glue traps, but he is having none of it. Finally, he decides to hide under the glass stereo table. I can just see his beady little face staring out at me, mocking me almost. There was no way to catch him, as the back of this thing was open. He thought he was safe.
I went and got the BB Gun!
Laying with the side of my head on the carpet, I was able to get a bead on this little fucker. The gun had to lay on its side, to get a clear shot. I was hoping for the best as I squeezed the trigger…
BAM! RIGHT IN HIS MOUSY FACE!!
I pulled him out of there and ** his whole ass was hairless!!!* *
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
It’s a beautiful sight when one of the kitties snags a rodent and lies on the back porch tossing it up in the air and catching it, while the others sit nearby, watching. The look on their faces is priceless-as if they’re thinking, “Where’s MY rodent?”
On two separate occasions we’ve had squirrels get into the house.
The first time, as we were putting our daughter to bed a squirrel jumped out of her blankets. Then it ran into my bedroom where I chased it around for an hour or so. It took refuge in my nightstand and I had to pull the drawers apart. This is when we discovered a secret drawer built into the rear of the nightstand. Neat! That’s now where we keep the crisp tooth fairy money and the collected teeth. I finally was able to grab it with a towel and toss it out the window onto the roof.
The second time was in the basement and after hours of trying to get the bastard out the window I finally decided to get the BB gun out. One clean shot in the head and he slid down the wall into an open cardboard box. Not a drop of blood anywhere. I should’ve been a sharp shooter.
And the mouse, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore
By the Master Edgar Allen Poe (bolding and one changed word by me)
BB guns??? You’ll poke somebody’s eye out! You put that down right this instant, young man!
I prefer the appeal to reason, myself. Should one of the wee rodents make its appearance, I haul out a collection of Pilgrim sermons and begin reading appropriate passages demonstrating mankind’s dominion over all the beasts of the Earth, the holiness of cleanliness, the seven deadly sins as applied to mice, etc., etc. Usually this approach either terrifies them into flight, or so stultifies them that I am able to scoop up the semi-comatose whiskerlings and gently deposit them outside the door.
You might also invite them to make the acquaintance of a grandfather clock; you know, have a nice runabout in it, at noon.
My suggestion would be to obtain a humane trap (that would be the type that doesn’t KILL the mice), scoop up the critters and release them in a nearby field. Rooves, you have a son, right? It’s a good thing to teach your children to respect and love animals. He could help you take the mice to their new home.
Then, you’ll need to caulk up the areas in your house where they could come in, i.e. floorboards. Surely you big 'ol guys know how to do that, right?
For anyone thinking of using glue traps as a humane alternative to the “snap” type; don’t. My mother did that because she thought the snap types were cruel. She caught one in her pantry and of course she was scared of it. She called me over to do something with it. I actually felt bad for the little bastard. He must have been scared to death. I thought the glue might be water-soluble so I held it under a water hose. Nope. I considered trying some chemical solvent but figured he would get some up his nose or that it would mess up his skin. I ended up smacking him with the end of a 2x4. Blech.
He was scared to death for the last few hours of his life, then SMACK! He was right. Someone was trying to kill him.
Use the snap trap. Get it over with. Those mice are just doing what they do to survive. No need to torture them.
The kind I use are oil-soluble. Vegatable oil will usually release them (although why you’d want to “humanely” release one of the pestilent property-destroying disease bags into the “wild” so it can find someone elses house to crap all over is beyond me.)
I drop the mouse & glue trap into a plastic bag and then euthanize it with a ball-peen hammer. Sanitary, humane, and I don’t have to worry about my dog getting poisoned or getting her tongue caught in a snap-trap.
Let me guess - you never saw the movie Stuart Little, right?
Mice come in via holes in your house from outside - it’s a matter of properly insulating your home. Or, get a cat. I wouldn’t kill an animal unless my own life was being threatened.
It most certainly is being threatened. Rodents are one of the most prolific disease vectors in the history of mankind.
Don’t be fooled. Though those cute little eyes may give the impression of a cheerful soul looking only to eat, procreate, and enjoy life, the reality is far more shocking: it’s mentally singing “Paint it Black” as it debates whether to spend the afternoon pooping on your kitchen utensils or chewing holes in your best clothing.
All well and good but you do get some fall out. Personally I always use the good old fashioned 1920s style Death Ray, ZZZZAAAAAPPPPPP! and gone, no mess, no fall out, no mouse
When we lived in a house that had mice we, in addition to the other aforementioned methods, kept a bucket of water in a place they were known to frequent.
A few times a week we’d find a mouse that just couldn’t resist going for a swim and drowned.
I’m a live and live kind of gal, that is, until you enter my home. Once you’re inside, uninvited, invading my personal space and scaring the shit out of me you must die.
When I was in grade school, an elderly couple down the block was having trouble with squirrels. They had a garden in their back yard, and the squirrels were savaging it horribly. They bought ‘humane traps’ to trap the squirels, but the Mrs. had a problem with ending their lives. So the mister would put the traps in the back of their country squire sationwagon and drive about 20 miles out and release them in the woods.
Now they were doing this for about a month when the Mr. said to the Mrs. “Those squirrels…they look like the same ones I just released in the woods last week.” So he put out the traps again, and when all the traps were full, he took out a can of orange spray paint and painted all of the trapped squirrels tails. he then loaded up the stationwagon and drove out another 20 miles to release them.
And you know what? The next week their trees were full of squirrels with orange tails.
Now I had another neighbor with a garden too. He used live traps too. But when he caught them, he’d put the trap in a hefty bag and then tie the hefty bag to his exhaust pipe. he’d then run the engine for a few minutes (or until he obtained the desired effect). His garden was Immaculate.
