I’ve had very good luck with the live traps. I refuse to put poison down, neither of my two cats nor my 3 dogs showed the slightest in ridding me of the pests. I couldn’t bear glue traps and felt guilty about snap traps. I put a part of a dog biscuit with peanut butter on it in one, popcorn in another. That worked well. What really worked was some of my horse’s sweet feed. I relocated all the mousies, singing a chorus of “Born Free” as I released them ten miles from my house.
StG
Your grandmother’s kinda scary, isn’t she? Tell me she grew up on a farm.
The live traps are more of a life-style than an absolute solution; don’t forget to check them every day. Sometimes mice come back.
And, um, they can chew through tupper-ware. Buy food in glass bottles until you build up a nice collection, and store your food in them.
In my experience, any cat will turn mouser if not over-fed. Cruel as it sounds, when I see a mouse the cat has not yet terrified out of the house, I put away the cat food for a day or two. Then it’s a race between the cat and the (live) trap.
I tell myself I am improving the rodent gene pool.
She did, and she’s been a farmer’s wife for the last 60 years.
Really, she’s the warmest, kindest, most generous woman you can imagine, but she can crush a mole’s skull with a shovel, or wring a chicken’s neck with nary a blink. It’s practicality, more than anything, I think. You don’t get very far on a farm if you’re tender-hearted when it comes to furry vermin, or shrinking from butchering tasks.
And you never make pets out of your cats, do you? Leave them just enough food and water to keep them alive and breeding, and keep out of the way.
The truly scary thing is that any HOUSE cats will want to join up with the barn cats.
I can always tell the farm-raised; they scare us poor inner-city folk to death.
But they make great chicken pot pie.
Is there a way of knowning beforehand whether a cat is a mouser or not? As in a particular breed or somesuch?
At work we had a mouse problem once. They set poison out for them. Let me tell you, poison is not the way to go. Apparently a mouse ate it and died somewhere in the wall by the front office. You have no idea how bad a dead mouse stinks. For days.
As for dogs, mine acts just like SunTzu2U. He is by far, a better mouser than my cat.
My dog certainly wants to catch the mice, but she’s just too slow, and for a smart dog, is easily tricked by a feint.
As I understand, a lot of cats will mouse even if they’re *overfed. * There was a documentary about Killer Cats on the Discovery Channel not too long ago. Some cats just have a passion for the hunt. In some cats, that feral instinct is still very strong.
My aunt’s cat was a fat serial killer. He was a house cat who was allowed to “play” outside for a couple of hours a day, and he made the most of his time. Rare was the day when he didn’t present a dead mole, mouse, or bird to my aunt when returning home. My aunt was convinced that the cat was trying to feed her because he loved her so, and thus she would exclaim over the dead things and tell the cat what a good hunter he was. She would only dispose of the corpse after the cat had left the room, bursting with feline pride, no doubt.
She didn’t really like when he would bring the half-dead creatures home, but, as she said to me, Kitty was just trying to teach her how to hunt on her own. Again, she would wait until the cat was out of sight before finishing the poor thing off.
Wow, you caught one in a live trap. I am officially amazed. In the days before The Cat, my bait was brownies. Whenever I made them I’d tell my family I was making mouse bait. (Of course, the mice only got mere crumbs.)
**
I don’t think they learn very well.
Once (before The Cat) my son encountered one as he came in from school. He dropped one of his books on it. I believe it was a physics book. Anyway it killed the mouse . . . and gave my son the opportunity to gloat about having thrown the book at him.
I don’t think you can do it. They are small and flexible. They can always find a way in. But if you want to, look for cracks in the kitchen and stuff them with steel wool. The mice really annoyed me by coming in through my dryer vent, then chewing their way out. So in addition to getting rid of the mice, I had to replace several hoses at several different times. Chicken wire over the outside of the vent did not help.
Arrgh! The thing of it is, I wouldn’t have minded a couple of mice. Live and let live after all. But they multiply and threaten to take over, and they’re nasty.
Good luck! (Maybe a cardboard cutout that looks like a cat?)
Hantavirus info from the CDC. On the right hand side of the page, there are instruction for safe removal of rodent droppings/bodies.
I am a bit of a germophobe, so my fear of disease is going to be slightly exaggerated at the best of times. However, it still seems like a good idea to at least try to seal off of their entrance holes. We’ve done it at the cottage, it was a pain but haven’t had an infestation since. Even if you can’t get them all, at least get some of the more obvious ones and do everything you can to make it harder and unprofitable for them to come into your house.
I’m probably reading it wrong, but it sort of sounds like you’re throwing your hands up Lissa and saying “I can’t keep 'em out, not gonna try.” Tell me I’m wrong, please.
IMO, you’re better off killing them than trying to handle them in order to set them free. Don’t forget that these are pests which will piss and shit in your home, preferably as close to your food as possible. They don’t seem to mind contaminated food one bit.
In my admittedly simplistic, germ-fearing mind, it’s like this: Millions of mice on the continent, vs. one only [insert name of mouse-freeing Doper here]. 
Why take chances?
Cicada2003, I have a doorstop shaped like a cat, complete with those little button eyes which jiggle when you move it. (Something I made when I was a kid, and for some reason, kept.) I’m not claiming it’s realistic, but one would think that seeing its menacing outline in a darkened room would be a deterrent. Apparently, evolution has not programed them to know the shape of their nemesis, the way that chickens will instinctively duck when they see the outline of a hawk overhead. Thus, I can only conclude that chickens are smarter than mice.
Triss, I’m gonna *try * to keep them out-- I just realize that my chances for success are slim. Like the cola wars, my struggle will be eternal. I’m going to post little signs at the entrance holes, “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.”
My grandma suggested I use that inflating foam. She said if I sprayed it into the holes, the foam would make sure it was completely sealed, but, as I told her, it sounds easy and fun to chew through.
I caught another one in the live trap last night. I can’t set him free right now, so I made him a nice mouse hotel (well, prison, really) in an old cooler. I gave him a little bowl of water and a handful of dog food to hold him over until we can drive to the park tonight.
I’m not touching them in any way. The traps slide open at the top, and I dumped hin down into the cooler without having any contact, but I washed my hands carefully, just in case.
I’ve found droppings in the last couple of days-- but only a little. There were a few in the pantry. I immagine the dissapointment they must have felt upon returning-- akin to going to Disneyworld and finding it closed.
We just tackled a little mice problem. Caught three of them in the sticky traps and another one just fell into the garbage can so we just threw him away.
Our landlord sent a maintenance guy who sealed up all the openings and threw some poison around. Behind the refrigerator and behind the stove. No where my cat could get without operating a forklift. He did get caught in a sticky trap I forgot to remove one day though. I found it covered in cat hair by his litter box.
Generally, I don’t let my cat wander around the kicthen unless I’m in there with him. He has a way of getting on top of the fridge and chewing his way into his cat food.
A Question…does the poison ever degrade? He threw a pretty big block of poison back there and I was wondering if it will stay there forever? or spoil or something?
My friend’s Golden Retriever almost perished from consuming mouse b gone. The house sitter was inattentive (owner and family on holiday) and let him roam where he’d outhgt not to have gone, leading to some expensive transfusions, and vet bills that I don’t even want to think about. Pup is OK today, still a dumb as a post, yet cute.
As a woods interface dweller, I’ve found kitties to be the most effective-they love to snag a live one and play rodent toss at length. For those who sneak past the goalie, snap traps with peanut butter. I recycle rodentia-toss them into the woods, and let them rot, and also serve as a warning to the others. 
Tell me more about live traps. Is there but one kind? Are they small enough to fit behind furniture? The only ones I’ve seen are enormous and would take up half my kitchen.
I don’t suppose there are any places that rent out good mousin’ cats? I’d spend a day or two with one. The bunny is no good at it whatsoever.
cowgirl - Those I have are about 1" by 1" by 2.5" long. The mouse enters and the weight change in the trap causes a plastic door to come down. There’s no edge they can chew on to get out. You have to be sure to check them everyday so the mousies don’t die of dehydration. I bought mine at the local Tractor Supply Company.
StG
The one I’m using is about the size of a paperback book, and claims to hold up to four mice. It’s made of dark green plastic, so you can hold it up to the light and see if mice are inside.
You place the bait in the trap, and put it against the wall. The mice walk in over a tilted ramp, which goes down under their weight to let them in the trap, but tilts back upward once they’re off of it, trapping them inside. The top of the trap slides off easily.
I can vouch that they work, because of the two I caught. We bought it at Wal-Mart, so I’d say you can find them locally.