I’d like to second the ultra-sonic device. Mr. Singular and I began to hear enormous rodents actually fighting in the wall between our kitchen and living room - we could actually hear them squeaking and falling with a huge thud in the night!:eek: And we have 2 cats and a Lab, who were fascinated by the noises but couldn’t get to the source. We tried traps with cheese, peanut butter, bread and ham with no luck. We finally got one of the sonic devices, and the Fight Nights began to subside in a week. It took a couple weeks, but they’ve gone and haven’t come back, the animals don’t seem to mind and we don’t feel bad about crushing a tiny spine.
I had a similar problem a few years ago. First, get some of that expanding foam stuff from the hardware store and seal every crack and hole you can find in the floors, walls and especially around the plumbing. It is fun to do and once you get rid of your mouse, he can’t get back in.
I tried the sticky trap things but the mouse only seems to get caught in the middle of the night. I was sound asleep, all alone, when I heard a lot of scratching then, I swear, the mouse was crying and squeaking in terror. I finally had to get up at 3:00 AM and figure out what to do to shut it up. No way was I going to kill the poor thing. I just wanted it out of my house. If you read the directions on the sticky trap things, it says WD40 will dissolve the sticky stuff. Wearing rubber gloves, my nightie and using the barbecue tongs, I carried mouse, trap and WD40 outside, where I probably administered a lethal dose of WD40 to my little captive, but he slipped loose and disappeared.
Two days later, he or his friend came back. This time, after the sticky trap did its work at 3:00 AM again, and listening to lots of squeaking and crying, I headed for the kitchen and found the trap, sticky side down, on the floor. After much WD40 and scraping, I got the trap unstuck from the floor and found OH MY GOD! only a long mouse-tail, slightly bloody at the stump. Mouse never came back, however.
We just killed off the last of the little fuckers in our house - I think there were four total. Wouldn’t have been so bad if the biggest and baddest of them didn’t decide to scamper about at night inside the wall that was next to my bed and six inches from my head!!!
:mad:
And here I thought scorpions were the worst thing I had to contend with…
Esprix
For a little bit of humour and maybe TMI, check out this site.
Ya know I loves ya celestina, but I’ve gotta second throatshot on this one. What’s so scary about a mouse? Now, if he’s getting into your food, or chewing on your electrical wires, I could understand. Is he really scary?
I don’t mean to belittle your plight. Really I don’t. I understand you’re upset (if nothing else, from the plethora of upset-looking smilies in your OP ;)).
If you want to do the humane thing, use the ultrasonic thingies. Or if you’re committed to glue traps, maybe put them in a circle around some tempting morsel. Maybe he’ll go for the bait and get stuck on the way in.
Best of luck!
PS–Honey, your post gave me a major chuckle, whether it was intended or not. “Peeling the glue off his little feet”…“small rodent type pets”. Hee hee! I’m sorry; it’s really not funny. But I can’t stop myself from laughing. 
One method my wife employed with our last mouse crew was she set up a glue trap road block complete with inescapable canyon walls. That worked for about 4 mice. After a while the rest figured it out. furry little bastards!
Wow. Look at all these responses. Thank you for the advice and anecdotes about your experiences dealing with vermin. I don’t feel as alone or stupid as I did when faced with the prospect of a mouse that’s smarter than I am. 
Now lessee.
Caught@work, Octavia Smythe-Bunion I. Esq., leechbabe, Echokitty, and all those who suggest I get a cat, that’s not an option right now. I don’t know anyone who has a cat, so I can’t borrow one, and I can’t afford to get one right now. So I’ll have to investigate other means. [sigh]
Caught@work, thank you for clarifying scott evil’s concern with mice. [giggle]
kniz, I hope and pray it is not a rat. They can get really big. [shudder] I think a rat would have been too big to fit under the stove.
[giggle]
Why DP White,
I didn’t know you liked to write
Poetry, of all things fair,
About the troubles I’m seein’ up in my lair
That are makin’ me wanna holler and tear out my hair.
I just love poetry. 
Sassy that was a great link. Thanks for sharing.
Wikkit thanks for the website. I never knew there were so many traps for mice out there.
NutWrench, I never thought of using peanut butter. I just thought these critters like cheese or chewing on paper or clothes or shoes or humans. [shudder] Thanks for the tip.
Primaflora, I’ve never heard of Ratsak before. I presume it’s poison. I’m kind of wary about feeding the mouse poison because then he’ll have the extreme bad manners to go off and die and decompose somewhere where I can’t get him. :eek:
Opalcat & Ceejaytee, I wouldn’t mind getting a live trap, if it doesn’t cost that much. I’d prefer not to have to kill this mouse because I don’t like killing things if I can help it. But I’m scared that even if I catch the mouse and drive him far, far away from my house, he’ll still manage to make his way back here again to plague me.
Honey, I agree the glue traps are not pleasant for mice, but I was desperate, and that was all the store had at the moment. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t really thinking about what the mouse would be going through when I bought the glue traps. I was thinking, I have a fucking rodent in my house, and he has got to go! I’m conflicted about causing suffering to any living creature, but as is the case with this lil fucker, he’s too smart to get caught on the glue anyways, so it doesn’t really matter. Are these ultra-sonic pest control doo-hickeys expensive? I can’t afford to spend all that much money on pest control. Actually, I’m pissed that I have to think of this at all. Animals belong outside of my house, not inside with me. That’s just the way that things are supposed to be, dangitall! :mad:
Tiburon, oh my fucking god, hell no. I feel for you, but I don’t think I want to let Mr. Mouse get to the point where he’s just sauntering around in front of me like he owns the place. Uh-uh. I’m not playing that game.
throatshot, um, what’s so scary about mice? They’re nasty! I realize that this mouse is probably just as scared if not more scared of me than I am of him. I actually do kind of feel sorry for him because he’s just trying to live and be happy just like I am. But my sympathy only goes so far. He shouldn’t be entertaining any hope that he’s going to be best buddies with me, and he most certainly is not going to be sharing any meals with me. If other folks want to befriend vermin in the privacy of their homes, that is their business, and I can respect that, but I won’t necessarily be visiting anyone who does. However, this mouse needs to understand that he is not welcome to share my home with me, not in any way, shape, or form. He has to go. I’ll try to find a more humane way of getting rid of him.
singular1, that is just awful! I’m glad that you and your hubby found a solution.
Palikia, hon, welcome to the Boards! I’m honored that you chose to post first in a lil ol’ Pit thread by me. [giggle] Wow. I’m not sure what I would do if I was awakened by a squealing mouse. [shudder] How could you bear to touch that thing, even with rubber gloves on? Weren’t you afraid he’d bite you or something?
Esprix, good heavens! I tell you, mice these days just have no manners or sense of decency at all. Making a ruckus at all hours of the night. So how did you get rid of your rodents?
LindyHopper, awww, thanks for the love, Sugar. As I noted to throatshot, mice are nasty. They scare me because they can get into all kinds of things that I can’t necessarily see or stop them from–I hadn’t even thought about it chewing on electrical wires! :eek:–and they carry diseases and stuff. I will concede that if this mouse was not in my house, but rather outside somewhere far away from my home, then I might think it was cute. Mind you, I wouldn’t touch it or try to befriend it, but I could appreciate it at a good distance. So to answer your question, yes!!! He’s scary!!!
I don’t think you’re belittling my plight, and I’m not committed to the glue traps, especially since this mouse has wised up to them now. I’ll use anything just so long as it’ll get this mouse out of my house.
mack, wow. Your wife sure had an elaborate plan there. I’m not sure my mouse would appreciate my efforts to recreate what she did, but it was educational hearing your story. I don’t know anything about mice. I just thought they were simple, very low intelligence creatures. Now I’m learning otherwise. Do you think that mice everywhere are hatching a plan to take over the world like the Brain in the “Pinky and the Brain” cartoon?
That’s pretty funny.
I’d also like to second peanut butter. I’ve never used anything else. I use snappy traps that have a little cup that is surrounded by a ring that triggers the trap. They’re easy to set, and don’t catch fingers. I’ve never had a mouse eat the peanut butter out of the cup and get away.
A few years ago my dad cornered a mouse and killed it with his pocketknife, then dropped it in his hat and tossed it outside. Then he put his hat back on. He probably used the knife to peel an apple or something a few days later.
Earlier this year I was sitting here at the computer and saw a grey blob scurry past in the hallway. There was some sheetrock leaning against the wall, and the mouse was sitting between the sheetrock and the wall. I went and got my pellet gun and shot the mouse. Left a little red splatter on the wall… haven’t seen any mice since then, but we have a dozen cats hanging around outside, most of which are killers. (May, a fairly small female, took down a full grown squirrel once. They are regularly bird heads on the sidewalk, too.)
Well, like what, for instance? Your food? Your makeup? Your power tools? Your lingerie? What?
Well, this part is true. I don’t know how things are where you are (heck, I don’t even know where you are), but here, we’ve got a minor problem with hantavirus (5 confirmed deaths in as many years). So I’ll grant you this one. But it’s not from them biting you, it’s from aspirating the dried droppings of infected mice in a barn-like setting.
All right, all right. You’re entitled to view mice as scary. [sub]Gee, ain’t I generous? ;)[/sub]
Traps. Big, nasty, springing, cut-'em-in-half traps. Little bastards.
Esprix
Well, we used to play nice and catch them in the bathroom. I’d be sitting there doing my business when one of those furry little fucks would run out from it’s hiding place. I’d corner them and catch them with whatever was available and take them to the nearby park and set them free.
Why were they in the bathroom do you ask?
Every once in a while my wife would treat me to an oatmeal bath. She kept a box full of packets of oatmeal bath mix on a shelf near the floor. One time she went to fix me a bath and she opened the box and grabbed a packet, but the packet was empty. They had torn out the corners of the packets and were living off the oatmeal bath mix!
Dang! That was one heck of a shot.
I’m not bothered by people killing the mice they find in their house. I understand it, though I don’t understand the fear factor (but hey, I’m terrified of spiders, harmless or not, so we all have our phobias). Hantavirus is a very real concern with house mice (btw, rabies is extremely rare in mice), which is why mouse breeders don’t recommend keeping house mice as pets. For the record, my two little boys were bred mice.
It’s the cruelty of glue traps that gets me. My coworker just tossed the poor things, traps and all, in the garbage can. It being summer (105F in the shade), the creature wouldn’t have suffered long, but it would’ve been terrible suffering. I’m thinking Esprix’s spring traps would be better, unless you want to go Wikkit’s route and shoot them all.
Oh, and peanut butter, cooked rice and birdseed, especially sunflower seeds are a big hit with the mice. Mine never cared for cheese.
Oh, and just to give you something to think about if you find a rat in your house, mice are pretty smart for their size, but rats can be trained like dogs. If I get the money for a proper-sized cage, I may get a pair of female rats.
LindyHopper said:
“Well, like what, for instance? Your food? Your makeup? Your power tools? Your lingerie? What?”
Well, like everything I own, most of which is books that are scattered everywhere on groaning bookshelves and in piles on the floor. No mouse is allowed near my precious books.
quote:
Originally posted by celestina
and they carry diseases and stuff.
“Well, this part is true. I don’t know how things are where you are (heck, I don’t even know where you are), but here, we’ve got a minor problem with hantavirus (5 confirmed deaths in as many years). So I’ll grant you this one. But it’s not from them biting you, it’s from aspirating the dried droppings of infected mice in a barn-like setting.”
I don’t know or care if this mouse’s shit has hantavirus or not. The point is that I don’t want to be anywhere near it. The shit, along with the nasty mouse who would have the audacity to think that my house is his personal toilet, does not belong on the premises with me. Period.
Btw, thanks for allowing me to be scared of mice.
Thanks for sharing, Esprix. [shudder]
mack, my heavens! Well, I hope that you and your missus have ceased from putting edible things on the bathroom floor for your rodent invaders to enjoy.
throatshot said:
“Oh, and just to give you something to think about if you find a rat in your house, mice are pretty smart for their size, but rats can be trained like dogs. If I get the money for a proper-sized cage, I may get a pair of female rats.”
[shudder] Thanks for the information on mice and rats. I think that my pest is a mouse. however, I wish you luck in getting and training your rats. [sub]Note to self, never go to throatshot’s house. [/sub]
big puff of smoke
Never fear, SturmHauke the monk-mage is here! HAIYAH!
What’s this? Mice? Oola oola waboo gorfnar! poof poof poof sqeak squeak squeak Ha! Got them all! I shall take them back with me to Legomancer’s Dungeons and Dragons thread!
huge cloud of smoke
cough cough cough cough
cough
[sub]Uh, sorry, wrong spell. Hmm…[/sub]
big puff of smoke
You’re upset there’s a mouse in your HOUSE?!?
My cats leave mice in the house alone, however once outside thay are dangerous killers of mice chippies and slow wrens.
It’s funny how loud a chewing mouse is, behind the wall of our bedroom the mouse that chews and scratches sounds humongous. The cat feigns interest but doesn’t get too excited, even on Christmas Day when the bugger appeared poking his twitching nose out of one of the stockings hung for St Nick. The cat yawned while the humans were racing around all a twitter.
Now if a raccoon ever shows up in the house we are seriously screwed.
There is a fucking mouse in my house
If it’s really fucking . . . . then you may end up with a lot more mice, unless of course it’s practicing safe sex. . . . . . .
I would also suggest a cat, perhaps you can borrow one?
Last year my roommates and I nailed six with spring traps baited with pretzel. Six. We had zero error with those things too. There were NO survivors. When I set them up at around 8pm, we nailed one within five minutes. At first I thought it went off by accident.
It’s like they get sliced in half. The only time it was bloody was when it got one in the head. Ouch.
Turned out one of them (most assuredly not me, since I don’t like microwave popcorn enough to make it myself) had spilled an unpopped envelope behind the refrigerator giving the fucking vermin quite an impressive bounty.
one of my roommates, that is.
[coughing a little, celestina waves away some of the smoke, dust, and debris from sturmhauke’s spell and makes her way towards him]
{{{sturmhauke}}}, are you okay, hon? Thanks for conjuring the mice away from my house and putting them in the D&D thread. I’m afraid to ask, but do you have a spell that will clean up my messy house now?
Oh my god, chique, I don’t know what I’d do if something small and furry that wasn’t a cat or a dog ran over my foot. [shudder]
cagiva650, well naturally your cats will leave the mice that are in the house alone, but go after critters running around outside. [giggle] When I was a wee young thing, I had cats, and we didn’t have to worry about mice or anything inside or outside of the house. I’d just hate it, though, when they felt the need to share their catches with my family. [shudder] Ooh, and I can’t stand raccoons. They scare me even more than rats and mice because they’re so big and they might be rabid.
Gartog, Sugar, I’m really afraid that the mouse who’s plaguing me of late may in fact be fucking somewhere and getting ready to populate my house with more of these disease-ridden devil-spawn. [sigh] See my comments above. I don’t have access to a kitty.
CzechMaster401k, thank you so much for such a graphic description of what a spring mouse trap can do. I think I’ll go throw up now. 