There is a mouse in this house

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

At least one, but probably more.

I lived in Arizona my entire life. I have never ever seen a mouse in any house or apartment that I’ve lived in. It’s a new experience for me.

I’m renting a room here now in Buffalo, New York. Actually it’s a sub rental. I’m renting it from a guy who is renting the house already. The landlord himself, the person who owns the house, I have not yet seen or met even though I lived here for 2 months now…
… But anyways, I was trying to take a nap this afternoon and I heard some weird noises in the bag next to me, I moved the bag and there was a mouse on the floor there. I bring the couple times because I could not actually believe what I was seeing at first. My mind was like “is that really a mouse? Am I seeing a mouse right now?”.
Yes, I was, and after a couple of seconds the mouse ran off, out of my room. I did not give chase because I was still sort of dazed and shocked from my first encounter with one.

I doubt I’m going to put up much work or effort getting it out. This is not my house, I just live here, I have agoraphobia so I can’t go outside and I have trouble using the telephone due to phone fear, so I’m not going to be calling like an exterminator or anything. I don’t usually have food up in my bedroom, which makes me wonder why the mouth was up here at all… I live upstairs, and the person who wants the house to me, he does not live overly clean, his kitchen is usually full of food and crumbs all over… So if there is a mice population here, it’s probably mostly downstairs.

I will let him and the landlord deal with it. If the mice come close I will just brush them off. Yes I already know the dangers, I looked hit up on google, chewing through food and wires and stuff and contamination with salmonella and other diseases. I’m not worried. I only eat frozen food and I eat all of it when I eat it, there’s never any left over. Other than that I just drink soda.

Plus they’re kind of cute.

Personal stories of your own experiences with mice? You can give advice and suggestions, but upfront, I’m probably not going to take it, I am hugely indifferent and apathetic toward everything in life right now other than existing.

I may keep this thread updated from time to time if I have more experiences with the mouse though. Is it weird to be strangely excited? I’ve never had a mouse before, and the house. It was so small and little. I almost don’t want any harm to befall it.

2

We had mice in the garage in Anchorage. They wouldn’t venture into the upstairs because we had a cat. We didn’t have a mouse issue in Portland until our cat died, then had to set traps because they showed up. Got another cat, mice gone.

If you can live with it, fine. But they multiply like - well - mice, and you may be overrun with them in short order.

3

We had one in our house a few years ago. S/he was hitting the pantry at night and chewing thru packaging, and leaving little droppings here and there. We attempted mouse-proofing everything, but when my daughter opened the pantry and had the mouse drop to the floor and scurry away during the day, I took some more persuasive action. I looked online and saw a cheap way to try and capture it - 5-gallon bucket with a wire across the mouth, and on the wire a small, disposable plastic bottle smeared with peanut butter, ramp leading up to the rim of the bucket. The idea is the mouse will hop from the rim onto the bottle to get the PB, then spin off and drop into the bucket. After two nights, IT WORKED! I put the lid on the bucket, and escorted our little friend to the edge of town on the other side of the freeway, and dumped it there. It gave me a look like WTF??

We have also had them in our garage, under the hoods of the cars, chewing stuff and shitting everywhere - I think it was winter and they were keeping warm. Luckily no damage to wires and such, but mothballs under the hood and peppermint swabs seemed to have chased them away.

4

I’ve had them nest in walls, and the skittering around at night drove me crazy. I used mousetraps to get rid of them, and that worked for a while, but then other mice moved in. I was living in a wooded area, and mice are very good at finding ways into your house that you would never notice. Good luck with your new roommate(s).

5

And if/when they die in those walls … it’s an awful smell that often takes a surprisingly long time to pin down.

6

If you saw one mouse, you probably have 20. Glue traps work, they are cruel and the mice are stuck there to starve, exhaust their strength, or chew their legs off, but I don’t worry morality when getting rid of mice. Act now before you are overrun. They are already in your food supply, everything that is not in a can or a high shelf. Don’t be nice, kill them. Walking on, peeing on, eating, everything.

7

Despite living in the forest, I’ve never had a mouse in my house. That said, I’m fanatic about closing outside doors behind me.

However, I did have a major battle with them getting into my car.

These work: Owltra Electronic Mouse Traps

And they’re not cruel. No need to make animals suffer.

I cleanly killed 25 mice over a 3-month period. I haven’t had one in my car now for several months.

Good luck! They’re cute, but they’re filthy.

8

That’s the “mousetrap” to this story.

One looks kinda cute when young.

After 20 and they’re getting raggedy, missing eyeballs and a lone rotten tooth left, you won’t appreciate them as much.

Tell the landlord, let him and the other guy deal with a rodent problem.

But, dealt with, it must be

9

This is very true. I used to bait traps with peanut butter and place them on the floor in my garage. I must have caught at least 12 of them before they were gone… if only temporarily. You don’t want them to die in the walls.

10

I always have cats, so I rarely see rodents (except for an occasional dead one proudly presented as a gift). One of the houses I moved into had mice at first; a quick inspection revealed that to get in, they had chewed themselves a couple of nice holes in the wall under the sink. We stuffed the holes with steel wool, which mice cannot chew through. In our case, at least, problem solved (cats on the prowl helped too, I’m sure.)

11

Cats are the answer(aren’t they always?)

If they went out and got a kitten today, (not only his agoraphobia, landlord no pets policy, allergy, whatever) that kitten is months away from mouse hunting as reliable pest control, at best.

Yep. Tell the landlord. Or at least the guy you’re subletting from.

12

This.

Not your problem unless you’re the owner. Make it their problem.

But if they won’t act, you must. Kill them with prejudice. All of them. Cruelty isn’t necessary or helpful, but prompt dispassionate action is.

13

Oh, yes, they are so cute, it is evil.

Life traps, and carry them at least half a mile away.

Or get a cat. Don’t be cruel, but be consequent.

That is a different, completely unrelated problem. We’ll handle that afterwards. First get rid of the mice. You read right: mice. Plural. All of them.

14

Not mine. They’re fat and lazy.

We live in the country and I do “mouse patrol” every day. More days than not (especially in the winter) we have caught a few (in the old-fashioned, humane traps).

I use disposable gloves when handling the traps and disposing of the deceased. Mice carry nasty diseases.

15

I can already tell you, the chances are that the renter, who is the only other person who lives in this house, is going to handle it is slim to none. The downstairs, where he lives, has crumbs all over, cereal kept on the refrigerator, bags of chips all opened and on the counters and all that,… And I’m not the sort to say anything to him or try to touch his stuff or change him. The landlord, on the other hand, I have never even seen or heard or know the name of. The person has certainly never come here in 2 months time anyway.

That leaves: I guess I just have to live with them.

At least until there’s so many that they throw me out of the house.

16

I’ve lived in old farmhouses most of my life. Mice are just part of my normal world.

Of course, I also live with cats; so I rarely see the mice, except for the occasional body. But I also take precautions with food storage.

As long as you’re not eating food that was left out on the counter and has little black pellets in it (it’s pretty obvious when mice have been into something), I wouldn’t worry too much about it. And I definitely wouldn’t use glue traps.

17

I Will Wait them out. It’ll be a war of attrition.

..

I was raised in Arizona, and Arizona we don’t really have mice in our houses, we get other pests like cockroaches, I mean we have cockroaches out here too, but cockroaches are my biggest fear of all time. I cannot live with them. In fact I fear that in the summertime we’re probably going to get them due to how the renter lives downstairs. But for now I will take mice over cockroaches any day of the year… Mice are a great substitute for roaches, which I have unfortunately had to deal with most of my life because I live in pretty slimy places sometimes.

I never leave my room and there is no food in my room, any food I bring up I eat immediately and I never have any left over. I only eat frozen or refrigerated food or food that is made immediately like fast food, which I consume immediately in my room. I know they will keep on multiplying in the walls, and when enough of them are in there, well it’ll get interesting then, won’t it?

18

There’s the bad awful evil deer meeces out west. Awfully adorable.

They’re the ones with hanta. I believe.

Where you are is probably suburbia, now. They are urbanized version and can manage very well eating your stuff. They will eat virtually anything. Soap, toothpaste, your smelly socks, toilet paper clean or dirty. Wires. Tennis shoe guts.

Yeah they love a good food meal too. But you get a competing herd eating inside one structure they branch out.

You must find the owners name. Inform him.

Or …

Move.

19

Aah, so you are living as a sub-tenant of a tenant. Almost certainly in violation of the tenant’s lease. That does complicate matters.

You are living in a mouse factory. Which is also a mouse-borne disease factory. Mice don’t eat roaches; mice will be in addition to the roach infestation you already have from your slob of a housemate. In cold country they’re sorta dormant in winter; but they’ll be much in evidence come spring.

Read up on this and think again about living with mice:

And that’s not the only mouse-borne disease.

Set killing traps in your portion of the house and the shared portion of the house. Remove the carcasses and reset the traps until you stop catching mice. Then leave the set traps out for the next batch of mice your roomie’s habits will promptly invite back in.

Or move. Which is obviously much easier to type than it is to do.

Good luck. Seriously, not snarkily.

20

You must provide some attrition for this to work. Traps, etc. Clearly your roommate won’t and its very unlikely the landlord even knows you exist, much less cares.

Oops, posted in the wrong thread. Sorry.

Pet pictures!