Damn, I lose more eyebrows that way…
\
Go Westies Go Westies Go! Yup, our Westies kept the yard free from Vermin, mice, rats, lizards, possums … the vermin larn real quick and those who don’t, well, die.
But well trained, they are fabulous with kids, too … we’ve had him ‘bite’ kids not allowed in the yard (they were retiriveing a football they’d thrown in the yard by accident after running out of beer cans to throw at the dog) without breaking the skin, pick up kittens and bring them home, and break large bones in half with their powerful jaws.
If you can’t get a cat mouser, a dog mouser works well, too. 
Unfortuneatly with the glue traps I’d have to go with the hammer method, too. I’ve wracke dmy brains and can’t think of any othe option. But try all the live traps first.
Vegetable oil gets mice off glue traps. Pick up trap, place in (empty) trash bucket, pour oil directly onto mouse, wait 30 seconds while mouse frees itself, dump contents of bucket outside well away from the house. You wind up with mice that look like members of Sha Na Na for a little while until they can get themselves clean (we had to keep a couple in an aquarium until they were dry when it was especially cold), but it’s non-toxic and non-lethal.
Allergic to birds, too.
And Mynn, I am allergic to dogs as well as cats - and ferrets, and almost all other kinds of animals. If I could have a westie, I would - they’re adorable, and I understand they’re good for allergic people. Sadly, a condition of the lease is NO PETS. See above.
I have to say, allergic to birds is a first for me. But I can understand it.
No feather comforters in your home, eh?
Is there anyway you could borrow a friend’s cat for a weekend of mouse-icide, and Ginger could stay somewhere else? At another friend’s or even a motel?
If the poor guy’s already in the glue trap, put it on the groung mouse side down and place a plastic bag over it. This should be done outside. Drop a cinder block on it and you’re done, just throw the bag away. He doesn’t have to drown, you won’t miss (as one might with a hammer) and you can be fairly certain you’ve accomplished your task. Takes 2 seconds. He wasn’t going to come off that trap alive anyways, might as well make it quick.
Reminding everybody what bobkitty said, you don’t have to kill a mouse in a glue trap! But be sure to have the mouse where you want to release it (near your neighbor’s house is good) BEFORE pouring on the vegetable oil because no matter how glued down it starts within a minute it’s getting fat at your expense licking off the oil–it’s really that fast and effective.
I have had to fight mice in various rental housings in my salad days. Poison works well, wafarin dries them up nicely; I never had problems with stinking. For snap traps, I baited with peanut butter or braunschweiger liver sausage spread on a bit of paper towel and tucked into the little curl in the trigger. A jellybean smooshed well into the trigger is good too. The only problem I ever had with traps was once when the trap snapped down onto the back end of the mouse and it squealed and squealed. An emergency late night call to my dad yielded the obvious solution: sweep it out the back door (trap and all) and into the range of our dog who happily got a mousie snack. Now, I make little bait packets of mouse poison using envelopes and toss them into the crawlspace under the house. The mice find them there, eat and die before they ever come into the living area. Neat and untroubling to my conscience.
Traps seem humane to me as they are usually pretty quick. I don’t hate mousies, I just don’t want them living with me. :eek:
None. There is one feather pillow in our house, and it gets nowhere near me.
That’s a good idea - but then who’s going to clean up all of the cat hair and dander all over the house? I can’t do it - I can’t take anything for my allergies while I’m pregnant.
Well, I didn’t say it was a perfect plan. 
OK, let’s talk reptiles. Maybe turn loose a couple of king snakes in the house? Or maybe a predatory lizard of some kind? A small one, of course, we don’t want a big ol’ honkin’ monitor lizard snaking on baby WeirdNorth when he/she arrives.
Try killing the “execution-style” - one bullet, back of the head. It’s fast, efficient and painless.
Hard on the floors, though.
Actually, back when we were living in Manhattan, I used to just throw the used glue traps out the window and into the airshaft. We weren’t very good tenants.
Y’know, back in the day, hubby and I were just starting to date. I still lived with my parents, and he was living with his after the divorce from his first wife. My mother was terrified of any rodent smaller than a rabbit; hubby’s father kept snakes as a hobby. Hubby tried to talk my mother into letting him turn a non-poisonous snake loose in our house for a couple of days. After that, he said, the smell of snake would be left, and mice would be afraid to come in. Turns out that if there’s one thing my mom was more paranoid about than mice, it was snakes. 
Quite honestly, snakes don’t bother me. I just can’t have any pets in the house. The landlord isn’t even really thrilled about the fishtank we have.
I can see his point. If the tank leaks it can murder the floor.
So what you do is get another tank and put a big oscar in it. Float some mouse bait in the middle of it and have a bridge that pivots down leading from the edge of the tank to the bait. Mousie takes the bridge, dips into the water, and you don’t have to feed the oscar that day. No disposal problems and no screaming dying mice to haunt your conscience, just the Circle of Life in action.
That’s a bit odd. I know very few “no pets” apartments/rental houses that won’t allow caged animals, and a snake, unless it happened to escape would fall into this category. Mostly, they’re thinking in terms of dogs and cats which can cause destruction if not well trained, or can do territorial marking things that could result in the expense of new carpet. I’ve lived in more than one “no pets” apartment that had no problem with people having birds or pet rodents, reptiles, etc.
Perhaps your landlord should seek counselling. Being upset because a tenant has a fish tank is a sign of some very deep rooted psychological problems. Perhaps he has had some kind of trauma involving animals commonly kept in households.
Meanwhile, maybe you should consider a cane toad. They’re not terribly atheletic, seem to have no fear of humans (have actually tried to mate with people’s boots when they take a stroll 'round the yard) and one could be easily caught and concealed when the landlord comes to call. He’d never have to know it was around.
Anyway, I don’t think a critter whose sole purpose in being in your house qualifies as a pet any more than a glue trap does.
Uh, that last sentence should read “I don’t think any critter whose sole purpose for being in your house is to control vermin qualifies as a pet any more than a glue trap does”
Your landlord is a :wally
- They shoot poison.
- I don’t want any animals in the house, whether or not they are allowed by the landlord. No lizards, ferrets, toads, snakes, anything.
We are likely going to have to kill the damned mice ourselves.
Also, thank you to the lurker-lady who didn’t want to post, I received your email.