Okay, so my SO has been interacting with this house for a year and a half, maybe two years. She’s occasionally pointed out that there are things that look suspicisously like mouse raisons under the kitchen sink. Didn’t happen often so I was prepared to write it off and then … I had a sealed bag of grass seed in the (detached) garage and recently the bag had been ripped open, there was seed everywhere with many many many little black things mixed in. I finally have to admit that we have mice.
So. Poison was ruled out cause we have two dogs and a cat. I picked up a couple high tech traps - 100% plastic; they kind of look like PacMan; expensive; check any hardware store; they come “pre-baited”. We made room in the cupboard under the sink, set up the traps and … three days later the bait was all gone and the traps were still unsprung. And, more little poop-e-doos.
Fine. We took everything else out of that cupboard, lined it with white paper, reloaded the traps with lentils and waited. Day one - nothing but a few more presents. Day two - a mouse!
What happens next is hard to describe; I’ll do my best. I put on the oven mitts; got the BBQ tongs and took the trap (one mouse included) out to the back yard. The trap has a handy little tab that you can press over your trash can to release the prey. I got the thing turned over, found the tab and there’s a little (dead) mouse face looking directly into my face. At this point, I should mention that I’m a suck with an extremely weak stomach. I’m not sure if the mouse actually had the little cartoon 'X’s over the eyes or not but there was no way I could deal with this one. I quickly dumped the whole trap into the garbage. And then used the tongs to bury it as deeply as I could. And then walked the can over to the neighbor’s yard. If I’d been drinking I would have set it on fire, but …
As of now, trap number two has been reloaded and cleaned out a couple times now and still hasn’t been tripped. The dogs and the cat are of no freakin use at all, they bark or meow at shadows but apparently consider a mouse to be yet another play toy - toss it around a while but for gosh sakes don’t hurt it.
This has has the smell of a protacted lifetime war all over it - has anyone out there been through this, can anyone offer any good advice? SO is convinced that we’re supposed to be baiting the trap(s?) with peanut butter, does this make sense? Help me, oh wise and compassionate people …
I use the sticky traps – we have two cats and a dog too, but the traps are placed where they can’t get at them. Just a WAG, but I’m thinking that the chemicals in the sticky things aren’t powerful enough to harm your other pets unless they come into direct contact with them.
The downside is that sometimes the little devils are still alive when you check the strips, and they’re kinda struggling and looking pitiful – and then they want to negotiate with you. That’s when you gotta watch out.
There is a poison that is harmless on pets and kids. I cannot remember it’s name, but it is like blue crystals. We use it whenever we have an influx of the nasty little pests. It works like a charm and there is nothing more entertaining than to see the mouse that caused $1700 worth of damage to a car in the throws of a death spasm. Muhahhhahhhhahhhha.
Take care of them sooner than later. Please do not do the “catch and release” of the damn varmits, because they will only comeback or worse, find their way to my garage.
Get the plain old-fashioned wood and wire traps; they work great. And if you’re going to be killing mice, you have to get used to the idea of looking at a dead mouse. Toughen up, man! sheesh.
That’s why I love you, Shirley. I enjoy a good varmint death, too.
Normal wood & wire traps always worked for me, and baited with (you got it!) peanut butter.
The worst mouse death I ever saw was when I was married to my first husband. We were having pretty severe varmint problems, and one night, he set some traps on the kitchen counter. Just for kicks, he decided to leave a little water in the sink, thinking that if a mouse missed the traps & fell in the sink, it would drown. Well, shortly after we went to bed, we heard a splashety-splash in the sink. Got up the next morning to find the lifeless bodies of one mama mouse and five baby mice, floating in the sink. I was very sad. My husband at least had the decency not to do his “muhaaaaaaaaaaaaahahah” until after I left for work.
If you have mice, what kind of useless cat have you got? Cats are extremely good at catching mice. Mine sure keep the mouse population down around here in my Barcelona third-world housing. One of them showed up in bed at two in the morning the other night with a present just for us. Fortunately it was already dead.
I once lived in a house that had a serious mouse problem. I’d see them every day. I put out sticky traps and was catching one or two on a daily basis. I finally decided to try out one of those plug-in ultra sound devices. And I never saw another mouse from that day on. I’ve heard and read a lot of people who say those things don’t work but I’ll say it certainly seemed to have been effective in my case. (But check the instructions to make sure it doesn’t affect your pets.)
There are sonic pest repellers for sale for about $20, but I still get the occasional mouse. Peanut butter in a good old fashioned wood and wire, squeeze them until they die a shrieking horrible death, trap. I’m not very squeemish myself, my job tends to weed out the squeemish. Your best way to deal is to grab some paper towels and pick up the dead mouse in trap and just throw it all out. And you might want to just ignore those squeaky little voices you hear under your bed at night. You know, the ones that keep repeating “murderer, we’ll eat your cheese and then have you for an entre”
So the consensus here seems to be: get a bunch of the old fashioned traps; and/or get a better cat. Thanks, I’ll act on the first point today. The cat arrived with my SO’s son and stayed after he moved out. She’s pretty much useless in this role, and I don’t want another one around at this point.
$1,700 worth of car damage??? I’ve got mice in the garage and there’s a very big and expensive car in there - now you’ve got me worried. What exactly did they do?
Oh, and ‘Catch and release’? Not a chance - they are vermin; there’s enough to go around; they can make more anytime they need to; and they carry disease. There’s no mercy on this end …
If your dislike of looking at your victims outranks your desire to be economical and reuse traps, here’s what to do:
get the old-fashioned wood & wire traps. Bait with peanut butter and slide trap into a small paper bag on its side, by the baseboard. Mice love little enclosed areas and will check out the bag, say to themselves, “hey! free peanut butter!” and…SNAP. The next day, you just close the top of the paper bag and dispose of the whole shootin’ match in the trash.
Chef Troy: The paper bag trick is an elegant solution - thanks.
Handy: the dogs love garbage cans, they’d have the thing tipped over and emptied in seconds.
The irony of all this is: not only is the cat useless; the small dog is a Jack Russell Terrier, a breed that was specifically created to catch rats and other small mammals. Maybe a lowly mouse is beneath her contempt?
I have mice, too. Also have 2 cats. The cats are about to get fired. Reason? Two weeks ago, I was working in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon. I hear a noise. I turn around. There’s a mouse SITTING IN THE CATFOOD DISH, eating catfood. Talk about lazy cats.
I eventually caught this mouse and put him outside (yeah, I’m a bleeding heart… I’ll put out traps, but if it’s up to me to kill the thing with my own two hands the little mousey gets a reprieve.) Now I think I have another one - or the same one come back. I have the same problem with traps, poison, etc. as I don’t want to kill my cats (although, seeing as they’re lazy bastards who don’t even live up to their reported instictual urge to kill mice, maybe it’s not a bad idea.)
I’m going to need to try something - 2 years ago a mouse got in my brand new couch and chewed holes in it. Insurance doesn’t cover such things, I soon found out. I can walk over to my couch and set it on fire myself and the insurance covers it. Mouse chews holes in it, no way.
Well, my parent’s house was in the middle of farmland. Also a forest not too far.
We had a very old mouse trap, kind of like a large cage with a closing door linked to a metal part on which you would put the bait.
After the mouse was trapped, I would take the cage, get on my bike and go release it near the forest. I figured why kill it when it might have fun in the woods?
I personally don’t get any jollies out of seeing them die.
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
This thread could be taking a nasty turn, let’s all calm down here, folks. I did the catch and release thing when I was living in my Toronto house and the squirrels literally chewed through the roof and got into the attic. Let’s just say that I took about fifteen of the freakin’ things out to the country before I finally declared all out war - this is not a decision I come to lightly. But: who’s paying the mortgage here, anyway? I agree that there are no “jollies out of seeing them die”. I’d really prefer that they just pack up and move to the neighbors house (or, better yet, the McDonald’s across the street) but this doesn’t seem to be an option at this point.
I tried to be casual when I walked up to the cashier with four mouse traps and a huge box of ‘Single dose’ mouse/rat bait. The cashier looked at me and said (100% true, I swear) “Well, someone has a problem …”. Thank you, and I don’t think I’ll be going back to that store anytime soon.
If you ever get a mouse or two in a trash can and are too sensitive to just smash 'em with a bat, get a spray can of car engine “starting fluid” at the store for about a buck. Saturate a rag with it and drop it in the can. Starting fluid is mostly ether and will croak any small animal in 15 minutes painlessly. Then just empty the can in the normal fashion. The stuff is pretty explosive so ONLY do it outside and finish your Marlboro before you spray. About as humane as lethal injection. Muhaaaaaahaha !