Mice!

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paradoxy

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Field mice are common inhabitants of my part of the world, but last night I saw a huge one on my kitchen window sill! I live in an old house, so apparently they were able to find a way in through the holes in the roof, etc.

I kinda think they’re cute, but it’s very imprudent to keep them as pets with a baby in the house!

I DON’T want to kill them or hurt them, just gently persuade them to leave. Any traps or poison would also trap/poison my crawling dd, so this is another concern.

What on earth can I do about them? Any ideas?
 
lizaanne said:
Get a cat. 🙂

~Liza
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We sorta have a dog - he’s a stray that we feed from time to time, and he hangs around our house a lot and doesn’t like cats (b/c he’s afraid of them - really!.. :rolleyes: )

We tried ‘entertaining’ different stray cats in the past (treating them to a meal here and there), but it never did work out b/c of the dog.

And we’ll be moving in a year or so to the city (1 bedroom appt), and we tend to travel at least several times a year, so getting a pet is not a good idea for us.

Thank you, that IS the best solution (somehow, I don’t feel guilty if a mouse dies if a cat gets to eat it - I like cats! 😃 )
 
lizaanne said:
Get a cat. 🙂

~Liza
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This worked really well for us. We didn’t have any critters in the house or garage except what Tiger would bring in to play with;). He is old and disappeared several months ago. We have a new cat who is showing good signs of being a good hunter so we are allowing her in the garage but not outside now.

OK, having said all that, you said you didn’t want to kill them so, first, get yourself some humane traps (they trap the critter in a cage and then you release them in the wild). Right after you set those traps, start doing some searching for where they are coming in the house. You would be amazed at how tiny a hole those little things can get in, I used to have pet mice and not only could they flatten themselves out enough to squeeze between the wires in their cage, they figured out how to unlatch the door to their cage!

As noted above with the cat solution, I have no problem killing a mouse that gets into my house. There are also some very good no-see-um type traps. You put the bait on them, set them and then they get a cover, you don’t even have to see the mouse once the trap is sprung to get rid of it.

Brenda V.
 
We haven’t been bothered by mice since a colony of feral cats took up residence in our neighborhood. (On the other hand, we have been bothered by cats.)
In order to be a good mouser, a cat has to be taught how to catch mice by its mother when it’s a kitten.
 
Yes, a cat would be great, if we could have one, but we can’t (see post #3)… Is there no other solution?

I’m afraid traps would trap my dd… are there any baby-safe traps that don’t harm mice?
 
I think there is a difference between an intruder and an infestation. If it was huge, was it pregnant:eek: I’ve read cats don’t work, infact they may be more apt to bring them in. Personally I feel that getting a cat is like swallowing a spider to catch the fly;)

I was VERY opposed to killing and the first one that died I had to mourn a bit. Especially using decon:( I think this is just awful.) If you catch and release you have to release at least ~6 mi away or they’ll come right back in.

We had an exterminator look at our house and he said “you probably have half a dozen mice. Get some snap traps and get rid of them.” We got about 2 dozen put them in high traffic areas and quickly pulled out about 8 mice on top of he 6 we already killed or released.

We think we have one more straggler now. but I think we took care of the problem surprisingly quickly once I made the commitment to be aggressive.

Keep a look out for signs. If you stay up late watching tv you might hear “them” or how prevalent are the poops? Leave something on the counter and see if it diappears.
 
The best place to put traps are where people aren’t going to be around anyway. There are electrocution traps which are well enclosed. didn’t work for us and expensive, but my wife likes to spend money needlessly :rolleyes: so she got one :rolleyes: after I told her not to :rolleyes: and I told her to return it :rolleyes: and she didn’t :rolleyes: so we used it :rolleyes: and it didn’t work at all :rolleyes: this is a theme in our household :rolleyes: but she’s trying ( I’da given her a thumbsup here but ran out of emoticons)

We had a basement with drop ceiling which worked out great. they follow pipes and wires and move along the walls.
 
I second the poster who said the snap traps are your best bet. We battled mice trying the humane way, to no avail. I had more droppings and they were found in more and more parts of my house. YUK!
I even paid an exterminator who set out humane traps, and after all of that money and frustration, within days of the snap traps, we had our mice.
Unfortunately, the mice are not trying to be as courteous towards you as you are towards them.
 
ha ha we even named (munsen) the 1st mouse we caught, I wanted to keep him. My wife was finally fed up with the fear of disease and I read that they are very destructive.
 
You could place a few moth balls under the foundation [crawl space] and maybe one in the cabinet under the sinks [is there a hole in the loor boards where the pipes come in?]…

Critters do not like the smell…

We did this years ag when we lived next to a hay field…every year in the fall the mice would move in…one year there were lots of them…must have been a bumper crop of baby mice…they were every where…

Tried the moth balls…end of problem
 
paradoxy said:
Yes, a cat would be great, if we could have one, but we can’t (see post #3)… Is there no other solution?

I’m afraid traps would trap my dd… are there any baby-safe traps that don’t harm mice?
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There are thigns that make sounds that scare mice away, people can’t hear it. I heard from several people that they work great.
 
paradoxy said:
Field mice are common inhabitants of my part of the world, but last night I saw a huge one on my kitchen window sill! I live in an old house, so apparently they were able to find a way in through the holes in the roof, etc.

I kinda think they’re cute, but it’s very imprudent to keep them as pets with a baby in the house!

I DON’T want to kill them or hurt them, just gently persuade them to leave. Any traps or poison would also trap/poison my crawling dd, so this is another concern.

What on earth can I do about them? Any ideas?
Click to expand...
If you let them go outside, they will just come back. If you knew just how many bugs and diseases they carry, killing them will become very easy.

Poison and sticky traps are bad. With poison the mice eat the bait, then get into the walls or under something and die…then they smell.

Sticky traps are the most inhumane of all. The mouse gets one or two feet stuck then struggles, getting more stuck. It takes a long time for them to die.

Snap traps are the quickest way to dispose of a mouse. They are more humane. They are cheap too, so you can throw the whole thing away, mouse and all if you need to .

Peanut butter is the favorite bait, (they don’t really like cheese much). Chocolate works good too.

Set the trap on a piece of paper towel if you are putting it on a carpeted path. They walk close to the walls, and under furniture to stay hidden.

You could try setting the traps at night, then picking them up in the morning, so your dd won’t get in to them.

Yes, it is likely that your dd will try to stick her finger in the trap.

Rather than keeping after her to leave them alone, let her touch it (depending on age),

She will only do it once..

Yes, she will cry, but that is how we learn best…EXPERIENCE!
  • I know it sounds mean, but it works.
I have the same theory my parents did “if it won’t kill them or cause them to lose any body parts” - let it happen (within reason of course).

My parents allowed me to feel the full consequences of my actions (again, within reason).

(Just don’t let her touch the dead mice)
 
paradoxy said:
…I DON’T want to kill them or hurt them, just gently persuade them to leave…
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It’s not going to happen. Mice are not rational. You can not persuade them to leave a place they want to be. If they didn’t want to be in your house they wouldn’t be there in the first place.

If you don’t want them there, you have three choices:
  1. You can make your house into a place mice cannot get into (nearly impossible.)
  2. You can make your house into a place that mice do not want to be (also difficult. Mice like the same kinds of places people like to live in, but a cat or dog can make it somewhat less attractive for them.)
  3. Or you can kill them. After putting up with mice long enough you might even learn to enjoy it.
 
…barn cats, spayed and/or neutered, of course, or a small terrier(s) bred for “ratting,” or a human mouse trap. I’ve seen a humane mouse trap so I know they exist.
 
lizaanne said:
Get a cat. 🙂
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I had mice in one house, with a cat in residence. Yes, he killed the mice, but he would bring the corpses to me as a “love offering.” Eeeuwww! I discovered that they were coming in around the water pipes, so I plugged their access points by stuffing the gaps with steel wool. End of problem, and no more dead mice as gifts! 👍
 
Tenebrae said:
…In order to be a good mouser, a cat has to be taught how to catch mice by its mother when it’s a kitten.
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While this is helpful it is not always necessary. We have a cat that we got as a kitten just after she was weaned, so her mother did not teach her to catch mice. In the first couple weeks we had her, my daughter’s hamster escaped. She caught it the next day. Didn’t kill it, but roughed it up a little, and the hamster was nearly half her size at the time!

Since then she has caught lots of mice. I don’t keep count and probably never know about most of them, but occasionally I find tails or feet she doesn’t finish.
 
St Gertrude of Nivelles is the patron saint against rodents (as well as, logically, the patron for "cats & those who love them).
My initial idea was that St Gertrude would somehow miraculously remove the miserable mice (& a family of :cool: :eek: Homeless Gerbils). Instead, I find that I have lost my qualms about killing them…and I don’t shriek when I see one, whether it is alive, dead, or :rolleyes: somewhere in between…
Besides, if you had any idea of the kind of diseases these:mad: :mad: little creatures can spread, you would get over feeling sorry fr them, really fast!

Snap traps work really as well as anything. But the way I dispose of most of them, is by finishing off the ones that my cat catches & brings to me…The hunting & catching are instinctive; the killing isn’t. So that’s my job…Not one I would have chosen, but St Gertrude has got me past the “yucky/creepy/screaming” part. I recommend her, & a bunch of snap traps highly.(Get cheap ones, you can toss them trap & all).
I had a whole bunch of that salmonella-tainted peanut butter in my pantry last winter, & it has proved to be an excellent bait for mice!
 
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