There is a mouse in my kitchen

[scbusf]

The little bugger is fast! My cats can’t get it because we have too much clutter everywhere (note to self: KonMari all the things!!!). 

I ran to the hardware store and got some mousetraps. Put the cats in a bedroom so they can’t get in to the traps. Now we wait, I guess. 

My house has an open floor plan, so there’s no way to block off the kitchen. DS said he thought I was being murdered I screamed so loud when I saw it!!!!!!!

[theelfqueen]

I guess you'll have to move.

😝

 

[Ann.without.an.e]

We have an older farmhouse so mice have been an issue off and on over the years.  Traditional traps never worked for us.  The only thing we could get to work was this, they fall for a peanut butter cookie every.single.time.  I release them at a wooded park far away 😂

https://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Hotel-Humane-Capture-Transparent/dp/B00KHFJ48C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1549042154&sr=8-3&keywords=mouse+hotel

[Carol in Cal.]

The good news is mice are dumb and easy to catch in traps, not like rats who learn what traps are so if you don’t catch them in the first one they ever spring, they will never go near another one.  Kindly refrain from asking me how I know this.

So you will almost certainly catch this mouse but you then do have to figure out how he got in and block that entrance or more will follow.  Kindly refrain from asking me how I know that as well.  

Sigh.

 

[scbusf]

9 minutes ago, theelfqueen said:

I guess you'll have to move.

😝

 

 

Trust me. The thought has crossed my mind. 

[Another Lynn]

10 minutes ago, theelfqueen said:

I guess you'll have to move.

😝

 

Yes!  But dynamite first!  

[Carol in Cal.]

9 minutes ago, Another Lynn said:

Yes!  But dynamite first!  

No, no, no.  This is a mouse, not a snake.  

[theelfqueen]

Right --

Mice/Large Spiders = FIRE.

Snakes and/or Rats = Explosives

Larger Creature Infestations (Possums, Squirrels, Raccoons, etc.) = Air Strike.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2019 by theelfqueen

[MercyA]

31 minutes ago, Attolia said:

We have an older farmhouse so mice have been an issue off and on over the years.  Traditional traps never worked for us.  The only thing we could get to work was this, they fall for a peanut butter cookie every.single.time.  I release them at a wooded park far away 😂

https://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Hotel-Humane-Capture-Transparent/dp/B00KHFJ48C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1549042154&sr=8-3&keywords=mouse+hotel

Yes! That is very similar to the ones I use and they've always worked well for me. I've even used them to rescue little critters (a chipmunk, a vole, and a mouse) who were trapped in my outdoor window well. 

scbusf, I hope you got snap traps and not glue traps? At least snap traps usually kill them quickly. 

[HomeAgain]

We use a live trap here and it works great.  Every single time we've heard a mouse, it's been caught by the live trap and some dark chocolate.

[City Mouse]

If you have 1 mouse, then there are more. Pull out appliances and look for access holes that need to be filled. Pull out drawers and look undress cabinets as well. 

We tried all kinds of traps. The only thing that has really made a dent was putting out poison. We put the poison in areas not accessible to our pets - behind the dishwasher and behind the stove.

Edited February 1, 2019 by City Mouse

[Storygirl]

10 minutes ago, City Mouse said:

If you have 1 mouse, then their are more. Pull out appliances and look for access holes that need to be filled. Pull out drawers and look undress cabinets as well. 

We tried all kinds of traps. The only thing that has really made a dent was putting out poison. We put the poison in areas not accessible to our pets - behind the dishwasher and behind the stove.

City Mouse!!! I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, that you would poison your own kind!!

Edited February 1, 2019 by Storygirl

[Rachel]

You all are my people! 😆

[Annie G]

Have you hammered the for sale sign in the yard yet?

Hope you catch the little trespasser soon. 

[Lady Marmalade]

1 hour ago, theelfqueen said:

I guess you'll have to move.

😝

 

Yep. This.  Or burn it down.  Those are the only rational options here. 

[Carol in Cal.]

17 minutes ago, City Mouse said:

If you have 1 mouse, then their are more. Pull out appliances and look for access holes that need to be filled. Pull out drawers and look undress cabinets as well. 

We tried all kinds of traps. The only thing that has really made a dent was putting out poison. We put the poison in areas not accessible to our pets - behind the dishwasher and behind the stove.

In all seriousness, poisoned but not yet dead rodents end up going outside and becoming poisoned food for cats and sometimes dogs.  If you can avoid poison that would be best.  I know it’s not always possible.  

Really, looking for and plugging the entrances (which can be much smaller than you might think) and using Victor brand spring mouse traps baited with peanut butter (so that the mouse tends to stay by them for a while, licking it) is what has worked for us.

[kbutton]

We had one too over the weekend--caught the same day with a super sensitive old-fashioned trap (Dollar General, I think). 

We are 50/50 on it being "just one mouse." We've had just one a few times, but when it hasn't been one...oh, boy. 

This particular mouse was like the ones we'd see outside in our garage area, not like a house mouse. It had a pointy snout and a short tail, and it's coloring was darker and browner (DH said it looked like a vole). Those seem to sometimes come in singles. The more common "inside" variety comes in graduated sizes, lol! Collect a complete set...

 

[City Mouse]

35 minutes ago, Storygirl said:

City Mouse!!! I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, that you would poison your own kind!!

 

LOL! It actually took me a minute to understand your response. 

 

[MercyA]

Not only do poisoned mice risk poisoning other animals who eat them and smell badly if they die in your walls--it's also a very unpleasant way for any creature to die. It can take days while they die slowly of internal bleeding.

Research shows that mice may be as smart as rats (who are very, very smart!) and can even feel empathy for other mice (although I hate the kind of study used to determine this). Male mice "sing songs with melodies and repeated phrases" to court female mice. Mice can even be taught to discriminate between paintings and generalize that discrimination to novel paintings by the same artists. 

Point being that they are far from stupid--and even if they were, it doesn't seem quite nice to joke about their deaths. IMHO.

[steps off soapbox] 

[Liz CA]

5 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

No, no, no.  This is a mouse, not a snake.  

 

Exactly. A mouse is funny, a snake is NOT.  🙂

Sit in the middle of the kitchen with some peanut butter on a stick and say: "Here, mousie, mousie.

ETA: We used to catch them in a live trap (with peanut butter) and then drive them across town to a field and wish them well.  🤣

Edited February 1, 2019 by Liz CA

[prairiewindmomma]

The comment above about pulling out appliances and looking for holes is spot on. When we moved into this house last year....I'll spare the details, but you want to check. You need to check. Steel wool or a LOT of caulking can be used to put into any holes you discover.  

[Farrar]

6 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

The good news is mice are dumb and easy to catch in traps, not like rats who learn what traps are so if you don’t catch them in the first one they ever spring, they will never go near another one.  Kindly refrain from asking me how I know this.

So you will almost certainly catch this mouse but you then do have to figure out how he got in and block that entrance or more will follow.  Kindly refrain from asking me how I know that as well.  

Sigh.

 

Disagree SO MUCH.

Maybe some mice are? My mice are decidedly not. I've had professionals come in and not be able to get them.

So, if you happen to have these dumb mice, then awesome. I wish. But if you don't. Some trap tips:

Don't touch them ever. Gloves at all times. They can smell it if you touched them. That goes for glue boards too. Or poison traps.
Don't set spring traps parallel to the wall - they should be perpendicular.
Put spring traps in sets of two, each one with the spring at the opposite side.

I second pulling everything out and closing up holes. That spray foam stuff works okay. But you can properly patch as well.

Also, I highly recommend a heavy regime of poison. Don't buy the stuff they sell in most stores. Get the good stuff. Amazon reviews will guide you.

[Ali in OR]

For every mouse you see, there are 10 more hiding. We've had mice experiences twice in 25 years of home ownership. We used the live capture traps baited with peanut butter with much success both times. But just want to comment that we saw and caught 1 mouse each time, then kept setting the trap night after night until we eventually had caught 11 mice. Both times. And we released them far away, so I don't think we caught the same mouse 11 times!

We think both infestations happened with open garage door in the fall as it started getting colder out. Once around move in, once when our wood floors were being refinished.

[ktgrok]

7 hours ago, theelfqueen said:

I guess you'll have to move.

😝

 

Yes, I clicked on this to find out where you were moving to. 

In all seriousness, if the traps don't work, do you have any friends with a terrier? Terriers are far better at rodent catching than cats. 

[ktgrok]

For the record, the one time I had a mouse in my house, I saw just the tail sticking out from under my stove, and I prayed out loud that it wasn't a mouse tail, but a snake. I MUCH prefer snakes. Snakes eat mice, after all, lol. 

 

[mmasc]

I just want to add that the one time I ever had a mouse party going on, I literally DID move. 🤣 Of course, I was only 23 and single, so it was fairly easy, although quite disappointing as I had only lived in this cute little townhouse for 4 months. I horrifyingly discovered them, got rid of them, sterilized my kitchen and threw away my toaster, and tried to move on with life. Of course, I was clueless about finding their way in and fixing it, so yeah, more decided to move in. I was like ‘Fine...take it! I’m outta here!’... Loaded up my Dad’s truck by myself and moved on down the road to a different apartment. Done 😂

[MrsRobinson]

This thread has clued me in to where the idea for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie originated! 😂 

At our previous home, we had mice every fall like clockwork. One year a mouse crawled up onto the back of the stove and stared at us as we sat on the couch!

Another year, they were in the attic and they were so LOUD scurrying around up there that we couldn't sleep! And the traps were not working that year for some reason. They'd eat the peanut butter but not set off the trap. Well, dh discovered the reason. There was a nest in the attic insulation and there were gobs of teeny tiny babies. They were too little to activate the traps! Dh relocated them. Then we spent a lot of time stuffing steel wool everywhere. I mean everywhere. Attic, garage, crawl space, behind appliances. Never had another mouse again and we were there for 7 more years. I highly recommend steel wool.

Now we live surrounded on three sides by farmland and fields that are cut twice a year for hay and we haven't had a single mouse in the 3 years we've been here. Go figure. 😄 

[hjffkj]

We found a mouse in our first floor bathroom, after being there ten years with no signs of mice. In the bathroom vanity there was a brand new nest, so we really hoped we had just come across the problem at the beginning. That day we went out and got traps. In 24 hours, we caught 7 mice. Then nothing after that. 

A few weeks later, we were moving out of the house to get it ready to sell and we found evidence of mice in basically every closet in the house. It wasn't a disgusting amount but enough to make me think that had we not happened upon that mouse in the bathroom when we did the issue would have become major quickly

[Rosie_0801]

In our area we have owls becoming more endangered because of poisoned mice. 😞

It's a shame I like owls, because I really don't love mice.

[Carrie12345]

My method would be to KonMari the heck out of the place (you’ll want to anyway, because mouse waste products are surely everywhere!) and let the cats go at it!
Mice could easily get into my house (they still get into the crawl space) but they choose not to. My cats killed one about a dozen years ago, and one last year. They obviously went back and told their friends, because there has never been any other evidence of intruders. Well, not rodent intruders. We’re like a haunted house with spiders and various insects.

[Momto6inIN]

We live surrounded by corn fields and in an old farm house with lots of access points and my dog kills any cats we try to keep around, so mice are a part of my existence.

First, I would notify your cats that they are fired. Their entire purpose in life is to keep mice away and they have failed. 😉

Second, bait the traps wirh peanut butter wearing gloves and then waft a lighted match around the edges to take away your smell. Then set the traps and wait. You might have to wait a long time for the smell to go completely away and the mice to come near them.

Once you catch the first mouse, it will be easy to catch the rest. For some reason, the more mouse-y the trap smells, the better they like it. Instead of mouse blood making it like a neon sign flashing "Instant Death Stay Away" it's like it makes it even more enticing. We've gone months without catching a mouse on a certain trap, and then once the first one goes, we don't even need to put any peanut butter on it and we can still catch several a day on that trap.

And now I know for sure that no one on these boards will ever agree to come visit me at my infested house lol

[Emba]

Check under the sink where the pipes come in for holes. That was where mice kept getting in to our old house. I also would KonMarie the heck out of the place and let the cats work because I always figure a good cat is worth any number of traps. They’re like a seek  and destroy missle. No trap is intelligent like a cat. I also never ever do poison because I hate it when they die in impossible to reach places and then your house stinks. Cats are like the ultimate in natural rodent control.

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, emba56 said:

Cats are like the ultimate in natural rodent control.

A good terrier will put a cat to shame in that department. Seriously. 

The record holder was a Rat Terrier that killed 2,501 rats in a rat infested barn in a seven-hour period! https://www.aprpets.org/directory/m.directory/39/view/174

Edited February 5, 2019 by Ktgrok

[Farrar]

7 minutes ago, OKBud said:

 

You got them wicked  smaht Congress mice! They've nibbled on the CONSTITUTION! They've sat and munched trash at the vaulted and be-stoned feet of Lincoln at the Memorial!

They're probably these mice... https://www.amazon.com/House-Mouse-Senate-Little-Patriot/dp/1596987901/

[Emba]

4 hours ago, Ktgrok said:

A good terrier will put a cat to shame in that department. Seriously. 

The record holder was a Rat Terrier that killed 2,501 rats in a rat infested barn in a seven-hour period! https://www.aprpets.org/directory/m.directory/39/view/174

My dad had a dog that was part rat terrier, and you’re right, the instinct is incredibly strong. But inside the house I’m not sure that a dog is as suitable. They can’t get up on the counter as easily, For one.

but one time I let an outside cat in to finish off a wounded mouse the trap hadn’t hit right, and the cat wanted to sit and watch it (whereas I wanted her to grab it and go, and get the poor thing off my floor). If I’d had my dad’s dog she would have finished him in a heartbeat.

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, emba56 said:

My dad had a dog that was part rat terrier, and you’re right, the instinct is incredibly strong. But inside the house I’m not sure that a dog is as suitable. They can’t get up on the counter as easily, For one.

but one time I let an outside cat in to finish off a wounded mouse the trap hadn’t hit right, and the cat wanted to sit and watch it (whereas I wanted her to grab it and go, and get the poor thing off my floor). If I’d had my dad’s dog she would have finished him in a heartbeat.

Yup. Often cats will play with the mouse. Terriers kill in a fraction of a second. It's impressive in a grisly way. My parents 20 pound terrier mix had to be shut inside at night because she had moved on from lizards and squirrels up to possums. 

[moonflower]

We had mice at a previous house and I thought that my mom's coming to stay for the summer, with her two cats, both of whom were fairly feral hunters, would solve the problem.  Nope!  They went OUTSIDE to get more mice to bring into the house, chase around a bit, and then settle down to eat underneath the ping pong table (complete with absolutely disgusting licking, ugh).  

OP, I feel badly for mice.  I don't like killing them and I tend to do the trap and release program when we live in a place that is susceptible.  I have to say, though, it just has never worked 100% and no matter what I do in those cases I still live with mice, which is no way to live.  If we ever live in a mouse-susceptible house again, I'll call someone to come plug up all the holes and probably get the most humane instant-kill traps I can find.  

It got to where I felt bad even taking the trapped ones up to the park, because I was separating their families.  So I lived with mice, scurrying and squeaking and etc.

I think at some point it is okay to say, sorry mice, this is my territory and you are not welcome.

[Miss Tick]

13 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Dd just told me tonight we've got mice in the chicken coop. Ugh.

When we had chickens I saw them kill more than one mouse. Maybe they will take care of that infringement on their own.

[Miss Tick]

I suspect you are right. Could a mouse open its mouth wide enough to do damage? 

[MercyA]

11 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

This may not be popular to say here, but every wildlife rehabber and animal control person we've ever known has been solidly against relocating any wild animal (which would include mice) on the individual citizen level. It is more compassionate to put them down. Relocating them helps spread disease, it disrupts their social orders and can bring all sorts of issues into established areas, not to mention the animal may very well end up attacked or maimed at the new location by the existing animals. They don't just go find a happy new home with no problem. We have dealt with everything from mice and skunks to bobcats and coyotes here, and I didn't want to see anything destroyed, so I was all for trapping and relocating. But the more they explained about this (not to mention in TX its illegal to relocated some animals) the more sense it made. I still don't like it, but sometimes it has to be done for the health and safety of the people in/around the house and the safety honestly of other wild animals. You drop a distemper laden raccoon you trapped on your back porch across town, and now you've just introduced that to more animals. And mice carry a host of diseases. Anyway, not trying to be on a soap box, but just something to think about if anyone feels like a monster for killing them in a (non-poison) trap. 

I've thought about this and done some reading on it, and I prefer to give them a chance. I read a blog by someone who reintroduced wild mice into the woods after keeping them in a cage in her house during a rough winter. She put their cage in the woods and the mice kept coming back to it for a couple days (she had something sprinkled around the cage so she could see their footprints) and then they hopefully went off to live their little wild lives. Maybe eventually they were killed by an owl or a snake. Possibly they died of illness later, or old age. Maybe a snap trap would have been a quicker death. But I still think they have a right to their lives, if possible. I don't believe in preemptive killing of healthy animals based on what may or may not happen later.  Quite a few animal control people are incredibly pro-euthanasia (and so is PETA, by the way 😠). 

I agree with no poison, and please, please, please, people--no glue traps either. Glue traps cause a terrifying, prolonged, torturous death--unless you're willing to watch the traps day and night and then immediately bash the mouse's head in when she gets caught. Otherwise she is likely to pee and poo all over herself in panic, may try to gnaw off her own limbs to get free, and may suffocate in the glue (and if, not, she will eventually starve/dehydrate to death). Other countries have outlawed glue traps, and we should, too. IMHO.  

Edited February 7, 2019 by MercyA

[Liz CA]

Agree with Mercy regarding glue traps. Cruel. Either a swift death or relocate. 

I can see the thought about relocating and introducing disease into other areas or just disrupting social order. I have never relocated to any area other than woods/ open fields. I suppose they can get picked off by owls and coyotes but I feel that is the natural order of predation.