Damn it. The mice made a bad move

[Ginevra]

Two mice ran across the Dining Room floor while we were eating dinner. ☹️ So now dh is motivated to put out (kill) traps immediately. 
 

Im sorry, mice. I tried. 

[Terabith]

Oh no!!!!  That is incredibly bold for mice!  That does seem like an incredibly bad move!

[El...]

Heh, bad move, mice. I'm sorry, Quill, you tried hard.

Would you enjoy a little nerdy mouse humor? 

 

[Katy]

By the time there's so many they're running through the room during daylight hours, when humans are there...  I'm sorry, I'm inclined to agree with him. We had some one fall in a house built in the 1940's, I put peppermint oil on cotton balls and threw it into the attic and all the storage corners, and diffused it in the house.  After that I only saw two, both of which got caught in a trap, and then DH took them outside and made sure they were really dead. We were in an area with hantavirus at the time, so I took it pretty seriously.

[Ausmumof3]

I released one and that’s what happened.  And then the plague…

[KSera]

4 minutes ago, Katy said:

We had some one fall in a house

I misread this sentence initially and thought you meant the mice fell into the house, and it made me suddenly remember that old thread--anyone remember the one with the poster who had mice fall through their ceiling? What was up with that?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Katy said:

By the time there's so many they're running through the room during daylight hours, when humans are there...  I'm sorry, I'm inclined to agree with him. We had some one fall in a house built in the 1940's, I put peppermint oil on cotton balls and threw it into the attic and all the storage corners, and diffused it in the house.  After that I only saw two, both of which got caught in a trap, and then DH took them outside and made sure they were really dead. We were in an area with hantavirus at the time, so I took it pretty seriously.

Well, in the mouse defense corner, it’s not really daylight hours. We eat dinner late and it gets dark so darn early now. It had already been dark for hours when the mice got brave. Plus, there was pizza. They probably smelled it. 

[gardenmom5]

there are likely more than two mice - those are just the ones you see.

 

ds had a mouse run across the hood/windshield of his car.  as he was driving down the freeway.  in the end, there were four mice, and they did a couple thousand in damage.

eta: they were caught before they had babies in his car - but they were building a nest.

Edited October 30, 2021 by gardenmom5

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

there are likely more than two mice - those are just the ones you see.

 

ds had a mouse run across the hood/windshield of his car.  as he was driving down the freeway.  in the end, there were four mice, and they did a couple thousand in damage.

eta: they were caught before they had babies in his car - but they were building a nest.

This happened to dh in his truck too, but one died inside his seat. They also chewed up the seatbelt and it wouldn’t pass inspection until the seatbelt was replaced, which is way more expensive than you might imagine. 

[gardenmom5]

48 minutes ago, Quill said:

This happened to dh in his truck too, but one died inside his seat. They also chewed up the seatbelt and it wouldn’t pass inspection until the seatbelt was replaced, which is way more expensive than you might imagine. 

1dd had mouse damage in her car - the fan.   1ds had mouse damage in his car - the fan.  you wouldn't believe how much more a nissan cost to fix vs a toyota for *the same problem*!

I'll never, ever buy another Nissan. I don't care how good of a deal it is.

[MercyA]

I caught lots and lots of mice in our previous country house with live traps. There is no great advantage, IMO, to kill traps (unless you are a person who can't / won't check the live traps frequently and/or are unwilling to take the time to relocate the mice). What does he think is the benefit to kill traps over live traps? Maybe you can put more out more cheaply? If that is the concern, you can try a large bucket with little stairs going up to it and bait inside. Sometimes you can catch more than one mouse at a time that way.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

23 minutes ago, MercyA said:

I caught lots and lots of mice in our previous country house with live traps. There is no great advantage, IMO, to kill traps (unless you are a person who can't / won't check the live traps frequently and/or are unwilling to take the time to relocate the mice). What does he think is the benefit to kill traps over live traps? Maybe you can put more out more cheaply? If that is the concern, you can try a large bucket with little stairs going up to it and bait inside. Sometimes you can catch more than one mouse at a time that way.

We had rats in our garage. They were coming in and munching through the bags to get at our spare chooky seed.

I caught all of them with live traps. Up to 6 at once.

My goodness they were cute. We would coo at them and take photos before releasing them in bushland a few kilometres away. And we hated only catching one at a time - the thought of letting one go on its own was a bit sad. I always let them go in the exact same spot, so that we could believe they found their family again 🙄😶

Clearly an absolute NO to kill traps here in our household.

I'm very lucky my husband coos at them alongside me.

Good luck @Quill

[Clarita]

A mouse found out the hard way that our house has kill traps called cats. I would not suggest using cats to trap mice, maybe just as a deterent.

[Tanaqui]

Aren't mice and rats horribly invasive in Australia, causing the endangerment of god knows how many native species? If ever there's a place for kill traps it's surely when you catch an *invasive* pest...?

As for the mice at the top of the thread, wow, those are some bold mice!

[Eos]

New kitty mama has been named Artemis in honor of her unbelievably efficient hunting abilities.  Youngest dd will not allow us to put out traps in our very old farmhouse, so each fall they just move in.  Not anymore!

[Guest]

7 hours ago, MercyA said:

I caught lots and lots of mice in our previous country house with live traps. There is no great advantage, IMO, to kill traps (unless you are a person who can't / won't check the live traps frequently and/or are unwilling to take the time to relocate the mice). What does he think is the benefit to kill traps over live traps? Maybe you can put more out more cheaply? If that is the concern, you can try a large bucket with little stairs going up to it and bait inside. Sometimes you can catch more than one mouse at a time that way.

I think it has more to do with “enemy” thinking. Like a soldier. He is like that in general: raccoons, squirrels, insects, snakes…his immediate thought is to eliminate them. He does not really think about how much of a threat they actually are. 
 

The cheapness of kill traps is kind of just a fringe benefit, although I already bought live traps and, in theory, would be able to keep trapping live indefinitely. So really, after something like ten catches, it would break even. 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

I'm very lucky my husband coos at them alongside me.

Yes, you are. Dh has many fine qualities but sympathy towards animals is not one. 

[itsheresomewhere]

Once a mouse or rat finds its way into my garage or house, it is kill traps ( instant kill no suffering kind) for me.  The amount of damage that they can do amazing.  3000 in damage for the neighbors car from chewing wires, 1500 to my mother’s car from chewing wires, 500 to my garage from chewing a motor and line along with the potential house fires from chewing electrical wires.  One of my dogs is actually a really good mouser so she helps keep the area patrolled.  Our yard is kept free of chipmunks and squirrels thanks to her.  

[Kassia]

4 minutes ago, itsheresomewhere said:

Once a mouse or rat finds its way into my garage or house, it is kill traps ( instant kill no suffering kind) for me.  The amount of damage that they can do amazing.  3000 in damage for the neighbors car from chewing wires, 1500 to my mother’s car from chewing wires, 500 to my garage from chewing a motor and line along with the potential house fires from chewing electrical wires.  One of my dogs is actually a really good mouser so she helps keep the area patrolled.  Our yard is kept free of chipmunks and squirrels thanks to her.  

We've had those issues too with mice doing so much damage.  We have a cat and she does a pretty good job but we do have to set traps because it's just too risky to have them around.  We've definitely learned the hard way.

[alisoncooks]

Several years ago, we had mice make a nest in the electrical components of our oven. Totally ruined it and we had to buy a new oven. We didn’t even know we had mice - never saw one!  Apparently, they were stealing dog food and stuffing it in the back of our oven, whilst also chewing wires and fluffy electrical insulation. 🙄

[marbel]

So I have been musing about this (as I check our rat zappers each morning). I am not trying to start an argument, stir the pot, etc, Just truly musing on this topic.

If mice come into the house for warmth, shelter, food... is it really humane to catch them and take them back out into the conditions they are trying to escape? Or would a quick death actually be more humane? We use electrocution mostly here, though when we have had a bad infestation and needed a lot of traps, we go with snaps which I know may not always kill instantly but are usually quite fast if not instant, at least in my experience. 

No one needs to point out that I may be trying to rationalize my own practices. 🙂 Like I said, I'm thinking about it and I don't assume I know the corrrect answer, if there is one, or if the correct answer can be known.

Edited October 30, 2021 by marbel

[Matryoshka]

12 hours ago, KSera said:

I misread this sentence initially and thought you meant the mice fell into the house, and it made me suddenly remember that old thread--anyone remember the one with the poster who had mice fall through their ceiling? What was up with that?

Was that me?  Not sure if I posted that here, but we had a mouse fall out of the ceiling - and hit the cat on the head!  The cat was like... mice from heaven!!  But it only happened once...

[Matryoshka]

10 hours ago, MercyA said:

I caught lots and lots of mice in our previous country house with live traps. There is no great advantage, IMO, to kill traps (unless you are a person who can't / won't check the live traps frequently and/or are unwilling to take the time to relocate the mice). What does he think is the benefit to kill traps over live traps? Maybe you can put more out more cheaply? If that is the concern, you can try a large bucket with little stairs going up to it and bait inside. Sometimes you can catch more than one mouse at a time that way.

The advantage to kill traps is that the mice you let go laugh heartily and come back in within hours of being released - unless you take them miles and miles away.  My dh was against kill traps for years, but now he even admits that we need to actually put a ding in the population.  There are many more mice in this house than humans already...

[EKS]

12 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

1dd had mouse damage in her car - the fan.   1ds had mouse damage in his car - the fan.  you wouldn't believe how much more a nissan cost to fix vs a toyota for *the same problem*!

I'll never, ever buy another Nissan. I don't care how good of a deal it is.

Wow.  We have had mice in all of our Toyotas except the most recent one.  They have never gotten into any other brand (Subaru, Honda, Ford).  We finally had our mechanic install something in the affected Toyotas that kept them out.  It is a specific problem that can be fixed by putting wire mesh (I think) over...something.  Anyway, it has worked.

[KungFuPanda]

13 hours ago, KSera said:

I misread this sentence initially and thought you meant the mice fell into the house, and it made me suddenly remember that old thread--anyone remember the one with the poster who had mice fall through their ceiling? What was up with that?

Still a better love story than raccoons falling through your chimney

[catz]

So, I really think there is probably a difference between a seasonal change and a mouse or 2 showing up and having some sort of long term infestation where you are getting mice all the time where they have an established "community".  We've been in our house 18 years and we've maybe had about a dozen mice total.  Our house isn't huge, we've always had cats, so they get obvious fast.  We've been methodical over the years about filling gaps and holes when we find them and do a recheck if we get a mouse.  We tend to get 1 or 2 at a time and then have gone many months to years without having another.  They've always appeared between like late August and the holidays.

This last batch we had was a mom and babies just as fall was starting.  The mom was clever, it took a few days to get rid of her.  But the babies were dumb, slow and didn't hide well even when they were almost adult size.  We haven't had any for a couple months again at this point.  My husband did some sealing again around our foundation, that mouse definitely came in through our basement this time.  We have replaced all our door seals at least once at one time or another.  We do have neighbors that are constantly trapping mice.  Ugh, I hate rodents, I'd probably call in someone if it seemed ongoing and we had damage.  

All the garage stories are interesting.  We have a detached garage on an alley, we haven't noticed any ongoing rodent issues though something has got caught in there now and again.  I certainly have no shortage of outdoor critters.  We've also had a squirrel, a chipmunk, a bird and a bat in our house.  The squirrel (and that was a babyish squirrel) took a full 3 days to get rid of!  😂😭🤪

Edited October 30, 2021 by FuzzyCatz

[WildflowerMom]

I would get a couple outdoor cats, quill.  Ours are former strays, semi feral, and they are excellent hunters.  We keep them warm in our utility room at night in the winter and with a heating pad (but they’d still rather do their own thing 🤷🏻‍♀️) but they are super easy to care for.  Dh, who is not a cat fan, just said this week that when our cats pass, he wants another one.   Our neighbor, who is not an animal fan, told another neighbor (who said she wanted our cats) “don’t mess with *our* cats!”  😆  She loves them because they kill her moles and she is an avid gardener.  

[Tanaqui]

Quote not working. Just figure out where these responses go.

1. Kill traps are typically reusable too. You just reset the spring and add new peanut butter bait. I suppose you might have to wash them if the kill was particularly bloody, but that's unlikely.

2. If you have an ongoing mouse problem for years, you won't make a dent in the population until you close up the entrances. Go around your house, remove any brush or junk that's up against the walls, and shove some steel wool in all the cracks you see. Then caulk up the cracks.  Then go inside and fill up and caulk all the cracks you see on the INSIDE and remember that real live mice can get through tiny, tiny spaces - they don't need cute mouseholes like in Tom and Jerry. Make sure all your pipes are insulated and there are no leaks - no water for mousies. Make sure you clear and wash all your dishes promptly and take out the garbage on time, into a metal container with a heavy and well-fitted lid. Keep all goods in the pantry in solid containers - that means remove from the original boxes or bags! If you have pets, start feeding them at set times and taking away the food after. No food, no water, no entrances = no mice.

 

[bibiche]

19 minutes ago, WildflowerMom said:

I would get a couple outdoor cats, quill.  Ours are former strays, semi feral, and they are excellent hunters.  We keep them warm in our utility room at night in the winter and with a heating pad (but they’d still rather do their own thing 🤷🏻‍♀️) but they are super easy to care for.  Dh, who is not a cat fan, just said this week that when our cats pass, he wants another one.   Our neighbor, who is not an animal fan, told another neighbor (who said she wanted our cats) “don’t mess with *our* cats!”  😆  She loves them because they kill her moles and she is an avid gardener.  

Yeah, but outdoor cats also kill birds and other wildlife and disrupt ecosystems. I’d rather kill mice humanely than risk all that.

I am an animal lover, I don’t even eat meat, but I would certainly eliminate rodents in my house. They spread disease. And guaranteed if you see a couple running across your floor there are many more that you don’t see. 

Edited October 30, 2021 by bibiche

[marbel]

18 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

Go around your house, remove any brush or junk that's up against the walls, and shove some steel wool in all the cracks you see. Then caulk up the cracks.  Then go inside and fill up and caulk all the cracks you see on the INSIDE and remember that real live mice can get through tiny, tiny spaces

This is all good advice, but people also need to understand that it's not necessarily a one-time thing. Particularly in older and/or not-so-well-built homes, cracks and spaces can develop. We have gone through this a few times in the 14 years we've lived here; we go over the whole place, and always find a new place critters can get in.  (House built in 1951, typical suburban US tract home.)

[Matryoshka]

44 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

Quote not working. Just figure out where these responses go.

1. Kill traps are typically reusable too. You just reset the spring and add new peanut butter bait. I suppose you might have to wash them if the kill was particularly bloody, but that's unlikely.

2. If you have an ongoing mouse problem for years, you won't make a dent in the population until you close up the entrances. Go around your house, remove any brush or junk that's up against the walls, and shove some steel wool in all the cracks you see. Then caulk up the cracks.  Then go inside and fill up and caulk all the cracks you see on the INSIDE and remember that real live mice can get through tiny, tiny spaces - they don't need cute mouseholes like in Tom and Jerry. Make sure all your pipes are insulated and there are no leaks - no water for mousies. Make sure you clear and wash all your dishes promptly and take out the garbage on time, into a metal container with a heavy and well-fitted lid. Keep all goods in the pantry in solid containers - that means remove from the original boxes or bags! If you have pets, start feeding them at set times and taking away the food after. No food, no water, no entrances = no mice.

 

Yeah, when you have a house that's over a hundred years old with a fieldstone foundation, there is no way to plug up all the tiny holes...  you learn to live with some mice, just keep them down to a dull roar.  We also have cats, but the cats can't get inside the walls!

[kbutton]

1 hour ago, FuzzyCatz said:

So, I really think there is probably a difference between a seasonal change and a mouse or 2 showing up and having some sort of long term infestation where you are getting mice all the time where they have an established "community". 

Sometimes. We have had a mouse or two at a time, but one time we had a seasonal change that established a community. We had a vulnerable area we didn't know about where mice could live and reproduce without us accessing it. It started as just being so wet outside that the critters came in and ended with something over two dozen mice over a few weeks. It felt like a plague. Sometimes traps were going on off every twenty minutes! Some snap traps are more humane than others. DH found that the cheaper they were and the fewer bells and whistles, the better they worked.

I will almost always smell them or have an asthma flare before we have visual evidence they are there. DH has learned that this is real, and it's helped us find parts of the house that are vulnerable and fix the places they come in (or make their home after coming in). 

IIRC, the same time we had our infestation, the neighbors had quite a few as well. 

P.S. They like dishwashers--hollow, warm space all around it, and they can climb up the insulation that's around it. 

[DawnM]

This was me, the time a mouse ran across my office floor and TOUCHED my shoe.....that was it.   

[Tanaqui]

It's true, it's not one and done - but what part of home maintenance is? Do it once or twice a year, and keep the space around your home clear so they don't even feel safe approaching. If they don't feel safe approaching, and they have no food or water inside, then even though they can get in it's just not as attractive as your neighbor's house or the local petting zoo.

(And for mouse fans - the local zoo always has a bunch of rodent freeloaders. The zoo can't readily remove them from the exhibits without risking the animals they like, and the mice know a good deal when they see it. Warm, safe, lots of food and water - all the advice I just gave for keeping them out of your house turned right on its head. I always amuse myself, when at the zoo, by counting all the house mice I see hiding in all the other exhibits.)

[gardenmom5]

3 hours ago, bibiche said:

 I am an animal lover, I don’t even eat meat, but I would certainly eliminate rodents in my house. They spread disease. And guaranteed if you see a couple running across your floor there are many more that you don’t see. 

this.

we rarely saw mice in the garage, we rarely caught one in a snap trap or a glue trap (they can learn to avoid traps) - but we did see droppings.  

we set up a rolling log trap on a 5-gal bucket, baited with peanut butter.  We caught 30.  Now we only get a few a year.  Usually because someone forgot to close the door.  

[Tree Frog]

1 hour ago, gardenmom5 said:

we set up a rolling log trap on a 5-gal bucket, baited with peanut butter

Can you explain this? Ds and his roommate are experiencing their first mice in their apartment. He's had 2 traps sprung, but hasn't caught anything. 

[gardenmom5]

20 minutes ago, wilrunner said:

Can you explain this? Ds and his roommate are experiencing their first mice in their apartment. He's had 2 traps sprung, but hasn't caught anything. 

This isn't the original - but the washer in the middle means even acrobatic mice will go down.

bait with peanut butter (which needs to be replaced every few days as it will dry out.

you can do a live trap with sawdust on the bottom (if you catch them alive - you need to release them at least two miles away or they can return), or a couple inches of water.

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

In case anyone is interested, I used the toilet roll and peanut butter trick. Worked so well!

You need a deep container (I used a 50L plastic storage crate). 

Grab a few empty toilet rolls.

Put a dab of peanut butter inside the end of each toilet roll.

Position your crate so that its upper lip is next to something the same height eg we had boxes in our garage

Balance the toilet rolls on the edge of the top of the crate, so that the peanut butter end is overhanging the void.

The mouse/rat goes for the peanut butter and topples it all into the crate.

So simple, yet so effective!

And it doesn't have to be toilet rolls, of course. Anything that they can walk along and will topple in does the trick.

 

 

[Tree Frog]

4 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

This isn't the original - but the washer in the middle means even acrobatic mice will go down.

bait with peanut butter (which needs to be replaced every few days as it will dry out.

you can do a live trap with sawdust on the bottom (if you catch them alive - you need to release them at least two miles away or they can return), or a couple inches of water.

 

Thanks! I went on a bunny trail. They look pretty effective. I'll ask ds if he wants to try it.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

13 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

Aren't mice and rats horribly invasive in Australia, causing the endangerment of god knows how many native species? If ever there's a place for kill traps it's surely when you catch an *invasive* pest...?

As for the mice at the top of the thread, wow, those are some bold mice!

I assume you're talking to me?

There may be mouse plagues in some areas, but Australia is a pretty big place. No plagues where I live, as far as I know.

[Farrar]

I'm all over the battle mentality with the mice. It IS a battle. Poison in the best weapon. Poison and expanding foam.

[bibiche]

44 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I'm all over the battle mentality with the mice. It IS a battle. Poison in the best weapon. Poison and expanding foam.

Poison kills birds (foxes, coyotes…) that eat the poisoned mice. Please don’t use poison. 😢

[Lucy the Valiant]

4 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

This isn't the original - but the washer in the middle means even acrobatic mice will go down.

bait with peanut butter (which needs to be replaced every few days as it will dry out.

you can do a live trap with sawdust on the bottom (if you catch them alive - you need to release them at least two miles away or they can return), or a couple inches of water.

 

These are referred to as the "Highway to Heaven" around here, LOL.

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, bibiche said:

Poison kills birds (foxes, coyotes…) that eat the poisoned mice. Please don’t use poison. 😢

I'm pretty sure these mice are dying inside my walls and we have no pets. There are definitely no foxes or coyotes in the inner city. Yes, there are some in the park, but not around our house. The best we get is the occasional raccoon. I don't bait outside. But I'll tell you - the CITY baits outside. They do it all year. I know all the reasons not to, but honestly, my mice don't go in traps of any kind. Very occasionally I get one with the zapper or a glue trap, but I've literally never gotten one with a humane trap or a snap trap. I can't realistically have bucket traps all over the house all year on the off chance it works. And yes, I know all the tricks. Put the snap traps in twos facing opposite ways, wear plastic gloves and don't touch anything, etc. etc. 

I have to have a way to control the mice. They chew the wiring and create fire hazards. They have ruined TWO ovens. They leave droppings everywhere and are a health hazard to us. I have had multiple exterminators in over the years and I spend time doing exclusion every single year. It's just very hard in an inner city century+ old home. I don't see any other way.

[Rosie_0801]

I've been thinking of putting the poison in the humane trap, so they don't run off and poison an owl or anything. Currently pepitas are working to catch the little gits though so I'll keep doing that until it stops working.

[YaelAldrich]

Instead of peanut butter on a snap trap try a warmed and then mooshed Tootsie roll around the bait thingy. They can't get it off easily and SNAP!

[Guest]

@marbel Do you really think it’s more humane to be dead than cold? 

[Tanaqui]

It's more humane to be killed quickly than to be left to slowly die of hypothermia or get eaten.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

It's more humane to be killed quickly than to be left to slowly die of hypothermia or get eaten.

Being eaten is part of the, so to speak, Circle of Life. If a mouse is eaten because an owl is hungry, I am not bothered by that. If a mouse dies because my husband set a trap that breaks its back…well, I *am* bothered by that. It feels wrong to me. 
 

EtA: it feels wrong to me because it is most likely unnecessary. I don’t want them in my house but I don’t feel they must be eliminated off the face of the earth. 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Quill

[marbel]

9 hours ago, Quill said:

@marbel Do you really think it’s more humane to be dead than cold? 

Freezing, hurt, starving, traumatized... might be better to die quickly than endure that. I don't suppose there are studies of mouse survival rates after being live-trapped and then relocated away from social/family circle. I suppose that by killing mice that come into my house I am depriving predators of a meal, but it seems there is no shortage of mice.

I came across this from the CDC; though I am pretty sure mice are urinating all the time, not just when scared:  https://www.cdc.gov/rodents/prevent_infestations/trap_up.html

We do not recommend using glue traps or live traps. These traps can scare mice that are caught live and cause them to urinate. Since their urine may contain germs, this may increase your risk of being exposed to diseases.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by marbel