Oh dear Lord, forget selling this house, I am burning it down!

[DawnM]

We found mouse "gifts" in our living room and pantry and set up 4 traps.   The first two nights we caught nothing, but the 3rd we caught a fairly large mouse.

YAY!  That was that......I thought.

Nope!   Today we found three more traps with caught mice.

INFESTATION!   That is IT, we are burning the house down.

Edited June 27, 2023 by DawnM

[Pawz4me]

I don't think it's ever just one mouse.

Our neighbors are dealing with them right now.

We had them last summer. Little buggers destroyed our dishwasher wiring. We called in a pest control company and they strategically placed bait traps and told us to get guards for the weep holes in our brick. I know there are issues with using bait, but I am not living with mice.

[cintinative]

Someone once told me: if there is a Mickey, there is always a Minnie.  Never just one mouse.  

A mouse/Mice got into my chocolate stash one year and nibbled a little from each corner (insert weepy face).

They can get into very, very small holes.  We had to call someone out to find the holes. The hole we had in our garage was about pencil eraser size--that is where they were getting in. They also can scale vertical surfaces--we had some get in from outside near the soffit--another really small hole. 

They are a pain. I am so sorry.

[BlsdMama]

😉

At our house currently, a little girl who shall go unnamed, has adopted a mama mouse (Fredricka) and her three littles. They live in the woodpile and she takes choice bits out to her several times each day. ❤️ 

[mom31257]

I'm sorry!!! 

I have no wisdom or advice because I've never had to deal with that, but I might be inclined to think as you do. Burn it down! 

[HomeAgain]

We live in the woods.  Mice, especially during rainy periods, are a not-unheard of occurrence. It doesn't matter that the home is clean, the outside is as secure as possible...they find a way eventually.

Snap traps are our friend. We bait them with those cheap cheese & peanut butter crackers if we suspect there's "guests". It has never failed to lure them out immediately.   There's something about those particular crackers that they just love. 

I suspect they find a way in through the bulkhead door, so now that basement room has a repellent sachet that we found.  It supposedly has an odor rodents don't like.  I'm hoping it also keeps the chipmunks away, too, since we've managed one of them in the house in the past few years.

[El...]

These are pretty horrifying, but maybe you need one of those water bucket  traps. I think they work. 

[DawnM]

46 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

We live in the woods.  Mice, especially during rainy periods, are a not-unheard of occurrence. It doesn't matter that the home is clean, the outside is as secure as possible...they find a way eventually.

Snap traps are our friend. We bait them with those cheap cheese & peanut butter crackers if we suspect there's "guests". It has never failed to lure them out immediately.   There's something about those particular crackers that they just love. 

I suspect they find a way in through the bulkhead door, so now that basement room has a repellent sachet that we found.  It supposedly has an odor rodents don't like.  I'm hoping it also keeps the chipmunks away, too, since we've managed one of them in the house in the past few years.

Yes, we have been using snap traps.   We noticed they got into the graham crackers, so we put PB and then cracker on top and that seemed to do the trick.

Just not a good thing to happen right as we are working on selling the house!

[DawnM]

48 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

😉

At our house currently, a little girl who shall go unnamed, has adopted a mama mouse (Fredricka) and her three littles. They live in the woodpile and she takes choice bits out to her several times each day. ❤️ 

Andrew wanted to pet them.   

[fairfarmhand]

52 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

😉

At our house currently, a little girl who shall go unnamed, has adopted a mama mouse (Fredricka) and her three littles. They live in the woodpile and she takes choice bits out to her several times each day. ❤️ 

Somehow A little mouse living in a woodpile is cute. And that same thing in my house pooping is hideous.

[history-fan]

Every Fall I set traps in the basement. I read to set 3 traps lined up close to each other, because the mice will jump over a trap so you need 3 in a row. I started doing that and noticed that a couple of the traps in the middle were the ones that would have a mouse. The other thing was to use different bait in some of the traps. 

 

[Rosie_0801]

Chocolate and linseeds have been working around here recently.

[DawnM]

40 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

Somehow A little mouse living in a woodpile is cute. And that same thing in my house pooping is hideous.

In our last house we had a family in the basement.   My kids would go down there to play and the baby mice would come with their tiny gray bodies and huge pink ears and just stare at my boys.   My 2nd son asked several times if we could keep one.

 

[SKL]

We've always had mice, living next to the woods.  Thankfully they are very discreet.  I'll put up with mice as long as the raccoons etc. stay out!

[kirstenhill]

Ugh...we had an ongoing mouse problem in a rental we lived in for a number of years. The landlord was a little nutty and really against hiring professional help to deal with it, then the first ones she hired were worthless (we loved everything else about the house and it was a great deal, or we would have moved out!). 

After trying everything under the sun to deal with the mice ourselves, the landlord hiring a reputable pest control company really did the trick. That and the fact that we finally found one large hole in the foundation in a spot that was basically inaccessible to humans but accessable to mice and visible to us when some work was being done on the house for other reasons! (But the mice did not just disappear with the hole being filled....we needed pest control too!). 

Edited June 27, 2023 by kirstenhill

[Terabith]

You need a cat.  

[J-rap]

We once had to leave our home for a year and a half.  When we returned home, I'm sure we had numerous families of mice living there.  They weirdly didn't seem afraid of us.  We'd be sitting in our living room and they'd nonchalantly trot across the rug right next to our feet.

One of the strangest parts was that I'd kept dried ears of corn in our attic for fall decorating.  (Not just laying around but in a bag.)  We found corn kernels from that corn all over the house for months, and in the strangest places.  The mice had carried it to the bottom of rolled-up sleeping bags, inside winter mittens that were stored in boxes, and so many random places!

It didn't take long to be rid of them though.  Plus, we'd brought a dog back with us which I think helped prevent them from coming back.  

I hope you can solve your problem quickly!

[Tap]

Ugh! I have had to deal with mice twice. Both times was when new construction was near by. I bought probably 20 snap traps and put them along the garage, kitchen, hallway, pantry and bathroom walls. I just follow a line from garage door to food sources an put one in every corner or by every obstacle along the way. They are cheap, so I just toss them as I find them, lets just say…..used. Ew 🤣 in the garage I put them in the bottom of a coffee can that is tipped to increase the chance of capture. It makes a big difference! Those ones always catch the most. 
 

My x-mil uses the bucket style traps and has good luck. She lives on a ranch so there is a never ending supply. She needs something she can reuse constantly. I think she moves them periodically to get different pathways covered. 
 

Last time I saw one mouse, I caught 8 to 10 before the traps stayed empty for a solid week. I put the ones out that the dog is most likely to get into,  only out In night time so I don’t have to worry about her getting caught, or playing with a used trap. 

[Laura Corin]

Our mice arrive on a cycle based on the agricultural/climatic calendar.  We get big influxes as the local fields are cut, and another at the first frost.  For the rest of the year, the slugs eat the peanut butter in the mouse traps (don't ask).

[Pawz4me]

43 minutes ago, Terabith said:

You need a cat.  

Our neighbors who currently have an infestation have a cat. They say he’s too lazy (and too well fed) to care. 

[Faith-manor]

We live rural. They always try to come inside in the fall as it gets cold. Traps and a cat, and eventually they get taken care of. But you could call and exterminator. They bait with some sort of poison that mummified them so they don't smell when they die. Thankfully out cat hunts. She just cannot abide by them or more accurately, she thinks if she finds one, it is a toy that she is meant to play very, very hard with so the play kills them. She doesn't have any intention of actually eating one!

Sorry about that!

Since you really want to get the house on the market, I think it might be worth it to call the exterminator.

[bibiche]

55 minutes ago, Terabith said:

You need a cat.  

Or a snake.

[wintermom]

We use ultrasonic mouse and rat deterants, and they've been working great. They were recommended by a friend who has had excellent results with their's. They do not bother house pets (unless you have a pet rodent). They plug into an electric socket and then you're done. So easy! Only cost me $30 from the local hardware store.

Just a thought, if you'd like a quick and easy way to ward them off without having to trap them all (or hope you get it right). 

Edited June 27, 2023 by wintermom

[Laura Corin]

1 minute ago, wintermom said:

We use ultrasonic mouse and rat deterants, and they've been working great. They were recommended by a friend who has had excellent results with their's. They do not bother house pets (unless you have a pet rodent). They plug into an electric socket and then you're done. So easy! Only cost me $30 from the local hardware store.

Just a thought, if you'd like a quick and easy way to ward them off without having to trap them all (or hope you get it right). 

I'm glad they work for you - they didn't for us at our last house.  The mice were in the attics though, and we weren't able to plug in up there, so maybe that was the issue.

[wintermom]

Just now, Laura Corin said:

I'm glad they work for you - they didn't for us at our last house.  The mice were in the attics though, and we weren't able to plug in up there, so maybe that was the issue.

Possibly. I plugged one unit in the basement and one on the main level, where I know that they've been active. So far so good. If needed, I guess I'll get more to plug in upstairs. Hopefully it won't come to that! 😉 

[Ali in OR]

In out two experiences with mice, we have used the humane traps and then transported the mice far, far away. And both times we only saw one mouse but managed to catch about 10. So my generalization is that for every mouse you see, there are 10 more hiding in the walls. Our cat was useless. Shortly after we moved into this house he just watched a mouse traipse across the carpet. We kept an informal tally of how many he caught vs. how many dh caught. Cat 0, dh 10.

[kbutton]

BTDT. It's frustrating, but if you have any idea of what trails they are using or where they are going in (sometimes out--sometimes holing up with babies), it's a good place to set traps. If you can empty a trap quickly when you hear it go off, you will likely catch another one quickly. 

In our last house, we had an infestation during an incredibly wet spring where the ground was just a wet sponge for a long time. We had some living under the sink (older home--the cabinets had been pieced together to some extent), and finding the nest and the holes where they were going in an out was really helpful. The sink was on an exterior wall and had pipes going into a crawl space, so it was an ideal place to squeeze in. The house also had another area where a garage had been turned into living space, and they were living between the slab that had been garage floor and the floor of the remodeled area. In both cases though, they had to go in and out for food, whether that in and out was to the house or to the outdoors. 

If you have a sensitive nose, you might be able to figure out where they are living and where their trails are. Fortunately/unfortunately, I have a sensitive nose and am quite allergic to rodents, so I usually know we have a mouse before we even seen evidence because I smell them and start feeling cruddy.

We've never had trouble with them escaping traps if we get the cheapest snap traps--the harder it is to set without setting it off, the easier it is to catch a mouse in it. The fancier snap traps seem to be less sensitive. I have heard good things about bucket traps, but we haven't tried them.

[Grace Hopper]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

You need a cat.  

Yes, even if you have to borrow one. 
 

I believe dogs can also be helpful. 
 

I would not recruit a snake. 😂

 

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, Grace Hopper said:

 

 

I would not recruit a snake. 😂

 

If is not mathematically possible for me to agree with this more than 100% except it feels like I can agree with this x1000! 😁

[azucena]

When I was a child, we moved into a new house.  My younger brother opened the cabinet under the sink and cried out happily, "Mommy, this house comes with a hamster!"

[Narrator: it was not, in fact, a hamster.]

[AmandaVT]

5 hours ago, Terabith said:

You need a cat.  

That can backfire - when we were in the middle of gutting our last house (this would have been in 2006), we opened a wall and found a mouse mansion inside. Ugh. We were so exhausted, we brought the cat over and left to go out to dinner. When we came back, she had made friends with the mice. She was a terrible hunter. 

We are in Vermont, which is pretty rural and mice are common. We have Orkin come out every other month and they do a good job making sure we never have to see creatures! 

[bibiche]

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

If is not mathematically possible for me to agree with this more than 100% except it feels like I can agree with this x1000! 😁

I’m with you on this one, I was just kidding. 😉

We looked at the perfect house once. Then the owner mentioned that her son had recently lost a snake in the house and they were unable to find it. I’m sure someone bought that lovely house.

[Faith-manor]

17 minutes ago, bibiche said:

I’m with you on this one, I was just kidding. 😉

We looked at the perfect house once. Then the owner mentioned that her son had recently lost a snake in the house and they were unable to find it. I’m sure someone bought that lovely house.

Oh my gosh! Imagine when the Road Runner in Looney Tunes does that zip zip thingy and shoots off at mach speed. That would be me!!!!

[PronghornD]

5 hours ago, wintermom said:

We use ultrasonic mouse and rat deterants, and they've been working great. They were recommended by a friend who has had excellent results with their's. They do not bother house pets (unless you have a pet rodent). They plug into an electric socket and then you're done. So easy! Only cost me $30 from the local hardware store.

Just a thought, if you'd like a quick and easy way to ward them off without having to trap them all (or hope you get it right). 

In our experience, the ultrasonic devices did nothing. I think the mice and chipmunks got used to them. The only way we got rid of the mice was to move lol. We did not try to plug holes, though, because the holes were probably under a set of wooden stairs going into the house. We did not want to take those out!

In the years before we moved, I used live traps and took a mouse to a park many miles away every few days in spring and fall and occasionally in other seasons. This did not eliminate the rodents but made me feel better. Somehow killing them makes them seem more heinous. I called them guests as in, "I'm going to go bring a guest to the park." We also learned a little mammalian diversity in our homeschool after catching a house shrew. Now I know why shrews have the reputation that they have lol.

[popmom]

My cats would have a field day. Their favorite pastime is catching chipmunks. They would sniff those suckers out and lie in wait. They hate those meeses to pieces! (Pixie and Dixie reference)

edit to clarify: Pixie and Dixie was before my time! Not dating myself that far back lol.

Edited June 27, 2023 by popmom

[popmom]

I can so relate to the title, but not for a mouse infestation. Just the sheer number of repairs and updates we need to do before we sell... houses are such money pits.

[Ottakee]

Well, when we lived on a hobby farm for 20 years the ONLY time I ever had a mouse in the house was the time the CAT brought it IN the house and then let it go…..

I put a bounty on that mouse 🐁 and one of my foster sons gladly caught it and took the cash.

[rebcoola]

We are not rural but we are.in an established neighborhood with lots of critters. Having cats and dogs hasnt helped. They hear them before we notice but rarely actually catch any.  We have traps and try to block entry points. I don't really the expectation to never get mice they seem to happen occasionally no matter what.

[KungFuPanda]

I once saw a mouse in my home. A friend told me that if you get a pet rat you’ll never have mice. They’ll smell them and not come in. I had to burn down that house and break up with that friend. 

[DawnM]

9 hours ago, Terabith said:

You need a cat.  

NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!   I am quite allergic.   

[DawnM]

3 hours ago, popmom said:

I can so relate to the title, but not for a mouse infestation. Just the sheer number of repairs and updates we need to do before we sell... houses are such money pits.

Yes they are.   And now we have a few things to fix before selling.   Andrew and sharpies on walls don't mix.   UGH.   And the woodpeckers have pecked the wood columns out front so we are having all of that repaired.   None of it is cheap.

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, DawnM said:

NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!   I am quite allergic.   

Snake then?

[DawnM]

8 hours ago, bibiche said:

Or a snake.

OMG, NO!   I am terrified of snakes

8 hours ago, wintermom said:

We use ultrasonic mouse and rat deterants, and they've been working great. They were recommended by a friend who has had excellent results with their's. They do not bother house pets (unless you have a pet rodent). They plug into an electric socket and then you're done. So easy! Only cost me $30 from the local hardware store.

Just a thought, if you'd like a quick and easy way to ward them off without having to trap them all (or hope you get it right). 

I have used those and they didn't work!   

6 hours ago, kbutton said:

BTDT. It's frustrating, but if you have any idea of what trails they are using or where they are going in (sometimes out--sometimes holing up with babies), it's a good place to set traps. If you can empty a trap quickly when you hear it go off, you will likely catch another one quickly. 

In our last house, we had an infestation during an incredibly wet spring where the ground was just a wet sponge for a long time. We had some living under the sink (older home--the cabinets had been pieced together to some extent), and finding the nest and the holes where they were going in an out was really helpful. The sink was on an exterior wall and had pipes going into a crawl space, so it was an ideal place to squeeze in. The house also had another area where a garage had been turned into living space, and they were living between the slab that had been garage floor and the floor of the remodeled area. In both cases though, they had to go in and out for food, whether that in and out was to the house or to the outdoors. 

If you have a sensitive nose, you might be able to figure out where they are living and where their trails are. Fortunately/unfortunately, I have a sensitive nose and am quite allergic to rodents, so I usually know we have a mouse before we even seen evidence because I smell them and start feeling cruddy.

We've never had trouble with them escaping traps if we get the cheapest snap traps--the harder it is to set without setting it off, the easier it is to catch a mouse in it. The fancier snap traps seem to be less sensitive. I have heard good things about bucket traps, but we haven't tried them.

No, but we did turn over the chair in the den and something was rattling in there (maybe a nest?)

We caught two large mice and two small mice.   

[Dmmetler]

7 hours ago, bibiche said:

I’m with you on this one, I was just kidding. 😉

We looked at the perfect house once. Then the owner mentioned that her son had recently lost a snake in the house and they were unable to find it. I’m sure someone bought that lovely house.

L would have been in favor of buying it 🙂

 

We have rodent birth control baits outside and four cats (and a snake, but his rodents come from the freezer section of the pet store). That combination seems to be working, although we do sometimes catch small fuzzies on the camera traps(we have several to watch the ponds and backyard. Mostly, they catch the neighborhood cats, raccoons, opossums, squirrels and the occasional large frog, but we've caught a few smaller critters, especially when it's been awhile since it rained. 

[Melissa in Australia]

19 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Chocolate and linseeds have been working around here recently.

I would  never be generous enough to give a mouse chocolate 

[Laura Corin]

4 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

I would  never be generous enough to give a mouse chocolate 

Only my son likes smooth peanut butter and he's not here much, so I share that with the mice.

[Rosie_0801]

21 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

I would  never be generous enough to give a mouse chocolate 

They're not getting the good stuff.

[DawnM]

ARGH!   I śaw 2 more this morning.   A mama mouse must have come in to have her babies.   I don't know how we are going to catch them all to show this house.   

 

[wintermom]

17 hours ago, PronghornD said:

In our experience, the ultrasonic devices did nothing.

Maybe my early success is due to the fact that I just happened to time it with spring, when the mice would normally move outdoors. I'm not sure, but my friend and her dd had excellent success. It won't cost anything to keep using them. Maybe an on and off cycling of the ultrasonic devices would work. I'll do some experimenting.

I've had more than my share of chasing down mice from this house, sometimes with the help of the cats, and sometimes not. I can't even begin to plug all the holes, as the mice can get through the tiniest of holes. I've learned to live with the mice, what's really scaring me is the rat that came visiting my bird feeder. That's something I don't want in my house! 😨

[City Mouse]

I live in a rural area where everyone has issues with mice. After trying to seal up holes, the one thing that has made the most difference here is changing how I store food in the pantry. Everything that doesn’t come in cans or bottles gets put either into glass jars or large, heavy plastic storage bins. Unfortunately, the only other thing that has helped control the mouse population in the past is snakes, but I think I’d rather have the mice than snakes.