There's a mouse in my house

[pacanis]

Speaking about potatoes.....
I keep mine under the sink. Upon verifying that they were russets, I noticed that two had been gnawed on No turds, but potato skin "crumbs" and the telltale gnaw marks
Now, I've got two copper pipes, one PVC drain pipe and one piece of romex leading up through the hole in the bottom of the cabinet, but none of them provide a very direct route for Mr Mouse in the basement. He must have really worked at getting up in there. Passing up open bags of cat food and dog food that sit in the basement.
Looks like I need to have a little talk with my geriatric cat this morning and if that doesn't work, rob one of the mousetraps I've been using to train my pup to keep his nose off the TV, away from the remotes, the pillows belong on the couch....

 

[Bilby]

So far, I have been lucky (rapidly seeks wood...), the only mice that have been in my house have been "invited in" BY my cats and thoughtfully did not take their dubious offer for very long! ;-)

 

[pacanis]

I've had three mice in about seven years. All caught by my cat and brought to my attention. Last fall I took the time to patch a couple sleeves passing through the block foundation that had pipes going through them, but could probably have been squeezed through. I'm not sure how this guy made it in.... I may have to investigate my sump and see that the hose is still attached to the pump. That leads directly outside.

 

[Bilby]

My neighbours have a nest under their pantry so I am hoping they stay there and that my six cats plus all the "blow-ins" act as a deterent to them turning into Stuart Littles and taking a vacation to chez moi!

 

[auntdot]

We live in the country so meeses are endemic. They can squeeze themselves through the smallest openings, such as a tiny gap where a pipe comes into the house.

We discovered ours shortly after we moved in about five years ago.

We have no pets so eradicating them, or at least giving them a short lifetime when they entered, was not a particular problem.

Can buy pellets of poison that work very well. They sell them almost everywhere here. Tractor Supply or the local Coop will have them. And you can get them on the web. We always have some in our basement and garage. They are dry, we put them on paper and leave them. Every so often we renew them. When they are gnawed you know they are working.

With pets and small children about, poison is obviously a no no.

Down side, the mice usually die in the house. But only once in awhile get a whiff of a dead one in the basement or garage.

Also there are sticky pads. You put them about, you can usually figure out where the mice like to be from the scat. You can toss on some peanut butter, it is a great lure, The mice walk on the stuff and their feet stick. They cannot get free. Then you have a mouse who is very alive and very unhappy. In a Disney world you could free the mouse, he would give you a kiss, and run away into the woods.

Nope, with this stuff you have a mouse you have to off. Covering them with paper and squashing them with a sledge hammer works and is probably fairly kind, if you do it unhesitantly.

We don't revel in that experience and do not use them anymore.

The traditional traps I do not like. They just have never worked all that well in our experience.

When they come down on the mouse's neck, well, they usually do the job. But many times they seem to catch the mouse somewhere else and you have a flailing mouse in pain. And you have to do the right thing. I still believe the sledge hammer is more humane than the BB gun, but opinions vary.

Not a pretty topic, but that is all I know about getting rid of the critters.

 

[letscook]

set traps with peanut butter on them, works everytime.
And for the mice friendly people who don't like the traps.
sorry, but they are disease carriers and not in my house. Husband aleric to cats and at least the traps are quicker then a mouse torching it.

Once we had a neighbor tear down a shed and it had rats, with the shed gone the rat decided to live with us, We set "Freindly Traps" and nothing , then the not freindly traps it chewed its legs off and continued to chewed holes through walls, into the food pantry, dropping all over, we finally put out Decon "poision" hoping it wouldn't die in the walls. It ate the posion and we found it and all gone. We had to pull out smelly insulation and reinsulate. Checked all the wiring as he chewed an outlet wiring , What a nightmare. So I don't tolerate the varments.

 

[buckytom]

geez, gotta remember that if i get stuck in auntdot's house, leave the shoes...

 

[auntdot]

LOL Bucky.

Actually we have no problem. The poison bait takes care of it.

 

[pacanis]

I've seen a mouse caught in one of those sticky traps. It was dead. It's nose was stuck to the goo and it must have suffocated.
I know I've seen traps online that electrocute them as well, but I have enough gadgets for a while....
I closed my cat in the basement and if he doesn't come up with him sometime today, the old standby trap is getting set. I left two of the half eaten..... (OK, not really half eaten ) potatoes in the cabinet just to keep him interested. I am still surprised I didn't see any droppings in there.

Geez. Really auntdot? A sledge hammer? You don't think running over him with the car a couple times might be better?

 

[jpmcgrew]

Fortunately our two cats do a great job on rodent control.

 

[Corey123]

Speaking about potatoes.....
I keep mine under the sink. Upon verifying that they were russets, I noticed that two had been gnawed on No turds, but potato skin "crumbs" and the telltale gnaw marks
Now, I've got two copper pipes, one PVC drain pipe and one piece of romex leading up through the hole in the bottom of the cabinet, but none of them provide a very direct route for Mr Mouse in the basement. He must have really worked at getting up in there. Passing up open bags of cat food and dog food that sit in the basement.
Looks like I need to have a little talk with my geriatric cat this morning and if that doesn't work, rob one of the mousetraps I've been using to train my pup to keep his nose off the TV, away from the remotes, the pillows belong on the couch....

I had this same problem as well.

This apartment was INFESTED with them!! I DID tell the landlord about it. He said that he hasn't seen any mice in his apt.

There was one that looked almost the size of a rat!! One day, I was cooking and needed an ingredient from the kitchen cupboard.

Looking in there to one side of the cabinet, I found dozens of turds in there!!
I also found a nest right under the kitchen sink! On one of the glue traps. I disposed of it.

It has now been at least 3 to 4 months and I haven't seen a mouse since!! I really don't know what I did, and I don't smell anything dead. I think that once I destroyed the nest, they all vacated the premises.

But I think that they've all gotten the message, packed up and left. Guess I sent them packing!

 

[Constance]

When I was a kid, a mouse died IN the couch. Dad had to turn the couch over, take loose the bottom fabric and look through the stuffing for it.

We don't have mice in this house...it's too tight for them to get in...but I used to get plenty of them in the shop and greenhouses. We're talking big field mice, not cute little house mouses. One night, they wiped out $60 worth of newly planted hybrid pepper seed.
The cats killed a lot of them, and my Maggie Dog would dig their nests up out of the ground and kill them.

One warning about poison...if your cat eats mice that have been eating the poison, it will die too. I don't know how many mice it takes, but it happened to my daughter's cat.

 

[Corey123]

I don't use any poison.

Good thing, because if my Deuce were here with me now, and if he caught and ate a mouse that was poisoned, then he would have died as well!!!

I'm glad that he'll be with me in the next apt though.

 

[Jeekinz]

D-Con is the best choice. When we moved into our house we had mice, that was almost 3 years ago. I haven't seen one (or the remains of one) in over a year. Like someone else said, use that Good Stuff foam sealer all over your houses foundation. I have a dog too, but I place the D-Con traps in the basement and under the sink where she can't get to. The only drawback to the poison is you'll have little dead mices that you need to dispose of during the process.

Good luck. Take care of them before they multiply.

 

[Corey123]

Rats, mice and roaches are like Babe's Kids; They don't die, they DO multiply!

 

[callie]

We've had mice - eek! We don't live in a typical "house." It used to be a furniture building shop...concrete floors, overhead garage door...We converted that space to living room area. It's been HARD to find all the potential entry points for those little critters. Anyway -

Use lots of steel wool. Poke it tightly around pipes and in any other tiny holes you find. We use regular mouse traps with peanut butter. Oh, and our experience has been that mice will chew through that foam insulation stuff.

Good luck!

 

[Fisher's Mom]

Pacanis, I had a mouse invasion once and this is what worked for me. Buy some pure peppermint oil and saturate a couple of cotton balls and place where the mice come in. They will leave pronto. Then plug any holes or openings you can find with steel wool. Mice will eat Great Stuff if they know there is food on the other side (they've already been in) but they will not chew or even dig through steel wool. Apparently it's kinda like razor wire to their little feet. The peppermint oil can be purchased at Whole Foods and similar places or online, which is less expensive but you have to wait for it. A little 4 oz. bottle will saturate a lot of cotton balls and mice absolutely flee from it. (It deters raccoons, possums and other larger visitors but it flat out gets rid of mice.) Good luck!

 

[Corey123]

I did that with the shower stall.

I'd see a mouse peep out and when I moved my head to get a better view, they'd jump back in hiding.

So I stuffed some steel wool around the spaces and then I duct-taped that whole area to keep them from getting in the apt! All the way near the top!

I think that by doing that, I cut off their doorway to get in. Good riddens to bad rubbish!!

 

[buckytom]

corey, for some reason i think the mice are equally grateful...

 

[pacanis]

Good idea about the steel wool. I had never heard of that.
I'll be checking back in shortly to see if my cat came up with anything, or simply spent the morning on top of the furnace plenum. Figures I just trimmed his nails a week ago....