Are those house mice?

I found an empty plastic cooking oil bottle (waiting to be recycled) gnawed away into pieces in a box in the garage. The coke cans looked untouched though. The teeth marks looked like it was something ruthless. So I put some pieces of cheese there overnight, checked in the morning, they were still there - but then by night time, dissappeared (eaten during the day?? or early at night?)

It didn't look like insects because the pieces of cheese were at opposite corners of the garage (long distance). But I wonder if that's house mice cause I've never seen droppings (I should, right?) and they didn't feed at night. I've a few grains of rice left there and they didn't touch those (I thought mice like rice).

I do hear strange noise at night (within the walls) but I am not sure if that's related. Can someone based on the description determine if that's mice/ rats? If not, what else could it be (squirrels)? Can someone suggest a no-blood-no-dead-bodies (or good karma!) way to find out, something not involving a spy cam or me sitting their all day?

Thank you so much.

Reply to
fltcpt
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Think cat.

Reply to
HeyBub

May be almost any kind of rodent including squirrel and chipmunk.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

No. If you think you have mice, set mouse traps.

Reply to
Doug Miller

clipped

I've never seen plastic bottles chewed by mice - mice chew up cardboard and paper sacks, leaving little bits behind. Sounds like rats or something larger. Racoons? Do you keep the garage open a lot? Got stuff stored that critters can nest in - they like old clothers. Of course, there could be mice in the walls, and the bottle was chewed by a dog or something entirely different.

Mousetrap with a touch of peanut butter works nicely. Forget bloodless

- critters shoudl choose life by staying out of the house. Inside the home, they are disease-carrying pests.

Noises in the walls can be bats, squirrels, mice, etc. Check for chewed stuff and droppings, and check attic as well.

Reply to
Norminn

Can someone suggest a

There are mouse traps that just capture the mouse, it is basically a little plastic box, you put bait inside and set it down, and when the mouse enters the thing tips and a door swings shut. I have used these successfully several times to trap mice and relocate them to someplace far away. A little peanut butter on a fragment of cracker is good bait.

You may have something larger though. There are larger live traps that operate on the same principle. You could start with the mouse trap and see what happens.

Reply to
Heathcliff

Good old mouse traps and some peanut butter, work every time, especially if it gets them in the neck. Sometimes it just get a foot, then you have a 3 legged mouse walking around, pretty useless. Yes they are most likely to be small gray field mice that came in under the overhead door seal at the corners. I prefer traps over poison because you can recover the dead body easier before it stinks up the place. Spring traps are more humane, or if you like to torture the critters first (to teach them all a lesson), get glue traps. Either way you'll want to recover the bodies.

Reply to
RickH

The call is coming form INSIDE your house.....

-T.E.S.

Reply to
Thomas Edward Stosterone

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