I recently had some food in my basement spoiled by mice. I set 6 traps and got 3 overnight. I reset those 3 and got 1 more today.
My question is... How are these things surviving in my basement? Aside from that box of cereal, I have never had food down there and there is no water that I know of.
I seems any mouse would starve down there. And then the bigger question, how are they getting inside?
I used to get 2 or 3 mice a week in my basement during the winter months. I'm not kidding, it was like a mouse grand central station.
I recently had a blower door test done during an energy audit. You wouldnt believe the number of openings found all the way around the perimeter of the house where the sill meets the foundation. After they were all caulked, I havent had a mouse in 3 months down there.
I think that once mice find a nice warm place to nest, they bring their own food. During a kitchen remodel, I found a whole pile of acorn shells underneath the old kitchen cabinets.
-dickm
They come and go as they please. It only takes a tiny hole for them to gain access, and they probably have routes to every corner of your house. Just keep setting traps along perimeters and foundation ledges. Once you stop getting them in the traps, keep a few traps active and replace the bait every month. You'll never stop them from getting in, but you can certainly limit their numbers
I don't know about mice because they're so much smaller. But if you can find their point of entry you can place steel wool in the hole. It works great with rats. They can't stand gnawing through the stuff it seems. Mice will eat bugs so if you got roaches you will always have mice.
Aaron Eel (Ehrin Lloyd)
Like you, they only sleep there. Each day, when it warms up, they leave for work.
Think cat.
Check this link. It might help
Indeed, mice carry food with them back to their lair. In fact, at our cabin we found that mice had carried the rat poison pellets to their new lair between the quilt and the blanket - ewwwww!! We changed over to blocks so that they were more likely to eat at the bait site. One other neat trick with the traps that was posted here was to turn the traps perpendicular to the wall. I don't know why this worked better but we had a better catch rate when we changed to this set up. And, BTW, for those of you at cabins, check the peanut butter expiration date. Ours was OD but thought it would be good enough for a mouse. WRONG! THey knew the diff and avoided the traps but went for the poison. HTH!
"Bill" wrote in news:480bc5db$0$7078$ snipped-for-privacy@roadrunner.com:
Cell phones and Domino's. Extra cheese of course.
Mice are EXTREMELY near-sighted. That's why they hover near walls when they scamper. You'll almost never see one in the middle of the room.
Placing a trap perpendicular to the wall (bait side next to wall) will double your chances.
"HeyBub" wrote in news:odOdnQ6odJmCYZbVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
On legdes, if I couldn't put it perpendicular, I would put two traps bait side on approach from each direction.
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