I'm so confused that I just need to be pointed in the right direction. A friend has mice in her house and she wants to get rid of them. She lives alone with no kids and no pet.
She isn't going to set spring snap traps and she isn't going to be crawling around on all fours plugging up access holes as she's almost 90 years old.
The "fancy" traps are all too complicated for her to set and check and reset and recheck and set again and check and reset and check ad infinitum.
She just wants the mice or rats or whatever to be out of the house. She isn't going to be using glue traps because she has to listen to them struggle if they're anywhere visible (like in the pantry).
I think the best solution is the rat/mice poison. But which one?
I'm thinking she can get either the blocks and place them in the corners or she can get the pellets and put them in thin plastic ziplock bags (that way she can tell if they're eating it).
But which poison?
Which poison should I buy on Amazon to have shipped to her?
I found I couldn't hear them. Even when I was close, my face 3 feet away, I only remember one that made any noise. It was depressing to watch them struggle, although they stop after 10 minutes or so. They may start again when you try to pick up the trap and they will try to bite you so you must grab hold of the traps from behind its back. My next step was somewhat controversial, but I put the trap and the mouse in a plastic grocery bag, and then in another, and then in the freezer for 2 or 3 days, then in the trash. I kept track of one when I put it outside and it never revived.
You can also take the the trap outside and use iirc vegetable oil to let them go free. At least one box of them said that on the box.
I don't know if they'll eat through plastic bags. They sell poison in boxes of little paper bags and they will definitely eat through that. And you're right, the hole in the bag shows they've been eating. But the green blocks by themselves also show they have been nibbled on, because they are smaller than they start out. You don't need the plastic maze that they also sell because I think that's to protect pets and children and it makes it much harder to see if they're being eaten.
I can imagine that they might chew on the far side of the green blocks and then it will be inconvenient to tell if they've been nibbled on, but I can also imagine they eat through the far side of the paper bags. Maybe a stick to move the bag around a little.
This is also controversial because the mice eat it and eventually get too sick to move, often, usually where they are not noticeable and some say their bodies will stink. One would think my basement is pretty humid, but I guess when I used poison, I found one mouse that had dried up and shrunk and I never smelled at all.
Because of the first part above and nonetheless, I switched to gluetraps. Apparently two or more were living in the second floor hall linen closet. I could have emptied out the closet, but I' not sure what good that would have done. They would have just moved somewhere else. Instead, from the desk where I have my computer, I could see one run out, scouting for food I guess. And I realized he would want to return to the closet within 1 or 2 or a few hours, so I got good at placing obstructions to their return path, guiding them to one or more glue traps between the obstructions. It would take several tries. It was a real game of wits and I'm proud to say I'm probably as smart as a mouse.
I started using the traps that are almost 2x3", two attached to each other, but switched to the larger ones. You can fold them to make a tent but I never did that. Maybe that was to protect pets.
After I got one, there was another one still there. But I got them all and that's how I got rid of them. OTOH, if I were not able to watch them come and go, it would have taken longer. They tend to run next to walls, but they must leave the walls sometime when they see food. In my case, they left the hall closet and ran straight across the hall to the spare bedroom. Which had no food. I may yet find papers they munched on.
Some people say you should borrow a cat.
And two days ago as I was looking out the front door I saw a cricket at the base of the door and before I knew it he was between the door and the jamb on the hinge side, and inside. I haven't heard a peep out of him yet, and at least he's only a cricket.
I'd suggest using the glue traps. The mice supposedly put their noses in it after getting caught so they die of suffocation fairly quickly. Poisoned mice could die in a tough spot for her to get their corpses. Think stink. She should wear gloves when handling the traps. I think there are some sort of grabbers made to help people pick up things without bending down. Put the traps behind things like couches within reach. Peanut butter is a good bait.
I have used practically all traps and poisons. I like the snap traps that look like the lever is a piece of cheese and use peanut butter.
Not particularly fond of glue traps myself after seeing a mouse dead in one with half his leg chewed off in him trying to escape.
The new poisons are sold with a cage like thing to put them in but pets cannot get to them. I just put the poison out by itself. Only once did I have a minor stink problem.
In college, I never got to see it but we had a cat die in the basement where I lived, in the room where we stored our suitcases. It stank, but a cat is 100 times as big as a mouse.
I don't know what killed it. We didn't have mice or mouse poison.
I didn't use bait, but I knew where they were coming from and going to.
I still have some Catchmaster and looking now, it says nothing about bait. It says, Use flat or fold in four places to make a tunnel, so maybe the tunnel is not just aobut pets but because mice like tunnels. Still, if they are going from A to B and there is no tunnel, they will walk across the trap.
It says to use vegetable or mineral oil if you get it on your hands, but those would free the mouse too.
My neighbor found that he had a fly infestation. He was killing 30 - 40 of them a day, inside his house. He would move furniture and find a dozen larvae pods under a chair.
After 3 days he decided to call Orkin. "Free estimates" The guy came over and inspected the basement, the garage, the exterior. He didn't find anything dead, but he did tell the guy that he could probably relax. If there was something dead in the wall, etc. the number of flies would diminish quickly and then just stop once the carcass dried out. He said that if there wasn't any change over next couple of days, they could discuss option for spraying, etc. "No charge today."
Sure as heck, the next day there were less flies, less the next and practically zero on day three. All clear after that.
About 2 weeks later he was cleaning out his shed, which is a good 20' from his house. He found a dried up chipmunk carcass and a big pile of pods. He had been in and out the shed during the fly episode but says it was never infested with live flies. He called the Orkin guy to let him know and the guy was very surprised. He stopped short of saying that it was just a coincidence, but he had stuck his head in the shed and didn't see or smell anything during the inspection. Since there was no other explanation, they went with that.
Bottom line: *something* dead caused the flies, so it's not just odor that can be a problem.
We used to have 2 cats. They were brother and sister and we raised them from when they were so young that they fit in the palm of our hands. For 2 weeks we had to feed them 4 times a day with an eye dropper full of baby food. The male was orange and the female was black & white.
OK, fast forward about 14 years. They were both getting old and the orange male wasn't doing very well.
Did you ever see those fake cats that they sell in gift shops, etc. that look like they are sleeping.? If you pick it up, it's a stiff as a board? One of these, which happens to look very much like my orange cat:
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SWMBO and I were on vacation and saw one of those in a store. I picked it up (all stiff and rigid) and said to SWMBO "We may have one of these when we get home." She said "I hope not, but you might be right."
When we got home, we had one of those. The male was curled up on the floor, freshly deceased. His sister was curled up on the floor right next to him and just looked up at us when we got home. She knew.
I didn't have that, but a few years ago i found a half-eaten cat in the yard. It really stank. I ave had a couple that died inside, but got rid of the body before it started stinking.
As to the one that died in the yard, I live close to the edge of town and wild animals sometimes get in. According to what neighbors were saying, there was a cat-eating coyote.
I had 3 cats, all male. One is the one I found half-eaten. Soon afterward, the other two went out. One came back home and meowed all night, I never saw the other.
A cat adopted me and I got attached to the critter. He went out one morning in July and never came back. I hear the coyotes yipping at night and I figure another cat is gone,
The cats are aware of the situation. An adult female and a half grown kitten were hanging around the yard when I heard a yip. The kitten wound up 20' up a tree and the female left rapidly for wherever her safe place is.
I read every answer but nobody yet answered the question asked.
I already knew there were multiple chemical poisons such as bromadiolone, brodifacoum and diphacinone of all different percentages (usually extremely low, like 0.01% kind of low).
I'm going to buy a five pound jug and I just wanted to know which chemical works best for others in the real world outside and inside.
Because Amazon sells lots of things and we don't want to spend much time shopping for you.
If y ou'd included what you already knew, people might have answered about the differences between these various things. But I don't know anything about it and I would not have posted at all.
I do like to ask open-ended questions like your OP, but the risk is that people will not address what you really want to know.
All I know of is warfarin. That's not in your list and I have no idea if it's better or worse than the things in your list.
Five pounds seems like an awful lot, enouhg for a bakery.
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