Suggestions for capturing mice in the pantry (or not)

[Danny D.]

Thanks for that advice Oren, I think I loaded my traps wrong in that I slathered on the peanut butter and put a few pine nuts and wrapped it up in thread.

They could nibble it without springing the trap, and, apparently they did. I'll put less on - but - it seems that the yellow rectangular star of warfarin is what they really went for since it was moved each night from the precise spot at four tile corners that I put it in each night.

Of the past three or so nights, it was moved, but last night, it stayed in the same spot, and there were no turds.

I wonder how long it takes for that stuff to work? It's old. Maybe 3 years old since I bought the whole supply at Ace Hardware a few years ago, after the ban went into effect (they could sell it but they couldn't buy it anymore).

You can't buy that stuff anymore in California, so looking up how long it takes to work, this says it's an anticoagulant which are "slow-acting poisons" which are "often eaten over several days by rats and mice".

[Danny D.]

Interesting that they suggest a "pea sized" amount of "whatever you have" on hand.

They list "Peanut butter, chocolate and cheese", where I think I'll stick with the peanut butter (since I have Costco-sized amounts left over ever since my sister left us for a new "renta-husband" and took her kids with her - which was the main bad part of her leaving - cuz we started getting attached to those cute "grand" kids).

Like Oren said, they say "It is important to not overbait the trap", so I think I overbaited the wooden ones since they seem to have nibbled at them a few days ago at the same time there were turds all over (but none last night).

I think, overall, the warfarin "may" have worked best but the problem with the warfarin is that it doesn't give you any clue of the catch - just that they ate it (which should be a good enough clue by itself though).

I have a few boxes of Costco-sized cereal left, so I might stick a few nuggets in the dab of peanut butter.

My wife did exactly that ...

But there's only so much you can clog up in the house. But my feeling is that they will get in no matter what since they're outside and they're puny.

We had a cat, until the sister left, with the friendly cat and the cute kids.

[Doug Miller]

"Danny D." wrote in news:oburp3$b15$ [e-mail]:

Well, yeah, that's what happens when you have mice in the house, and don't get rid of them...

Throw that out. The problem with poisoning mice is that they *do* eventually die, but usually inside a wall somewhere, or some other place inside your house where you'll have a hard time finding the corpse and an even harder time extracting it.

That's because you're not using the right bait. Forget the pine nuts and thread, forget the peanut butter. Bait each trap with a single raisin, smushed down good and hard onto the bait pan so that they can't tug it off without springing the trap.

Another reason for getting rid of the poison bait: they're eating that, and ignoring the bait on the spring traps.

ALL food needs to be in mouse-proof containers. That means metal, ceramic, or glass.

The ONLY edibles accessible to them should be the raisins on your spring traps.

Saw your pic. I'll be astonished if it works.

[Danny D.]

The wife found this outside today:

It was still soft. Doesn't look like an animal ate it but it was very much dead. Don't know if this was our culprit or not since it was outside on the driveway.

I understand that you're saying that the poison will kill them, but they'll die inside the walls somewhere, which would just invite bad things to happen.

I was hoping the mouse traps would catch them, but they seem to be immune to them.

Well, that's probably what I'll do since the traps aren't working, and yet they actually stole the chunk of dcon warfarin. It's completely gone.

The first moved it ten feet and chomped on it until it was almost round.

So I put it back last night. This morning it was gone.

There were just crumbs left.

This seems to be the case that they are only concentrating on the poison. They moved it 10 feet yesterday before nightfall so I put it back. It was completely gone this morning. Just crumbs.

We went through all the drawers and shelves, and packaged everything. A few items (mostly in plastic bags) were chewed through which we threw away.

I'm going to have to try that, since the poison is gone and they didn't spring a single one of the 8 traps.

It didn't work (yet).

[Danny D.]

I was amazed that the package says "pre baited" and that you're not supposed to put any bait on the yellow paddle.

I never would have thought they would just step on them, but if it works, that must be how it works because I'm pretty sure it doesn't look like Swiss cheese to a mouse even though it's yellow and has holes in it.

I'm considering a glue trap only because I want to figure out what it is that is leaving those droppings.

For a few days each, we had droppings, but no droppings yesterday morning, and then last night something took the poison moving it 10 feet.

I put the poison back and it's completely gone this morning.

The only thing we found so far is this was in the driveway but it is probably unrelated.

[Frank]

I have traps permanently against the wall in furnace room and on a rafter run in the basement. Only time I may re-bait one is if I catch a mouse and bait is old.

[Frank]

My advice too. Poisoned one in an inaccessible area once and had to put up with faint smell for weeks. Son had a squirrel die in his house, not by poison, and it cost him nearly $1,000 for removal and repairs.

[Doug Miller]

"Danny D." wrote in news:oc3evp$ivo$ [e-mail]:

That's a mole.

No, that's not your culprit. It would be extremely unusual for moles to come inside a house. And they wouldn't be able to do much climbing, either. The behavior you describe is just screaming "mice!". What probably happened here is that the mice dragged some of the poisoned bait outside, and the mole found it.

Yep. Just not a good thing all around.

Like I said... as long as that chunk of bait is there, they'll ignore the traps. And that's about five times as much bait as you need on that trap, too.

Well, now you don't have any choice but to take my advice. Clean up the crumbs. Don't leave ANYTHING out for them to eat except the raisins on the bait pans.

One more thing: the next time you find droppings, take a picture of them with something next to them for scale: a ruler, a coin, it doesn't matter as long as it clearly shows the size of the turds. It's possible you have rats.

[Danny D.]

I suspect a few things happen a few days later.

1. They start to rot (luckily mice are small)
2. They probably start to grow flies (spontaneous generation I guess)

So far though, the situation is thus:

1. They were coming, eating, and pooping for a few days.
2. Then, for two days, they only ate the poison (they finally stole it).
3. Now we only have the 8 traps and the home-made humane jar trap.

[Danny D.]

I think you're right in that, at first, for a few days, we had new droppinges every day, and then none - but the poison was moved a few inches.

Then I put the poison back in the cross hairs of four tiles, and it disappeared!

I found it ten feet away, much chewed and rounded from its original star cylinder shape.

I put the poison back (that was last night) and this morning we couldn't find it anywhere. And yet all the 8 traps are as yet still latched.

They either took the whole thing or they ate it completely but not where it was since there are no crumbs at the cross hairs.

We did find a dead mole in the driveway, but we don't know of any relationship.

[Danny D.]

They ate the entire cube of dcon in just a couple of days!

So far, all I caught in the jar is this fecund black widow spider!

She has a nice hourglass red belly and she looks a bit fecund, doesn't she?

I'll drop her off tomorrow where I drop off the live rattlesnakes:

[Vic Smith]

Better hope they don't spontaneously grow elephants. That will cause a lot of damage to the walls.

[Frank]

Jeez. You live amongst rattle snakes and black widow spiders and you fret about tiny little mice?

[Danny D.]

Last night, I only left the 8 traps and no Dcon anticoagulants. No droppings. No catches.

I think maybe they're gone, but tonight I'll put another chunk of warfarin out and see if they go for that again.

I used the four vacuums to test how well they cleaned up the crumbs. I left nothing out but the 8 traps. No visitors - but they could all be dead since I didn't see any droppings either.

I will snap a photo of the droppings next time I see them. THey're tiny. About a millimeter or a millimeter and a half in length. About a half millimeter in width. Dark brownish black.

I'll snap a shot if they come back.

[Danny D.]

Don't forget the cute "deer mice" who live in my pool heater system.

They're not as big as real rats, but they're not tiny either:

Those pictures are from the composting thread where I failed at composting for the third time in a row.

[Danny D.]

Indeed. But maybe the elephants can clean out my clogged vacuum hoses in the walls?

[songbird]

Uncle Monster wrote: ...

sometimes we've had outside traps baited with peanut butter get raided by ants, then the birds have pecked the ants and set the traps off (trapping the birds).

which is why i don't like to set such traps outdoors any longer.

the two traps inside my car have caught mice repeatedly even if they are now licked clean of peanut butter.

mice won't stay out of the car and until i can get a lift to see what is happening underneath they're going to still get in. they must leave a scent trail. (fresh cab doesn't do a thing to keep them out once they are in there, but at least it smells better when i do have to drive it).

songbird

[Shadow]

Roaches. Mouse/Ratcrap is larger.

If you do get mice, the best trap is a Selfset with bacon rind wired onto the trigger. Mice and rats make an upward movement when they eat, and common mousetraps rely on a downward movement, which is why they sometimes don't work.

They make a larger "rat" model too.

They last for decades if kept in a dry place. []'s

[Shadow]

Yes, we export all our meat to the US. Better a fresh ratburger than putrid rotten meat. What did you have for lunch today ? Salmonella ? []'s

[Danny D.]

The wife just mentioned to me that they were back last night, unbeknownst to me, since she noticed her olive-jar contraption was completely empty of the dried apricot and sunflower seeds she had baited it with.

It's amazing that they stole everything, even down to the very last sunflower seed!

The only thing they left was one dropping.

Whatever they are, they're smarter than I thought they were.