umm...where's the mousetrap?

I have always placed traps behind or under stove (warmth from pilot) or behind fridge - places the kids and pets can't get to.

We got a mouse or two seasonally, late fall, but cured the problem when I began putting cereals, flour, meal and other nibbles into hard containers.

I used poison once, and the mouse died beneath the kitchen sink cabinet. I was able to retrieve the corpse by fishing the vacuum cleaner hose into the space from the drawer cabinet next to it.

Could your glue trap be under the fridge, in the coils or drip pan?

Pet food is a favorite for meese, so leaving it out or leaving crumbs will encourage them. Trash cans or stored clothing in garage also invite them to feed/nest. Hard containers, not cardboard.

Reply to
Norminn
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Upon first sighting, I immediately ran to the neighbor to ask her if she has this issue. She said the same as you - around this time of year, and they keep food stuff in containers. On the west coast we lived with an infestation in the duplex wall of tiny ants, and are still in the habit of keeping everything in ziplock bags, but I guess the mice can get through those. Other cleanliness habits have slipped a bit, I guess I'll have to get back on that. Hard with a toddler, and carpet under the eating area.

Waiting for the mister to get home to inspect more thoroughly. Vermin is his job. He had his suit on this morning, and has school tonight. And anyway, I'd rather have him look after the kids go to bed, as we are trying to keep them from being interested in the traps.

I'll clean out the cat food cupboard tonight, and have some containers to store the food in. I think the cat being hungry all night will go along way towards him doing his job and earning his keep!

Still not fully unpacked, but I think all the clothing and linens currently stored in the garage are all in plastic tubs, but it'll double check.

Reply to
dkhedmo

You then put them outside where the enter the same hole they came into in the first place... :)

Reply to
ephedralover

Thanks for the info, I'll definitely give it a look.

Cheri

Reply to
Cheri

I had a lower corner cupboard in the kitchen that was great for cereal boxes, stock of pasta and flour, etc. All got nibbled by mice when the weather turned cold, so I began using more decorative metal containers, glass jars, etc.

Dog chows are very popular with mice and pet ducks :o)

We had a mouse pile some dog chows around the pilot burner of the dryer (in kitchen) until, late one night, they began to smolder. Got the fire dept. out! Didn't want to go to bed and wake up dead, and the firemen didn't laugh at us. Couldn't figure out what in the world was burning.

Our six-month old schnauzer caught a mouse once, but he could walk right past a rabbit and not even see it. Go figure.

Have to keep pet food and their crumbs cleaned up, as a few crumbs are a mouse meal :o)

Reply to
Norminn

get a kitty. they work.

Reply to
Tater

Kitty is not "playing" with the mousie, he's "practicing" or "training."

Reply to
HeyBub

Yes. That's how you can tell the difference between a "cold front" symbol (^) and a warm-front symbol (reversed U) on a weather map: Cold front symbols are like cold nipples - pointed.

Reply to
HeyBub

Fact: cats sleep up to 16 hours a day.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

You feed your cat too well....

Reply to
professorpaul

But in my case, it is the cat who introduces the mice into the house...

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

I've used snap traps, poison, and glue traps.

Since you bring up glue traps especially, I'll tell you that they worked well for me. The mouse only struggled for about 10 or 20 seconds, and then it stopped and thought about what to do next. At least in the cases where I could see it get caught, which was most of the time since I only set them at a place I can see right now, from my desk chair.

The famous maker of one brand of glue trap, the one I had then, Victor, I think, said on the package or maybe just the website that if you put a little, or some, vegetable oil on the glue trap, the mouse would be freed. But everyone here says you have to take it pretty far from home or it will come back. They know there is food in your house and they know how to get in. So where else would they go, I guess. Is a mile far enough away that they won't make it back??? I know dogs can do 30 miles or more, but they're a lot bigger

But the first time I caught one it was the middle of winter and the middle of the night and 8 inches of snow outside, and I didn't want to go out, so I took my 10 oz. frozen vegetable box out the waste basket (I guess if I threw all my trash outside every night I wouldn't attract mice. Que lastima.) and scooped up the mouse and the glue trap, and put it all in the freezer. I figured that would not be painful, since as I understand it, it's not painful for people when they freeze to death. (Based on what people who have almost frozen to death say.) I don't believe that all mice carry disease, but if this one did, I figured it was like asbestos, not much of a problem unless something stirs it up. So later after the mouse was dead, I threw it away in the trash.

I got rid of all my mice 2 or 3 years ago, but last summer they came back. I leave my front sliding glass door open all summer, with a bar in the channel so no one can get in. I also had two 4-drawer file cabinets in front of the opening (which I have to put in their proper places, but for now, they keep anyone from wanting to break into my house through the open door. And there were holes eaten in both bottom corners of the screen that goes in front of the sliding glass door, so there was little ppoint to closing it, and I didn't. But I put a rat glue trap just inside the open part of the door. When I looked a few days later, it was gone! Without removing the stick, I couldn't open the door more than it was, and it was too much trouble to go inside and move the stick. And from the inside the file cabinets were in the way. I figure when I finally move the file cabinets, maybe I'll find the glue trap.

Then on the one foot high basement window, I have an expandable screen, caulked in place. There was a hole in that too, and a hole much bigger than a mouse needed, but before I foudn the hole, I was in the basement and coming up the steps, and I almost didn't notice it with everything else on the right side of each stair, but there was dead rat!!!! In my house!!!. I guess it was dead. It wasn't moving. I thought it would move when I tried to pick it up but it didn't. I used a piece of corrugated cardboard and slid it under the rat and took it outisde. Didn't know whether to put it in the garbage or not, but it was starting to smell by the next day, so I picked it up on the cardboard, and flung it as far as I could into the woods next to my home. Never saw it or smelled it again. Nor did anyone else, because there is one path

I also have a fan in the window well for expelling... I forget what. Some sort of air I once had. But I put a rat size glue trap between the fan and the screen, and later found that the plastic had been chewed on. I moved it a little to a better location, and later found that it was chewed on more, including a dime size hole right in the middle, in the middle of the glue.

I have no more rats, so this must be the mice!

Also, I noted where the mice went and put a glue trap in its path, and put some food out for bait, but I found the trap moved and the bait eaten. (a little bit of lettuce I was using.) 3 or 4 times. So I boxed in the glue trap with other boxes, like a box of dishwasher soap, etc. too high for him to lean over and get the lettuce, and still he got the lettuce without getting stuck.

Up until these 3 incidents last summer, the mouse might not get stuck, but he never moved or ate the trap. Something seems to have changed. Now that I've been keeping the doors and windows closed for the last week or two, I'm going to make a new assault on them, complete with organize testing to see how good they are at getting the foot without getting caught in the glue or snap trap.

I can't help thinking the cheap glue traps I bought just weren't as sticky the ones from prior years. I never had any of these problems until last summer.

We had mouse for a few months (out of 12 yars) when I lived in Brooklyn. I set snap traps and my roommate spoke to me with scorn. He said that the snap traps were cruel. I said what is the alternative? He said, a cat. I said, so how about bringing your cat for a couple weeks. He said he wouldn't because of the boric acid we had for the roaches. But unlike some silly people, we didn't put the boric acid everywhere, only behind the stove where no one could see it, and where if the cat could get back there, we could have blocked it off so it couldn't.

But regardless, if he didnt think it right to put a cat in our apartment, why was he scornful of the snap traps?

But I'm not quick-witted so I didn't think of and of these come-backs.

Later, I was awake or the trap going off woke me up, and I noted that the mouse only whined for about 5 or 8 seconds. At the time I thought he was dead by that point, but now with my experience on the glue traps, I know he might just have been thinking aobut what to do next. I don't know how long it took for him to die.

And it took me more than a year to realize, a death by cat is not quick or unscary either. Cat's torment mice before killing them. That's where the term "cat and mouse" came from in part. EVen after they catch them, cats don't kill them right away, in my limited experience. The only one I saw a cat swallow was dead (Mike had thrwn a shoe or boot at him and killed him.) and when someone put the mouse down in front of the seemingly sleeping cat, the cat did nothing for 5 seconds, and all of a sudden scooped upt the mouse and put it in his mouth. But he didn't swallow him or do anything to kill him. Maybe that is because teh mouse was already dead, but I have a feeling if he had been alive, the cat would have continued to torment him.

I wish I had remembered to tell my roommate all this. He later turned into a jerk, or maybe he was one already. He asked my to move with him, but I didn't want to leave my nice apartment. So he moved anyhow, and I found someone (a single young woman as it turned out) to rent his room in September. But he wasn't leaving until October, and a third roommate told me he had rented a new place and was painting or something. So I told him if he wanted to move out in the middle of the month, he would only have to pay for the part of the month he was there. i said that would help him and the new roommate who was staying several miles away until he moved out. He said, "If I find anything or anyone in my room before I move out, I will break it or her." I don't know why or what was bothering him. We were never friends again, for some reason.

Reply to
mm

Unless, of course, you have one of those cats that likes to bring them home to play with.

Bob

Reply to
Bob F

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