I need help with a mouse problem

Ok, this is especially a question for those of you with pets. I'm at my girlfriend's place and we have a dog here, so she doesn't want to use poison to get rid of the mice (possibly rats - eek!), which I understand. We could try live traps, I guess, but I don't think it would work, because the places the rodents are hanging out aren't places where we can reach to put and retrieve the traps. I'm going to try covering the one whole in the wall that I can see, but there are probably others behind cabinets and things that we can't see.

Any ideas on the best way to get rid of them? We just cleaned the floor in the kitchen (lots of crap behind the fridge and under the stove), and I hope that helps, but apart from that and cover the whole, I don't know what to do (these things have worked in the past).... and puppy won't do anything about it.

Am assuming you are finding the evidence of mice in the kitchen area? Best way to get rid of them is first, do what you are doing - sealing off all openings. Caulk around pipes under the sink, pull out the appliances, seal everything that even looks like it might be an opening. Mice can get in through the smallest of openings. Clean up all crumbs, keep a cover on the kitchen waste can. The only thing I can recommend is poison specifically for mice - the kind I used was a pellet type - and put a baby gate up to keep the pup out of the kitchen. That's what I did with my dog. It will take several days. I haven't had any problems since - I think primarily because I sealed and caulked around pipes and any openings. Good luck!

if they die in your walls the stink can be worse than the mice. use old fashioned snap traps. bait with cheese (its easier to re bait a trap with cheese). put them where you find droppings. check the traps daily, if the bait hasn't been touched, re bait the trap and move it to a new location. once you get a hit(s) keep putting the trap(s) in the same locations until several days pass without new hits. if you see one there are six to twelve you don't. (oh and, snap traps are cheap so i discard the trap with the mouse and just set new traps).

i get a new group of field mice in here every fall when the weather turns cold. when i see droppings i set traps and the problem gets fixed quick.

sealing openings is a good idea, but if they want in they will find a way.

is why I had to resort to poison but making sure everything was sealed first prevented any from dying in the walls - for me at least. Removed two from under my kitchen sink. And believe it or not, when my elec. company's meter reader came out to take a reading, he found two inside the meter box.

is i had a job in a liquor store once and we had a mouse problem. we set traps everywhere and got all of the little buggers. someone forgot they had set a trap under a wooden display case and the dead mouse got ripe under there.

i couldn't believe so much stink from one little mouse...

I was a bit overrun with the buggers when I first moved into this house - it had sat empty for quite a bit and is the middle of the woods. Now I've a black snake living under my porch and it eats really well :)

they won't chew through that although they will try to chew through the caulk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK92NYwBMts



A typical case, whom we shall refer to as "Mr. A" — although his real name is this:

ARTHUR JACKSON,
32a MILTON AVENUE,
HOUNSLOW
MIDDX.

"If Oedi doesn't post a YouTube link to that Monty Python sketch, I'm going to!" :rofl: Glad you came through there, my friend. :hi:

For I am the appropriately named...

;) :rofl: :hug:

Excellent graphic, by the way - that made me laugh out loud. :D I suppose I'll have to praise your wittiness in another thread, though, since you do not appear to be appearing in this one... :silly: :hug: :hi:

I'll send Concorde around to pick it up. Or Algy. :)

Hiring this fellow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9nGyPz9uT0

The dog could care less about all the mice in the world but goes crazy trying to chase after the neighbour's cat, so bringing a cat in here would be a big disaster.

live traps ... ugly but the colony soon learns and moves on.

Put all dry products in sealed plastic containers. Leave NO food out. Also check for external entry points to seal up and clear any debris/brush from outside. But if any are trapped in/die in the walls, you'll have a whole secondary problem of smell.

Might want to call a professional and ask their opinion.

That's what I did when I bought a mobile home many, many moons ago.

I had mice (a few) and black widow spiders and fire ants. :scared:

I finally had to call an exterminator. He got them all! ;)

..They love, are you ready???............CHETTOS.......you know those curlly cheese things..you will catch them...

They were all over the teacher's lounge years ago...we got rid of them all.........

A small piece of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Apparently they love chocolate in their peanut butter....or peanut butter in their chocolate.

i dont have a kitty anymore, but this time i didnt use traps, like i always do

i used poison, and the mouse went crazy........and finally kicked....
:hi:

http://www.nixalite.com/ratzapper.aspx


I've seen these Rat zappers for sale at OSH. It still kills the mouse/rat but it's a lot less painful than the snap trap and that horrible, heinous glue trap.

I've used the "humane" trap that sticks them in a cage and you let them go in a field, but I've since found out from a biologist that the mouse most likely dies anyway. The animal doesn't aclimate well to a strange environment and probably becomes fodder for a predator pretty quickly.

But the best solution? Feline. Humans have used kitties for this purpose ever since Egyptians became an agricultural society and needed to protect the grain stash in their silos. Phonecians took them on their ships to keep the rats down and populated a lot of Europe with them. I rescued mine from the shelter 6 years ago for that expressed purpose, only to find that once the rats were gone, I loved her for other reasons!

Adopt a feline or two. A shelter can probably suggest which ones they have that should make good hunters. Kitties get a new home, the rodents flee or get caught by said kitties, you get lots of love from said kitties once the pests are gone. Everybody wins, except said rodents. :)

i would suggest that everyone do so even if you've never seen a mouse.

but if you want to rid yourself of mice, a trap is a much better way to go. mice are nocturnal, and if your kitties are anything like mine they are fast asleep on your bed with you while the mice are running about in the kitchen cabinets. you set the traps in the cabinets where kitties can't go. keep the bait fresh. then you just toss the mice away in the morning while your kitties are *still* asleep on your bed.

besides, if kittie did catch a mouse, kittie would be *so* proud kittie would make it a present to you. on your pillow or in your shoe...

Never mind.

They work, but messy if dog gets into them!

I prefer using a cat. No poison to worry about, so no smell, and they are self emptying, unlike a trap. I haven't had a mouse in my house in years (except for the ones that Toots catches outside and brings in to brag about).

if there's bait inside, they'll come check it out.

We just had a mouse get inside here recently and my grandparents wanted to put out poison, but I managed to catch the little guy and let him loose outside without having to resort to that. I named him Magellan, because he set out to circumnavigate the house, but never quite made it.

Mice stay away here, because of the cat. He only killed a few, but the scent seems to keep them away.

You've already paid them to get rid of the pests. They will come and do the job at no extra cost. If you have a crawl space under the house they can put poison blocks under there where your dogs can't get to them. They can also put those blocks in places such as behind the washer dryer, etc. where the mice go, but the dogs can't. The mice will eat the poison, and leave the house and die before they can come back. A day after this is done, you won't have any problems.

steel wool. They can't chew through that stuff.

doesn't mean the mouse came into the house through the kitchen. if you want to seal up the house you have to seal up the house, if you know what i mean.

but then again this advice came from *rateyes* so perhaps i should defer...

:)

Doesn't everybody defer to me? :shrug: :D

the traps will work best if they are put in places where the dog cannot get to. Try everything, and you should make progress: snapping traps, poison, the sticky goo stuff. Shove poison back into the hole and cover. I have found this to be challenging in a macho kind of man against vermin way. A trip to the local hardware store and buy one of everything. Then get ready to line up the bodies of the intruders!


Or:

Turn it over to the landlord, with a statement like "gee, we really need your help, I'd hate for the health department to get involved with this rat problem..." This got my son out of a lease in 5 minutes.

We're just really sissies and afraid to use snapping traps. If they come back, we may have to though. No point in trying to get out of the lease, because the gf is moving in July or August anyway. The land lord probably would help - he's a really nice guy, but also probably the ultimate cause of the mice/things - he owns the whole building and runs a restaurant on the ground floor. I would imagine that he doesn't want mice running around that place. I'm definitely going to try the steel wool. I am a little afraid of putting it in one of the wholes, because it's a place where there is some electrical wiring. I'm not really worried about electrocuting myself, but I don't want to freak out future tenants by having them look into a hole and seeing what they think may be live, unshielded wiring.

Oh, that type of mouse........ ;)

way to go.