Mice in my house!

[suzi1780]

So about a month ago the kitties started staring at one wall in my house. I just thought it was a spider or something but never did find anything. About two weeks after this I found mouse droppings in our storage room on our patio. The wall the kitties had been staring at connects with this storage room, so a light bulb went off. Then a few nights later I came home to find the cats staring at the oven... not a good sign. The next day when my boyfriend got home, the kitties had a present for him, a freshly killed baby mouse right in the middle of the kitchen. And then yesturday we had another one. This one my boyfriend found in the middle of the chin room surrounded by the kitties, he tried to save the poor little thing but it was no use.

First question, if you find a mouse as he did, dying a painful death is it best to put it in a ziploc baggie and into the freezer? We don't want the poor critters to suffer. Or I have also heard you can put them in a ziploc baggie with a cotton ball soaked with nail polish remover, anyone ever heard of this?

Second question, I know where the mice are getting into my house. I have a large hole behind my oven, I could board this up, but will that work? We seem to have a nest in our wall, so who knows how many there are I am really not a fan of killing any critters, do no kill traps work? Or do I just need to suck it up and get one of those no see kill traps?

 

[inzeos]

Don't bored anything up while they are still inhabiting your house. If you seal them in they will starve to death if they cannot get out, in the mean time they will do more damage trying to chew through a wall to escape. Check around and see if you can seal up holes coming from the outside.

I tried no kill traps and did not have much success with them. Not to mention if you release them in the "wild" they are just going to find there way back to your house or your neighbors.

I have had good success with basic plastic spring traps and organic peanut butter. The traps are cheap enough that if your squeamish about disposing, cleaning and reusing that you can just toss it into a bag and into your trash.

You can also consult with an exterminator on what options they might have that do not include fumigation or pesticides, which could effect your chins. They can also often scope (fancy camera) into your walls to determine the extent of the infestation or damage.

I won't argue the merits of kill, no kill or what not. But I think it is a more horrific death to be suffocated in a bag with chemicals than it is to spring trap them. Having had to witness a trap go off while I was baiting another one I can say that particular mouse did not budge or move after the trap was sprung. It was as close to instant as I could provide.

 

[tunes]

I agree with the above. If I have to kill a mouse, I would use a trap over any chemical treatment. They sell the rodent sticks (green blocks) at pretty much any store, but basically they work because the rodent blows up from the inside. Their intestines melt down.

The snap traps are quick and done, plus, if for some unknown reason one of the house critters should find it (a chin or a dog), odds are it will hurt them, but not kill them.

 

[Rickman]

There's usually 10 for every 1 you see!
They don't suffer with a regular trap - SNAP and they're history! Pitch the trap if it's messy - they're inexpensive!
Had the problem a couple of houses ago, never found how they got in, and it took about a week to make them gone - never came back!
Plug the hole with steel wool - they hate that + won't mess with it!
Yes, peanut butter works, or bacon fat!

 

[cmor1031]

If they are breeding, you are going to have A LOT of mice VERY fast. I used to breed mice as snake food (sorry but they have to eat too) and they do multiply very fast.

As for putting the "toyed with" baby mice out of their misery, it depends on how big they are. If they are pinkie mice, as in they have no fur yet, then you can put them in a ziploc and stick them in the freezer.

However, if they already have fur, then freezing them does not kill them fast enough, so if you dont want them to suffer, freezing is not the way to go. The best way to kill these ones is to put them in a bag and hit it really hard against something like a wall (its sad but this works the best, I cannot do this so when it has to be done I have my bf do it, maybe yours will do it for you). This kills them right away, and they don't suffer.

I know it seems gruesome, but I have had to find out the best ways to kill mice and rats and the bag method seems to be easiest if you are only finding a mouse every once in a while.

Hope this helped a bit )

 

[Ash]

There's usually 10 for every 1 you see!
They don't suffer with a regular trap - SNAP and they're history! Pitch the trap if it's messy - they're inexpensive!
Had the problem a couple of houses ago, never found how they got in, and it took about a week to make them gone - never came back!
Plug the hole with steel wool - they hate that + won't mess with it!
Yes, peanut butter works, or bacon fat!

Tell that to the mice we had in Oxford. They ate through steel wool and that foaming stuff used to plug up holes. All mice are different, some things work better than others. Some figure out how to work around the traps, so you may have to try different methods and traps.

 

[inzeos]

The wife put me back on mice duty. We had some in the house when the basement windows were still old wooden frames with glass and the wood was falling apart. This past October we converted to glass block windows and had not seen evidence of mice until this past week. My wife unfortunately found one of her protein bars with a big hole in it, due to at least one mouse feasting it's little brain out. Then the mouse came back and ate half of a hand crafted chocolate of mine, which means out comes the peanut butter. Hoping the little guy visits tonight so I can put the snacks back into the drawer.

 

[3CsMommy]

Peppermint oil on a cotton ball works as a good deterrent for areas you don't want them in, like the pantry, and it smells a lot better than the camphor in moth balls. Scrambling their brains with a pin or the old blunt force trauma is far better than freezing them to death, though neither are easy on the humans doing it. Freezing is about the worst way to go out, so most prefrozen feeder mice and rats (for snakes etc.) are killed with CO2. CO2 chambers can be made at home, and I've done it for one of my fancy mice when the vets office laughed at me instead of making an appointment. It takes a LOT of sodium bicarbonate, though, so unless you find an entire nest of them in your oven, it's probably not worth going to that trouble, sad as that is to say.

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

I have no experience with mice because I live in the middle of no where and we have barn cats and such. but I was wondering, what does peanut butter do to mice?

 

[Melissa]

I have no experience with mice because I live in the middle of no where and we have barn cats and such. but I was wondering, what does peanut butter do to mice?

It attracts mice to the trap and they lick and lick long enough for the trap to snap shut.

 

[jps6882]

We have problems with mice every fall/winter. The best things we have found are the glue traps. We just put them in their run paths, and they get stuck. It is kind of sad watching them try to get free, but then I just think of all the food they ruin, and I am ok with it.

We had tried several types of snap traps, as well as the harmless live traps, and they would just eat the bait off them no matter how little we put in, they always managed to get the food without getting caught. After we switched to the glue pads, we managed to get 4 or 5, and the rest moved on.

We opted not to go with the poison because of a prior experience where they worked. The mouse ate the poison, and then went back to its nest and died. The stench from the walls was terrible, and lasted for months, until it finally decomposed enough to stop. Hope this info helps.

 

[suzi1780]

Thanks for the help everyone. I hope we don't find anymore mice that the kitties have played with. My boyfriend said the last one was very sad, he think the kitties broke its back and it was screaming out in pain/fear. I never knew I had such ruthless cats! My boss recommended the an electronic mouse trap like this, http://www.amazon.com/Victor-M252-Electronic-Mouse-Trap/dp/B000E1RIUU anyone every tried this? I really prefer not to see the dead mouse.

 

[tunes]

The best things we have found are the glue traps. We just put them in their run paths, and they get stuck.

These are the most disgusting, inhumane things I have ever seen. I'm sorry, but I will never, ever use these things again. They are absolutely horrid. A whole family of little babies got stuck in it and the put their noses into the sticky stuff to try and push their way out. It's way past sad to watch them suffocate and die - it's barbaric.

 

[Rickman]

I'd be real careful with those electronic things - chins are rodents too!

 

[Ash]

I don't think the chins are gonna fit in that, Rick...

 

[tunes]

I'd be real careful with those electronic things - chins are rodents too!

Which means you can't use snap traps, poison, glue traps, or electronic traps, because any and all of them will kill chins. Even if a chin could fit in the electronic trap, I'm pretty sure she's got enough sense not to put it somewhere a chin would get at it.

 

[3CsMommy]

There's a reason they put up signs about wet cement and wet asphalt when humans are around; it's a horrible way to die. I think very little of people who don't have the decency to brain the poor creatures they've trapped when they see them caught on a glue pad still living. There's no need to be cruel, barbaric, or sadistic just because of an infestation. Put the darn things out of their misery!

I also refuse to use lethal traps with my mouse, hamster, and chinchilla in the house, but then again we were careful about sealing up any cracks or leaks that might invite wild rodents in and never had a problem in the first place. I didn't have to worry about Crash getting into a mouse trap *ever* until we went to my possible future mother-in-law's house, where she purposely set one with peanut butter in the play room because she didn't want the mice bothering the chinchilla. *eye roll* That type was like a little mousy guillotine that rotated instead of the typical downward snap, and the whole thing was supposed to go straight in the garbage with the mouse in it. Well, the whole thing went into the garbage all right, and the mouse in question was found to have a nest in the closet which hadn't been cleaned out of *her* scrapbooking and card stamping stuff since before my boyfriend got into high school. Found the nest, removed it, laid down moth balls, and it hasn't shown back up yet.

 

[mishellyshel]

having watched a mouse die on a glue trap.........i can say it was very tramatic for both the mouse & myself. occasionally the little fella's find their way into our attic......so i am always looking for humane ways to get them back outside and block up the ways they get in.

do mothballs really work?? i have used steel wool in my area under my stove with success.

 

[Stackie]

These are the most disgusting, inhumane things I have ever seen. I'm sorry, but I will never, ever use these things again. They are absolutely horrid. A whole family of little babies got stuck in it and the put their noses into the sticky stuff to try and push their way out. It's way past sad to watch them suffocate and die - it's barbaric.

Ick- I agree. Phil's parents used them in their house. One night I kept hearing pawing and squeaking in his closet. Opened it up to find a poor little baby mouse stuck to the pad squeaking in pain as he was trying to get his leg and head free. It was probably one of the most horrible scenes I have seen in my life. I honesty had nightmares about it.

 

[cmor1031]

Yeah, glue traps are probably the worst possible route you could take to kill them.