a mouse question

M

merrybaker

Cathlete
I suddenly have mice in my house . My cat of 11 years past away at x mas time ... Anyhow,this am, I saw 6 times while I was working out a mouse run by ... Ick ick ick . I'm not ready for another cat ,I have Big Dogs ,An Akita and a 7 month old Saint Barnard , .So My question is .... Can I or should I DECON the mice ? I'm affraid cuz my dogs will eat mice , Also where do they go die ??? .... They are trap smart LOL !!!!I'm thinking I might have no choice but to get a cat !!! Help I hate those things in my house !!!! One even ran across my sons foot while he was pee ing this am LOL x( x( x( .
 
Sounds like you have a lot of mice. We live in the country so in the fall we always seem to have one or two sneak in the house. We have mouse traps. I don't suggest the poison because you have other pets. Also, when the mice eat the poison they die in your house and will start to stink really bad (and you probably won't be able to find it). The traps work real well for us. In fact, we haven't found one in about a year.

Joanne
 
they're so nasty aren't they? We have them too and they like to make their home in the back of the oven...so gross! We resorted to the trap that looks like a house, they go inside to get the food and...well, you know. This worked for a while but we had to resort to poison - we have a dog, and he would kill (not eat) a mouse but only if it was moving. All the mice that ate the poison either died right next to it or went outside to die (supposedly it makes them very thirsty so they seek water). Try the traps and see what happens, keep moving it around and change up the bait. Cheese and dog food worked the best for us.
 
I live in a pretty urban area & I get them all the time, especially when it's cold out, they basically migrate into my basement. And they are VERY difficult to get rid of. Our town health officer kept putting poison in the basement & he said after 3 weeks that I was feeding a minimum of 40 mice. I don't know how that could be--I'm thinking it was probably 4-5 really hungry ones.

Anyway, there are several different traps you can get & set poison on them, & there's also the Have a Heart traps which are basically trap & release thingies. But my suggestion is to call an exterminator--other than a cat it's pretty much the only sure way to get rid of them.
 
You really need to find where they are getting in your house. Look around the foundation, fireplace on the outside wall. They can fit into the tiniest of cracks. A house we had in CT we would find a mouse a day in the traps we set. We found a very,very small crack in the brick of the fireplace outside the house. We stuck foil into the crack. Mice usually do not chew foil. It worked!! No more mice.

Good luck :)
 
We've had good luck putting peanutbutter in the traps, or buying the sticky traps. The mouse runs across the trap and its feet get stuck to it and it dies. We've also used the poison in the past, and they do sometimes die in the walls or somewhere unknown to us. And yes, that does smell very bad for a couple of days.
 
One thing that will get rid of your mice in a hurry...rats! Though it's probably not a prefered option! LOL! My department chair once lived in a house where rats had taken up residence under the house. He was told by the exterminator that as long as there were rats there, he'd never see a mouse. (But he DID get rid of the rats!)
 
I used to get them at my old house too. It was an older house with lots of nooks and cracks for them to sneak in. Nothing like finding mouse poo in your cutlery drawer - ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

We found traps worked best. And peanut butter worked for us too. A friend of mine just had the same problem and sealed up every crack she could find with that expanding foam stuff (you can get it at Home Depot). She hasn't had any since she did that.

Last year I had a mommy raccoon and her five babies living in my fireplace. They started in the chimney, then she managed to open the damper and get into the fireplace. I barricaded it off, but by the end, she was almost pushing the barricades out of the way (two large boards, a table loaded with books, two chairs loaded with weight plates), and the babies were so noisy at night and when they were hungry. And she would growl if you went near the fireplace. It was awful.

Good luck with your mice!
 
We just dealt with a minor mouse problem recently, and we actually HAVE a cat!! The real kicker is that one of the places where we noticed mouse activity was in a cupboard right next to where he eats! He's lucky he doesn't have to work for his food. :)

Anyway, we also found the traditional trap with peanut butter method to do the trick. We put one in every place where we found their...ahem...evidence. Yuck!
 
Hi Mary,

The most humane and probably the most efficient thing to do is to purchase a professional trap called a tin cat. It's like a steel maze that the mice go into and can't get out. Once they are in, you can release them outside. There is also a smaller one called the run way that holds one or two mice. They aren't expensive and last forever, although I hope you'll only need to use them once! The link below has a better explanation ans pics:

http://www.pestproducts.com/tin_cat.htm
 
Thank you all ... I'm leaning towards the cat !!!But will try peanutbutter traps for now . I hope they arent up playing in the am for my workout .}( }( }(
 
I don't know if it really works, but a friend of mine swears by an electronic device that emits a high-pitched noise. Says she hasn't had a mouse problem in years..though..hrm...with dogs I suppose you couldn't use it.

My cat died this past winter, too, and I'm just waiting for the first mouse to skitter across my living room. Ick. Then again, my cat used to bring me mice as presents regularly.
 
>I don't know if it really works, but a friend of mine swears
>by an electronic device that emits a high-pitched noise. Says
>she hasn't had a mouse problem in years..though..hrm...with
>dogs I suppose you couldn't use it.
>

These kind of devices aren't supposed to bother most pets (except gerbils and hamsters and other rodents).
 
I vote for a cat...your son my like the cat. It sounds like your other cat (may she/he rest in peace) kept them too afraid to come anywhere near the house.

Mice can flatten paper thin! Seriously, I think their skeletons are designed to colapse. They are icky, I know your feeling!
 
My sister is moving to a house in the country in a month, and the current owners have one of those boxes that emits the high-pitched noise. It works really well, and they have two dogs, so it obviously doesn't bother them.
 
Get the electronic device! Dogs and cats don't hear the noise - they aren't bothered at all. I've never seen a mouse or rat in my house since I started using the device 15 years ago, but I know they're around, because I've seen them in the yard and the greenhouse.
 
I have the electronic device and it doesn't do anything to any of the rodents. I also live in the country. Unfortunately for me, the only thing I can use if I want them to stay out of the house is traps with PB or cheese. I have dogs and 2 in particualr that are prey crazy that would eat the mice so I can't use poison.

Colleen
 
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