Rodent infestation

[Rontele]

So it appears we may have some mice living in our house. Finding droppings, etc. I have the exterminator coming out on Friday, but would like to take some proactive measures. Please post some advice in addition what I am thinking...

Currently, I believe they are entering through a hole where a pipe comes up underneath our kitchen sink. I have filled that hole with steel wool and will try to get something to put on top.

Placed decon by that hole and have noticed it being eaten, but still finding droppings. Think I need to ratchet it up with traps tonight when I get home from work.

Also thinking I should probably put some traps in the furnace room. Anywhere else?

I think they decided our house would be a good place to live after they tore down the home next to us (those folks did not live very clean).

[cramer]

well i can give advice on the traps. Those sticky ones work like a charm. We had a mouse running in and out of our outside storage closet. Through 2 of them down in there. I caught 2 mice with one trap. One was dead when i got home from work. He was in the middle of the thing. The other one just his back legs were caught. He was trying to wiggle free, probably all day, haha. My buddy is who told me about them. he had them in the house like you.


Good luck!

[Rontele]

I have heard the sticky ones don't work well because it scares the crap out of them and they urinate thus increasing the chances of HANTA (my primary concern). However, I am pretty sure these are just your garden variety house mice and not deer mice (hanta carriers)...

[Buster Highmen]

Solution: cat.

[RootSkier]

Be careful of FULL BLOWN HANTAVIRUS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alias]

I would go traps. NOT the decon/poisen route. Problem with poisen is that it will kill the mice - SOMEWHERE in your house. maybe in between the walls wehre it will rot and stick for weeks/months to come.

Buy the cheap old wooden with a "V" on em mouse traps. Buy like a dozen.

Mice run along walls - I think it is because they are blind. Set em up along the walls by your garbage bin, in your pantry, freaking everywhere.

Clean up thier markings and make sure there is no food on the ground.

Then go outside your house with a calk gun and some "great stuff" and your steel wool.

Look for anything bigger than the size of a dime that leads inside, cause that's all they need. Stuff in steel wool, calk the outside and great stuff the inside. Now it is mouse proof and insulated.

[Yeti]

Granola advice:

(1) cat.
(2) peanut butter + trap.

As for traps, I've used the Victor snaps (traditional wood and wire) and plastic "live catch" box trap (which still kills them unless you check your trapline more than daily), but what has consistently worked best are the plastic snaptraps (V-shaped) baited with peanut butter. I thin my field-mouse herd with them.

One summer, I lived in a house in the woods that had been vacant for years. It was the ancestral mouse house. Solution: 5 gallon bucket, with peanut butter smeared around the walls 5" below the rim, and with a board ramp up to the lip. Mice climb up, reach down, fall in. Fill the bottom with water for a kill trap, or leave it dry to catch many live mice.

If you wish, taxidermy your prey and make a real computer mouse.


Oh, and chuck the d-con. Want toxics spread about your house?

[Steven S. Dallas]

Farnsworth'll take care of that shit.

[pechelman]

i can let you borrow farnsworth


just tell T that she has to live somewhere else for the week the "exterminator" is working.

[Yeti]

Ah, and since I love our furry friends, here's a meadow vole that got a bit frisky while we skied across a field last week.

[Stymie]

Best mouse trap ever...



I've tried all the rest and nothing works better than these- and removing the dead mouse is easy.

[lionelhutz]

Honestly despite the fact that I hate cats- they sure do cure that rodent problem.
My parents live in a house that's over 150 years old- it's built like swiss cheese. Every year we see mice scurry somewhere. As long as they aren't in your food areas leaving droppings then you can assume they are just looking to get out of the cold and aren't "infesting" your house. use traps and get rid of the few that there are. If you see poopy where you keep your cereal -well then you know they have found your food and will come back until they realize there's no food there.
best advice- move the food for a short time, store it very well in plastic containers (though they can chew right through that shit if they want) and leave no food trash around. Place some traps in the area and hope they go away. Since you'll want to put your food back-- I'd prob. avoid the poison route...you know food + poison = bad.

[Rontele]

Honestly despite the fact that I hate cats- they sure do cure that rodent problem.
My parents live in a house that's over 150 years old- it's built like swiss cheese. Every year we see mice scurry somewhere. As long as they aren't in your food areas leaving droppings then you can assume they are just looking to get out of the cold and aren't "infesting" your house. use traps and get rid of the few that there are. If you see poopy where you keep your cereal -well then you know they have found your food and will come back until they realize there's no food there.
best advice- move the food for a short time, store it very well in plastic containers (though they can chew right through that shit if they want) and leave no food trash around. Place some traps in the area and hope they go away. Since you'll want to put your food back-- I'd prob. avoid the poison route...you know food + poison = bad.

Yup. No dropping by the pantry. Primarily limited to the den and underneath the sink (which makes me think they are getting out of the cold).

[cramer]

If you wish, taxidermy your prey and make a real computer mouse.

hehe, nice.

[iceman]

I killed two last night, the old-fashioned Victor traps with the yellow fake cheese bait and a dab of peanut butter work perfect although they're a little touchy to set up. You just throw the whole thing out after it kills, the traps are cheap enough.

Otherwise what everyone said, put them along walls especially where you see poop. It's pretty impossible to mouse-proof a house of any size so just be as thorough as you can be and then be aware of signs that they have returned and then trap them.

Sticky pads are cruel and poison is potentially dangrous and like alias said, the mice can crawl anywhere to die. a dead mouse in a wall smells pretty bad.

[Rontele]

I'll throw out the decon tonight when I get home from the office. I always thought that they ended up outside to die...

[RootSkier]

I did too...I thought Decon made them dehydrated so they went looking for water.

[Hutch]

Just set up a habitrail from the hole where they were getting in that leads into the garbage disposal.

[iceman]

I did too...I thought Decon made them dehydrated so they went looking for water.

Maybe mostly it does, not sure. But it definitely doesn't always send them outside, I know that for a fact.

[pechelman]

lets be honest here though
farnsworth couldnt catch his peen if he went down on himself, let alone a moving mouse

you should take care of this problem the way we did in college.



+




though we were fighting large rats who had one and only one entrance and escape, so we sat right infront of it and camped out until they showed their face. id also post the 15minute exposure from where we were sitting in the dark, but its on my home computer.


we also had one of these for me



one of these for my friend geoff



and last but not least, one of these for Ry

[PNWbrit]

I always thought that they ended up outside to die...

Like some kind of mousey version of the elephant's graveyard?

I have the exterminator coming out on Friday

for a couple of mice?

thus increasing the chances of HANTA (my primary concern).

As previously suggested the answer (on so many levels) is - pussy.

[guest]

I have mice and my landlord initially went the decon route.

On New Year's day, I pull my mtb shoes out of my gear bag, dumping what look like green jimmies (or sprinkles, if you prefer) all over the cab of the man-friend's truck. Slightly hungover (okay, still hammered) it took me a moment to realize I had just dumped poison all over the place. Initally, I thought someone was trying to kill me but I realized those little fuckers were burrowing in my shoes and storing "food" for the winter.

A day later, I came home to three or four partially digested mice on my doormat left by a kitty-fan I didn't know I had. Which caused me to be totally paranoid about killing any neighborhood cats with my toxic mice.

Decon=bad.

[GiBo]

Don't call the exterminator. I had a major rat problem a couple of years ago. They took up residence in the attic. Called they exterminator and he told me to just trap them because that's all he would do and then he'd have to charge me for him to come every few days and change the traps.

I sealed every place I saw an opening around my house. Then I set traps in the attic and on the fences (I would see them running the fences at night). I killed over 20 rats! It was crazy. But it did the trick. I've been rat free ever since.

Ok, not to hijack, but I have to relay this one little story: During this rat war, I heard some rat noises above my furnace which is right near my bathroom door. I was walking (naked) from my room to the bathroom to take a shower and was so sick of the goddamn rats that when I heard it I opened the door to the furnace closet and slammed it a couple of times to scare the rats. So I go into the bathroom and start to shower. Something catches my eye- a damn rat must have fallen through the opening from the attic and then slipped out as I was slamming the door and ended up following me into the bathroom! So there I was, naked with a rat trapped in the bathroom with me. So I finish the shower and dry off. Luckily, there was a copy of Couloir on the counter. So I rolled it up, got out and smashed the little fucker. Man that was a weird feeling. I felt like a fucking cave man standing there naked with blood on my feet and my makeshift club in hand.

Also killed two in the garage with a wiffle bat.

Good times.

[gorms]

COMPLETE THERMONUCLEAR DESTRUCTION

I loathe mice. Had them in a place in S. Boulder....nightmare.
Glue traps/peanit butter anywhere you have seen droppings, along the base boards, under the sink.....everywhere.

Yes they are a little cruel, but you didnt ask those little fahkers to come in and shit in your cookware.


Also walk the perimeter of your house with that spray/foam stuff and seal anything......

[guest]

I did too...I thought Decon made them dehydrated so they went looking for water.

Decon is an anti-coagulant; it causes massive internal bleeding.