mice?

[melissarana]

Help! I’m not sure what to do.  My family just moved into a new (to us!) home, and pretty  quickly realized that we have a bit of a mice situation, our uninvited “mouse-guests” as we’ve been calling them.  Anyways, we’re vegan and really not interested in harming the mice, but it doesn’t seem like a great idea (sanitary? hygienic? destructive?) to give them free range of our house.  Especially since we have 3 young children.  What would you do?  Is there an effective, humane approach?

Any suggestions would be great!  Especially since people around here typically just use the “get an exterminator” approach…

Thanks!

[Naturopath Mom]

I haven't had a mouse problem in my adult years, but when I was a teen living with my parents my mom let me use live traps. I got it from PeTA and I think it only cost around $11 then. I would bait them, they'd get trapped and then I would release them far enough away so they wouldn't come back. I think live mouse traps should be easy enough to find.

[number572]

can't seem to delete this, the quote box in the next one either... sorry!

Edited by number572 - 11/16/10 at 4:50am

[number572]

Originally Posted by number572 

I own a home in a forest area in south florida.  I never had a problem while I lived there for six years... always keeping any uncanned or unsealed edibles in the fridge , if they were opened, kept them in a rubbermaid or other sealable container.  Never had an issue.

I rented my house there for a year recently, and came back to an infested home.  Roaches, roof rats, etc.

I went about cleaning the place almost daily including washing the floors with PineSol (said to be a rat and roach deterrent) for the first few weeks, and then also added swiping the floors with Peppermint oil (used like a swiffer like treatment, sort of wiping the already cleaned floors with it, putting a few drops of the peppermint oil on the pad).  I now wash the floors about every two weeks and do the peppermint oil when I wash the floors.

You'll also want to check for openings in your walls around pipes (where the sink pipes go into the walls, etc)  You can place steel wool, make sure its the right grade... on the back of the package it will say "for rodent repellant" etc.  Pour some PineSol down the space and then stuff it with the steel wool.  Use gloves, the steel wool can cause you some pain if you don't.

I was here, infested and no more than two weeks later after sealing off all food and diligently cleaning, two weeks and they were all gone.  Not one little footprint by roach or mouse/rat since I have been using these cleaners and keeping all food stored appropriately.

It can be done!  Buy some peppermint oil and put all edibles in lock-tite containers or the fridge.  Its really not that big of a deal to live pest free without chemical warfare.

Oh, you also HAVE to keep your trash in a sealed container.

Food and trash in sealed spaces are absolute MUST DO's... or else you'll probably want to call an exterminator.

ANY/ALL food or food wrappers, or trash, left even for a few hours... that will call mice for sure.  I've noticed it within a day of an "ooops" food situation... they know when you mess up and leave something out.

The only way I've found to do this successfully without chem's has been to be on top of it 24/7

EVERYTHING sealed, and all trash sealed with steel flip top cans, etc.

Edited by number572 - 11/15/10 at 7:23pm

[number572]

sorry, tech issues!  can't erase this post.

Edited by number572 - 11/16/10 at 4:51am