mice in DDs toybox?!?!

[sosurreal09]

What the frig am I suppose to do? These mice are driving me up a wall. The land lord put traps outside and Im like awesome haven't seen any mice in weeks now! No poops along the walls...nothing!

Then I reach into the bottom of DDs toy box to grab a book and what do I find mice poops! After she went to bed I took out all the toys (pretty much everything under the first layer was pooped on..) and all on the bottom of the toy box was mouse poo.

I disinfected what couldnt go in the wash and I put what could in there on hot with soap...

I bleached the toy box...now having second thoughts on that and of course vaccumed it all up.

Now IDEK what to do. how am I suppose to prevent this? Why do you think they were in there of all places?! i mean come on I can't put poison in there or traps of any kind. I can't just leave all her toys lying around all the time. Any way I can deter them from going in there?

[e13lorena]

It might be older poo, maybe she just had something in there that was food or had food on it - they usually poo close to where they it. Just clean it out - it looks like you did and make sure there's not any food near or in the toy box. Give it a couple weeks and if you don't see anything awesome. If you do see some more poo then maybe move the toy box to a different location and place something else there with a trap inside of it - or take all her toys out and place a trap inside for a few days and see what happens. Obsiously you'll have to make sure she doesn't get into it with the trap in there.

Hugs mice can be frustrating especially around our lil' ones things. Hope you're rid of them soon.

[sosurreal09]

thanks me too. I wouldn't mind so much if they didnt carry a bunch of diseases! I mean seriously it's hard with little ones putting everything in there mouths and all of that...ewww

[4evermom]

Yeah, maybe it was old droppings.  Now that you have it all cleaned, you'll know if you still have a mouse if you see new ones.  Maybe dd dropped some crumbs in there...  What you can do now that it is all clean, to discourage them, is to soak cotton balls in peppermint oil and put them in the bottom of the toy box (hopefully the smell doesn't bother dd, maybe another strong smelling thing would work).  Peppermint oil won't keep mice from going to a known food source that they have already discovered, but the smell deters them from investigating the area.  And probably makes it hard for them to smell food in that area.  The oil on the cotton balls needs to be refreshed every week or so.

[cristeen]

Rather than peppermint oil, I just toss mint tea bags into my drawers.  We used to have a really bad mouse problem - and the day I had a mouse jump out of the silverware drawer at me when I opened it was the last straw for me.  Clean everything really well, and then put mint tea bags everywhere.  If you can find how they're getting into the toy box, put one at the hole.  I'd probably put a paper tea bag into a piece of muslin and tie it shut so it doesn't wind up torn and scattered everywhere, but just treat it like a sachet and keep it in the toy box.  So long as she's not dumping food in there, it should work.