HELP!! We have mice!! What to do??

[guest^]

And we also have a cat who hunts for them, but now I am seeing droppings in a kitchen cupboard.

I have never dealt with this before, and am clueless! Aren't traps gross, as they would send blood flying everywhere? I won't expose my family to toxins,so can't go there.

Any BTDT? Advice??

TIA! : :

mp

[DarkHorseMama]

Cantcha just *blink* them away? Oh wait, that's Samantha in Bewitched.

We just got rid of a whack of mice in our house. I took the high road for three months with no-kill traps, and the furry little bastards laughed at me and made more mice. Then we tried the "no-see-em-get-killed" traps, and those didn't work either. After much ugly discussion, DH and I finally decided to get the snap traps. Two weeks later, we were mouse-free.

The caveat to getting the snap traps was that I told DH that HE was in charge of disposal duties. Guess what? : After the first one was caught, he couldn't do it...so I had to take over.

I was surprised at how little mess and fuss they made. 80% of them were caught square and died instantly. We had them in our pantry, too (closet-style pantry). I was worried about having little children in the house with snap traps (4 yo DD and nearly 2 yo DS). DD took it upon herself to make a Warning! No Kids! sign with DH. ( see pic here ) That's her and DS in the middle with the "no" circle-line through them.

[`guest`]

I had to use kill traps too, and found the mice gone within a week. I was worried cause they were field mice, about droppings, theres some nasty diseases you can get. It was sad, but I figure mice belong outside, not in my house!

[laprettygurl]

Our cats are useless. Snap traps all the way. If they're still alive I give them to my dog who kills them instantly.

[spero]

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

Kill. KILL. KILL.

Experienced mouse-murdering mama here. Snap traps generally break the little buggers' necks, kill them instantly, and there's usually little or no blood - and it certainly doesn't "fly everywhere", so don't worry.

[QueenOfThePride]

And wash your cupboards with bleach until you are sure they are gone.

[kimmie-pooh]

We have mice in our garage, but I haven't found any evidence of mice in our house yet. We were warned about them because we live in that kind of area, several lakes with nature preservation.

Since they are only in our garage, should I use the traps to prevent them from coming in? Would that be wrong? Is it a guarantee that they will come into the house?

Sorry to hijack your post!

[calngavinsmom]

Originally Posted by kimmie-pooh

We have mice in our garage, but I haven't found any evidence of mice in our house yet. We were warned about them because we live in that kind of area, several lakes with nature preservation.

Since they are only in our garage, should I use the traps to prevent them from coming in? Would that be wrong? Is it a guarantee that they will come into the house?

Sorry to hijack your post!

I know that from our experience, the mice only seem to come in when the weather turns cold. If you don't live in an area that experiences seasonal weather changes you *might* be O.K. Just my experience though, please don't go on just me

To the OP: Snap traps here too. I tried the nokill as well, no dice. The snaps kill quick, and make no mess from our experience. We have had mice twice in 7 years here, both after the first really cold snap of winter. With these, they are gone in days. Not nice, but neither are the droppings I found in my baking cupboard :

Take care,
Tara

[kimmie-pooh]

We have true seasons here. I am in Colorado. Not as cold as some other places can get, but I'm sure it gets cold enough for the mice not to like the outdoors.

Thanks! I'll talk to dh about getting traps.

[bonbon mama]

maybe give your cats access to all cupboards and rooms by leaving the doors open at night? Until they are gone, refrigerate whatever food you can and put the rest in your picnic cooler.

for the record, i am allergic so we use traps!

[guest^]

THankyou!!!!!!!

I will get some firstthing in the morning.

We are *still* in the middle of remodeling and have the door to my food cupboard off. I'm sure that helps!! :

Should I start in the attic,basement, or wherever I just see the droppings??

Having a MAJOR family crisis, so may just read and not post-so thanks!!!!!

mp

[Sherra]

Two things that have helped us and we have been mouse free for a year:

1) Sprinkled borax powder along the baseboards (be careful of crawling children though) and areas that you notice droppings. THey do not like it and that is where they tend to go.

and

2) Get some steel wool from a hardware store and stuff it in holes you think they are coming out of. They HATE to chew on it. I credit this as THE main reason we haven't had mice back. Good luck finding holes!

[CathToria]

IME, you need to figure out where they are coming in, and seal it up to keep them (and their large family lineage ) from coming back in.

We used snap traps too, though we only had them in teh attic : . I hate them, and have no problem with the traps. We had our attic "sealed" (basically hardware cloth over any attic opening) (by a rodent company dude) and have had no problems in 2 years! Dh still traps them outside just to try and cut down on the population in our neighborhood.

[becca011906]

I fully agree kill kill kill the mice... we had a huge problem about 3 years ago, it was very bad... i hated it!!! we had about 10-12 caught with in 2 nights... then we found out we had a rat... SO GROSS!!! We live in the middle of 4 corn feilds on all sides and a trailer that is so easy for thoes to get into... it was nasty. the next year we had to put poison under out trailor and haven't gotten any in the house since... they natraly come out into the open (out from under the trailor) once they have been poisioned so we don't have a bunch of dead mice/rats under out house... but the snap traps worked best here too!

[spero]

Originally Posted by becca011906

We live in the middle of 4 corn feilds on all sides and a trailer that is so easy for thoes to get into... it was nasty. the next year we had to put poison under out trailor and haven't gotten any in the house since... they natraly come out into the open (out from under the trailor) once they have been poisioned so we don't have a bunch of dead mice/rats under out house... but the snap traps worked best here too!

We had the same thing when we lived in our 30-yr old mobile home, it was just absolutely impossible to keep the vermin out. We live between a corn field/pumpkin patch, woods, river, and a marsh; so we had everything crawling in - mice, rats, squirrels, muskrats, moles, chipmunks. We also did the poison underneath the trailer, and I saw a big reduction in the population after that...the reason they don't stay and die is that the poison makes them really thirsty, so they'll go off in desperate search of water after eating it.

How I wish we'd had our tomcat back in those days. I haven't seen evidence of mice since we got him over a year ago...I know they're still around (in the garage & basement), but Sammy keeps them out of the house.

[wynkenblynken&nod]

We had mice. Then we got Peppermint essential oil. No more mice. Mice don't like peppermint. I don't like mice. That makes me LOVE peppermint.

[abandbunk]

Sorry to bump an old thread! But we are having a mouse issue too! : We have just one mouse and having been setting out traps nightly for 3 weeks and he STILL hasn't gotten caught, this happened last year, we had two mice and they were gone in 2 days w/the traps, this guy however is not intersted in getting in the traps at all : , I don't know what the problem is, we have tried cheese and peanut butter and either way he is just not interested enuf to go in them! Anyone have any ideas? I'm starting to get worried we will never be able to get rid of him!

[DarkHorseMama]

We didn't use bait traps, but pressure traps. Like these. The bait traps can be really finicky to set and the release plate is so small that the mouse can often get around them and still not set them off. In the case of the traps we used, we lined four of them up against the wall with the pressure plates facing the hole they were using. They simply *had* to go over them to get into or out of the hole.

If you don't have a specific hole, like we did, you put them along the walls where the mice run. Mice typically run along a wall as opposed to across an open space. Put the trap in the path of the mouse and they will go over it. Whammo!

[CathToria]

we also had a hard time trapping our last uninvited boarder : .... until we figured out and moved the trap right into his path... we could see the path on the insulation in our attic.

my nieghbor, who got them in her attic right after us, sent me this article....... gotta read this if you're fighting rodents!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/08/mou....ap/index.html

[wynkenblynken&nod]

I say again...peppermint essential oil. They were gone within two days. I don't know why, but don't fix what's not broken!

Of course, I used drops around every possible entrance into the walls (even the ones that seemed too small) and put a drop every foot or so around the room. I've been using my bottle now for several months and I've used it a lot in my detergent. Then, mice don't like the clothes either! SO, I really recommend it. I've got 3/4 of a bottle left and plenty of mice bane to go.