What you need to understand is that most people on a chicken forum have no idea what it’s like to live in a city building. When you said basement, this guy was assuming you meant the basement of your home, it’s pretty rude to suggest they’re doing drugs because you haven’t been clear about the setup of your housing.
people are sugar coating this for you, but rodents are bad for your health. I’m really sick of my favorite stores and restaurants going out of business, my kids can’t socialize, people around me are literally going crazy from being in their homes alone, and don’t get me started on vaccines being pushed on us with worse side effects than the illness, but when a real threat like hoardes of disease carrying rodents is brought up, people act like it’s fine to live with vermin. Those mice are probably back up in your apartment before you even get back there. Plus, what about the super or landlord? Does he have kids? Who are you exposing to more mice? Does this person even own the building? Mice climb thru the vents, they live in the walls, it doesn’t take long to get so out of hand that they’re living in your box spring and pulling chunks of your mattress out to make nests. If you want to let them live, that’s your choice, but moving them to a different floor of your building is worthless, inconsiderate, and immoral. At best, using humane traps, take them to the park or dump them down the sewer, the rats will probably kill them for you.
If this basement landlord owns your building, have you spoken with them? Have you asked them what they’re doing about the vermin? When the government tells people they don’t need to pay rent because of covid, what do you think the landlords are using to pay for services? If they call someone to get rid of them, what do you think will happen to the mice? Your snap traps are much more humane than the poison the exterminators spray. They’ll probably put boxes with entry holes and poison inside, all around the outside of your building so those mice will carry poison to other animals that eat them and get sick. Exterminators don’t choose the most humane method, they choose the cheapest, and they don’t care about the rest of the neighborhood.
when I lived in Brooklyn, they tore down the building behind mine, all the mice ran from there to our building. Within a month we were over run. I killed 26 with snap traps in 1 weekend, and I still saw them everywhere. We had a trifold gym mat like schools have, which we would set up in the living room for the kids to play on, and one day when I was picking it up, it had 2 squashed mice under it, they must have run when I was setting it up, and got squashed when I plopped it down. They were everywhere. It’s bad for yourself, your pets, your neighbors. I lost a dog to poison because the building next to mine dumped poison all over the ground and didn’t put up signs. My dog stood on it and peed, someone ran up and told me they saw someone dump poison. In a couple hours my dog was dead. What if that was a kid? I’m sure the people who lived in that building didn’t think the landlord would reach the end of his rope and just dump poison everywhere, but that’s what happened.
By refusing to humanely euthanize your vermin, you are leaving the choice up to someone else who may choose a more inhumane option.
I know that's gonna be a tough sell, but just think about it.
