Mice in my house!

[Chickemee]

There are mice in my house can anyone tell me how to get them out they scare me!

 

[arlee453]

Depends on your setup...

With mice they come in this time of year - scouting out a nice place to spend the winter.

Poison: If you don't have any kids or other animals, you can use poison bait where you have seen 'evidence' of the mice. Place it around the edges of the room as they prefer to run around the edges where they feel safer.

Drawbacks to poision... if you don't find the mice, they will go back in their little hiding places and die. You'll know you got one by the smell. Not a good idea if you have other animals or kids who may get to the poison.

Pros - don't have to get too close to the critters for it to work, usually pretty effective.

Glue Traps: I've not had good results with these, and personally I do think they are a bit cruel, as the mouse gets stuck and then you've got a live, angry and in pain critter.

Snap Traps: The old standby classic. Bait with peanutbutter - that's much better than cheese (you really can't use Tom and Jerry cartoons as training videos)... Put them along the walls where you see the mice evidence.

Pros: Cheap and effective. The traps are so cheap you can buy them and just throw the whole thing away if you catch one.

Cons: Does kill the mouse. Also, rarely the mouse may not get snapped across the neck and will be caught by a foot, etc. You do have to 'face' the mouse to dispose of it - personally I use the gloved hand and two finger method to pick up trap and carry as far away from my face as I can hold it out...

Live Traps: Little plastic boxes you bait with food and then mouse goes in but cant get out. If you check traps regularly you will find them alive.

Pros: Does not kill the mouse - you can let it out somewhere alive.
Cons: Does not kill the mouse - you have to let it out somewhere alive.


I've used all the above. Personally, I use poison if it is a place I can secure against the dogs and kids, and snap traps if poison is not a good option.

We live near the woods and almost every year get a few mice that think Casa Arlee is where they can spend the winter...

Susan

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I've been using little electric traps made by Victor. They go inside and bzzzttt... A little light flashes to let you know you need to empty it.

 

[arlee453]

Oh yeah - I forgot about those. Tried those too when I had a serious rat problem out in the dog building.

They worked surprisingly well, but two problems... the traps were expensive and they only worked 1x before yo had to empty and reset.

So, if you have just one or two to catch, they might work well. If you have a serious infestation I think you'll need to go with poison.

 

[SpottedCrow]

I love my mouse zapper too, Mac.

 

[Chatychick]

I have used powdered sugar and Quik-crete mixed together and it works really well.
You see the mouse eats it and then goes to drink water and the quik-crete sets up and they die. I use this in the feed rooms and where I can put it like in the attic. Its helped me alot and they are usually underground when they die. I think maybe 1 or 2 have died in the house.

 

[poppycat]

I've used plain old mousetraps with bacon or salami as bait. Yuck. But they work.

You can plug holes where they might be coming in with steel wool.

By far, the best solution is our cat, Skitty. She catches mice and moles. Last summer she caught a mole a day for 20 days in a row!

 

[FluffyChickenMama]

I typically use glue traps because I dont want the poison around my animals.. A poisoned rodent can be eaten by a cat, chicken, dog etc.. If you decide to use glue traps do NOT use the ones that are just paper.. they dont work very well at all... get the ones in the plastic trays.. the work great.. (sorry I forget the brand names)..

I agree.. my cats are the best traps I have also.. great hunters!!

 

[herechickchick]

I use D-Con and it worked great. you can get it lots of places. I got mine at Lowes.

 

[silkhope]

Man Skitty's eyes look like something off Sci-Fi!!

We just set plain old traps, put some peanut butter on them and wait. Ok, I say we, I mean DH and he disposes of them too. If it were me, I don't know what I'd do!