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Tue 23 Sep, 2003 03:43 am
We have problems with mice when it starts to get cool at night as does everyone who lives in the country. This year they are worse than we've seen so far in the 3 years we've lived here. Now, I have a huge problem with killing anything that isn't a bug so you can see my problem. Last year we got these have a heart traps that catch them and you can just let them outside. The problem this year is that they just come back in and have gotten smart enough to master the traps, so they go in, have their feast and know how to get out. Obviously, we can't have the mice in the house and I had to come up with some sort of plan. After asking around to try to come up with the most humane way to kill them, people tell me the regular snap traps are the way to go since it just snaps their neck. As much as it bothers me I went and bought some of those traps. Well, just minutes ago I heard my first snap. I went to check the trap and the poor mouse was caught right in his mid section struggling to get out. I watched this thing suffer for a good two minutes before it finally died. I'm in tears right now writing this and I feel horrible.
Does any one know of a better way. Do they carry a poison that just puts them to sleep where they just never wake up?
Ok, while I'm sitting here writing this I hear another snap. The feeling running through me is awful, but I had to go check. I was there in just a few seconds and this time it got 2 mice at the same time. The good news is that it got them both at the neck and they were both already dead when I got there. This feeling I have really sucks, but I have to do something.
I suppose the obvious answer would be a cat, depends whether your'e a cat person.
I've had cats all my life that always took care of any mice we had lurking, unfortunately I can't have them now because my son is allergic to them :-(
I can only refer you to Jespah's
Eek! A Mouse.. I think we've pretty much solved the problem, at least to my satisfaction.
We had mice two years ago and also used the box traps. The trick is that mice need to be released more than 1km away from your house, else they will find their way back in. You can mark them with pink stripes to recognize your mice from newcomers. We released them into the frontyard of John Silber's house (then President of Boston University) - he got at least good 20 of them from us, unless some of them were recycled.
Gus
Thanks for the link, but the have a heart traps are similar to those and I'm sure this smart little buggers would figure out how to get out of those as well.
Roger
I already visited that thread and I don't see any ideas there either, but thanks for the link ;-)
Hey Dag, long time no see. Problem with that is we always catch them in the middle of the night and now since they've learned how to get out of them, there's no use.
I wish I knew how they were getting in in the first place, so I could try to block their passage, but they can squeeze through such little places I can't imigine where they're coming in.
Try this. Take a bucket and fill it halfway with water. Next, pour in sunflower seeds, enough to cover the surface. Set the bucket somewhere the mice frequent and provide them a way to get to the top. They'll jump in after the seed and drown.
Hey, it works.
Hey Dag, when I was in college I dated Silber's secretary's daughter...
I Tried non killing traps but they didn't work, they always closed when the mouse got near them, or the mouse managed to get back out.
Not wanting to kill the mouse, I stalked it, and one day it made the mistake of running into the closet. I called to my roomate "We've got it!" and she came running with two tupperware containers. We opened the closet, and the mouse dashed out. I tried and missed, she tried, landed on the floor outstretched, and missed, got up, somehow grabbed my tupperware from my fallen hand, and caught the mouse in the third attempt. This all happened in a matter of seconds. We put ample air holes into the tupperware, and gave it a half of a roma tomato (from prior experience we knew he liked.) Just as my boyfriend was coming to pick up the mouse and drop it in a field somewhere, the freaked out thing died. I mean stiff. Which of course, made me terribly upset, and we had a little mouse eulogy.
So all that trouble and nicety wasted, all future mice get le guillotine.
You could light your house on fire. When the thing starts burning to the ground the mice will run outside where you can easily pick them off with a pitchfork.
Saaaaay! Isn't that somewhat similar to the military technique for getting rid of crab lice? Shave one side and cover the other with lighter fluid and set fire to it? I think there was an icepick involved.
Ok you guys, this would be a riot if I wasn't so upset about this. This swrewed up my whole day and I still can't get it off my mind.
Well, okay, but are they being seriously destructive, or is this just a reflex. I mean, I'm not sure it's possible to make friends with a field mouse or not, but give it a try?
I know you can't have a cat, but if friendship fails, how do you feel about snakes. Some of them are plain death on mice.
I know how destructive they are which is why I had to resort to this. The problem is that killing any animal goes totally againt my grain and has a very negative effect on me to say the least :-(
It sucks that they don't sell some kind of poision that would just put them to sleep. You'd think in this day and age that there would be a more humane way of doing this horrible deed.
Hm, I know we use poison back at home, in Slovakia. Not sure if it puts them peacefully to sleep, but it does work in a matter of minutes. I'd still try a different kind of a box trap, perhaps you'll find a more sensitive one? The way we solved the problem was exactly as Roger suggests: befriending the mice. We named the mouse (we firmly pretended there is only one, problem arised when two or three strolled in front of our eyes on the countertop, not minding our presence one bit) Rubble- as it was around the 9/11 and all you heard from the radio was 'rubble and debris'. Fish we got at around the same time was thus Debris. Is. Littlek has it now. Fish however does not do much in terms of mice infestation. Too bad, not many are allergic to fish. The problem did however get solved finally - we moved out. So did John Silber I hear, haha.
LOL. Well, between me and my son we killed 8 of them in 24 hours, however, last night was very quiet with no snap sounds that made my heart drop, so I am so hoping that we got them all. The ones we had were getting way too comfortable as well, but I didn't dare start putting names to them. I am assuming that a mom mouse started a family in the basement since there was one big one and the rest were pretty small. Thanks for all your advice. I really do appreciate it.
Montana - have you tried one of those high tech devices which emit an ultra high frequency screech which can be only heard by mice and scares them away ?
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