Saw a mouse last week flying through the kitchen.

I put in some of the sticky mouse trap things and they don't work worth a shit. I really don't want to do poison because i don't want them to die in the wall.

any suggestions?

1/19/2013 10:58:48 AM

1/19/2013 11:03:43 AM

1/19/2013 11:21:55 AM

I usually had pretty good success with the sticky traps. Maybe try another brand?


Otherwise:

1/19/2013 11:23:56 AM

i put a dorito in the middle of the sticky trap. Will post success.

1/19/2013 11:25:21 AM

Clean! Eliminate all sources or food. Put food away, air right containers, take out trash, etc. Make sure they don't have a nest in your house. After cleaning put out an old fashioned mouse trap to catch the little booger. Then look outside and in the garage for any obvious way that they're coming in the house.

1/19/2013 11:25:43 AM

I had great success with something of this design in my house.

1/19/2013 11:26:44 AM

Sticky traps have worked well for me, just have to find the right place to put them (right up against the wall in probable mouse route).

1/19/2013 11:57:50 AM

1/19/2013 12:44:04 PM

We have a Hav-a-Hart we catch them with and release down at a local trail far away from any houses, and also make sure all human and animal food is up and sealed out of the way in chewproof containers.

We briefly tried sticky traps and traditional snap traps, but we ended up with crippled mice that took awhile to die when I drowned them, mice that would run off into the wall and die and smell up the house, and other stupid situations.

The last mouse I caught, I ended up keeping, because he was a juvenile who we easily caught in broad daylight with a clear cup. He takes food out of my hand and runs on a little exercise wheel.

Skip cheese, peanut butter attracts them every time.

[Edited on January 19, 2013 at 12:47 PM. Reason : lkj]

1/19/2013 12:46:49 PM

we had some dog treats in box laying side ways. They were pigging out on them. I never noticed until i actually looked in the box and saw half nibbled dog treats. This was there food source so i've seen them more scurrying around lately looking for food.

1/19/2013 1:19:45 PM

Quote :

"i don't want them to die in the wall"

why not?

1/19/2013 2:06:08 PM

Cats

1/19/2013 2:36:26 PM

so really i went with this:




and i went with this:

Quote :

" peanut butter attracts them every time. "

and put some peanut butter on it. I've killed two in the past two hours.

[Edited on January 19, 2013 at 4:45 PM. Reason : ss]

1/19/2013 4:43:02 PM

yeah, peanut butter on a snap trap always works for me. works best when you put the trigger end up next to a wall.

1/19/2013 5:21:50 PM

the pest control guy at work uses Hershey's kisses on the sticky traps he puts out

1/19/2013 11:19:04 PM

I find trapdoor catch-and-release solutions the most humane. Nothing like finding a little mouse in the spring-loaded trap with her scull crushed and her eyes popping out, still moving in agony and helplessly trying to free itself hours after it was caught (seen it before). Different people have different definitions of pests that don't give half a shit about, mine start somewhere at the cockroach level, and even those guys I try to smash instantly.

1/20/2013 1:40:20 AM

Put peanut butter on a cat

1/20/2013 8:29:50 AM

1/20/2013 9:14:27 AM

Quote :

"I find trapdoor catch-and-release solutions the most humane."

i bet those bastards beat you back inside the house

1/20/2013 9:29:20 AM

i thought poison like decon would cause them to bleed internally (what eventually kills them) and contains a desiccant which makes them thirsty...and since they usually get water from outside, they leave the house

not saying they won't die in your walls, but i think it's just as common (if not more so) for them to leave and never come back

i could be wrong...i have virtually no experience with problem mice (yet, and hopefully ever)

1/20/2013 2:06:03 PM

if a mouse dies in your wall you won't even smell it, they're tiny and have barely any body mass to decay and smell

unlike a squirrel for example

1/20/2013 2:39:17 PM

Quote :

"The last mouse I caught, I ended up keeping, because he was a juvenile who we easily caught in broad daylight with a clear cup. He takes food out of my hand and runs on a little exercise wheel."

I did this when I was 7.

1/20/2013 6:28:13 PM

I live in a historical building in downtown GSO and we had a mouse problem for the first three years we lived here every December. We did sticky traps for the first few years but it bummed everyone out having to "finish them off" or scrape them off the trap with oil. We switched to poison until they started dying all over the house. Under the couch, behind the TV, behind the refrigerator... it was so gross. When we realized they were not going to leave the building we took up the poison but still kept finding surprises. And yeeeeah, it smelled awful. I had to throw out a whole box of craft supplies after one found its final resting place there. :-/ No more poison. We got some of the live release traps just in case but haven't had any after the genocide last year.

1/20/2013 6:54:07 PM

Have you tried reinstalling the driver?

1/20/2013 6:59:51 PM

I always used a hav-a-hart trap with a bit of peanutbutter stuck in the back of the trap. Took a few times with the most clever mice, but eventually they were caught. I then drove 10 miles down the road to work and set them free in the forest next to a highway (although they were probably eaten by a bird afterward). I'd rather clean the trap out than deal with the dead mouse but killing the mouse will definitely fix the problem. *shrug*

Keep settings traps for the next several months, too. They will continue to come back until you've got your house spotless and somewhat less appealing to mice.

1/20/2013 7:24:54 PM

Quote :

"Have you tried reinstalling the driver?"

can't believe it took that long.

1/20/2013 8:14:31 PM

Quote :

"And yeeeeah, it smelled awful. I had to throw out a whole box of craft supplies after one found its final resting place there"

yeah, if they die out in the open

not in the wall

1/20/2013 9:11:47 PM

This is why people have cats. Get a cat. No more mice. Hell you dont even have to have the cat that long (im not advocating doing un-humane things to it). just borrow one for a week or two from a friend. mice will not inhabit a place that smells of cat. Doesnt take much for them to pick up.

1/20/2013 9:23:56 PM

I have a cat you can borrow.

1/20/2013 10:18:54 PM

I once had a mouse problem (though at first I just saw them darting through the shadows and thought I was seeing some giant cockroaches, which is weird because I didn't have a problem with *normal* cockroaches...)

and a mouse even figured out how to get out of the catch-and-release trap after eating the peanut butter and pooping in the compartment

so I bought poison and they died, prolly all in the area of the wall they came in through.

I still have the poison lying out somewhere, and the great thing about having no kids or pets is that you don't have to worry about accidentally killing *them* too.

1/21/2013 3:29:02 AM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4593682.stm

1/21/2013 7:54:49 AM

The spring loaded traps are the way to go. When I lived in NYC we had a mouse problem. Bought 10 or so spring traps and put peanut butter on them. Killed all the mice within less than a week. IMO those are the most humane traps. Instant death.

Quote :

"if a mouse dies in your wall you won't even smell it, they're tiny and have barely any body mass to decay and smell"

Exactly. After rounding up all the traps we forgot about one that was under the sink. Stumbled upon it weeks (months?) later and it had a dead mouse...that had been dead for quite some time. Didn't smell at all.

1/21/2013 11:07:16 AM

the cockroaches and ants will eat all of the dead mice, don't worry

1/21/2013 12:12:46 PM

Any tips on cleaning mouse poop? I dont want to get sick.

1/21/2013 3:01:03 PM

Gloves, bleach. In that order.

1/21/2013 3:25:29 PM

Quote :

"Exactly. After rounding up all the traps we forgot about one that was under the sink. Stumbled upon it weeks (months?) later and it had a dead mouse...that had been dead for quite some time. Didn't smell at all. "

well, when i was in highschool i had a turtle in my room that climbed out of its tank and i could never find it.

two years later i was moving out to go to college and i find the thing underneath my dresser dessicated and obviously dead. I never smelled it and it certainly had the mass to cause a stink in my tiny assed room

1/21/2013 4:24:44 PM

Turtle jerky.

Nom nom NOM

1/21/2013 4:34:17 PM

I had a mouse problem start this past week as well. I got a burrito after drinking and missed the trash can under the sink. Evidently this brought them out in full force.

I've had this happen every winter since 2010 and they never leave from the cabinet under the sink. Typically, I resolve the problem in two methods.

1) i remove the bag in the trashcan and put peanut butter in it. Mice go in the can, can't climb out and then I take them a quarter mile to the park and release them. 2) The bastards who wouldn't go peacefully and either escaped or avoided the trashcan get the sticky trap treatment. I'm not a big fan of the sticky traps. I just don't like seeing the mice struggle. I'm probably going to use a few more sticky traps, some regular traps and poison this week. I'm tired of dealing with this every winter and can only imagine it does because I miss killing some pregnant mouse.

1/21/2013 10:47:29 PM

There was a guy on TV that says when it gets cold out they usually try to get in the house where its warm. It is definitely cold out.

1/23/2013 12:39:04 PM

you gotta look for the holes they're getting into the house through and close em up. they can easily get through a hole the size of a quarter.

1/23/2013 12:43:37 PM

1/23/2013 1:40:49 PM

Cat. Not only are they great at killing mice, but also anything smaller than mice like spiders, roaches, snakes, etc.
And they won't just kill it, they'll keep it alive for hours in torture-play as a warning to the other mice of the house.
We keep ours outside and they even chase the birds out of the garden and away from my tomatoes.

1/23/2013 2:06:44 PM

But then what do you do to take care of your cat problem?

1/23/2013 2:15:45 PM

I have two small animals that do my killing for me. And in return I kick them out in the cold at night with a bowl full of slaughterhouse scraps that have been pressed into pellets, dried and placed in a Purina bag. I see no cat problem.

1/23/2013 3:13:49 PM