Need To Get Rid Of Mice Without Hurting Greys...

[RobinM]

We have a chalet in the Poconos which we were suppossed to have gone to this weekend but because of the expected monsoon, we are not going.

 

I have someone who cleans it right before I come up and today she called to say that she found some "mice droppings". She believes there are field mice.

 

I don't want to set a trap as I think that is cruel and I don't want to spray because I am afraid that it will be on the dog beds, carpet, etc.

 

We plan on going up in another 3 weeks so we would like to have the problem resolved before we go back up.

 

Any suggestions of what to use to get the mice to stay away (and no I'm not bringing my kitties up there!) without poisoning them or hurting them???

 

 

[tamborine]

Any suggestions of what to use to get the mice to stay away (and no I'm not bringing my kitties up there!) without poisoning them or hurting them???

 

Oh, well, there goes my only suggestion!

[CaliforniaGreys]

If you don't want to kill them, there are humane rodent traps

[Guest SoulsMom]

The humane ones work, I've used them in my attic, baited with peanut butter. Got 'em at Home Depot.

[Hollis]

peppermint oil! Swear to doG!! We JUST had the same problem! Little stinkers were actually INSIDE my stove!!! We soaked cotton balls with peppermint oil and dropped them behind the stove. You need to keep it up for awhile, but it really did work! I just took all of my food out of the giant plastic tubs and put it back on the shelves where it belongs!

[Hubcitypam]

Humane traps and that sound great in principle, but the nasty buggers by and large are laughing at you and breeding like crazy while you are trying to be nice to them. I tried twice when I moved in houses with humane traps and snap traps. Never again. Close your eyes and call a pest guy.

[Guest BlackandBrindle]

If you use humane traps, someone needs to check those traps daily as the mice will die a death of dehydration pretty quickly if they aren't released.

 

Humane traps and that sound great in principle, but the nasty buggers by and large are laughing at you and breeding like crazy while you are trying to be nice to them. I tried twice when I moved in houses with humane traps and snap traps. Never again. Close your eyes and call a pest guy.

 

 

That is generally my solution too!

[Guest greybookends]

Rodents are allergic to peppermint oil. They will avoid it at all costs.

[Guest lotsagreys4me]

Call in the pest control guy and have it done before you get there. You won't know what he does and don't ask. haha. Just tell him no poison cause you will be bringing the pupsters there. Good luck, I hate rats and mice. ugh !!!

[Guest Hannah]

http://www.smithsax.btinternet.co.uk/

 

we used it to capture and release (over a mile away) four mice who took up residence when they pulled down the old mill over the road from us.

 

most successfull bait was well-cooked bacon rind, they turned their noses up at cheese, chocolate, PB, fruit.

[DaisyDoodle]

How do pest control people work if they don't put poison down? They have to put out solid bait, right? I worry that the dogs could find the bait, or at least a sickly mouse that has eaten the bait.

 

I would give the peppermint oil a try. It can't hurt anything and might make the house smell nice.

 

We have several ultrasonic gadgets to try to ward off the mice. I think they are generally working. There has been little evidence of mice, and I've only caught one in the snap trap since I plugged them in.

 

DON'T set snap traps if you're not at home. Mice are cannibals. I learned this the hard way. I left a trap set, went out of town. DH came back into town (I was still gone) and he found a head and some fur in a trap. Having worked with mice in the past, he knew they did this, and was NOT pleased with me for leaving this for him to clean up.

Edited March 8, 2008 by DaisyDoodle

[MerlinsMum]

I would NOT call the pest control guy. Quite apart from the fact that they use very inhumane methods (I'll spare you the details), they do also use poison and that puts all wildlife, and dogs, at risk. I have used a humane trap (the Havahart trap) to catch both squirrels and mice, and they work fabulously! However, you need to make sure you relocate the critters at least a mile away. The problem with field mice is that they do reproduce quite fast, so the best possible thing you can do to keep them out is to make sure that all the following are done:

 

All cabinets should be closed;

The chalet in general should be clean;

No food should be left out

All dry food should be in sealed containers

Check the whole place for possible points of entry for the little critters.

 

Prevention is the best option! Good luck!

[Guest WarmheartedPups]

Roo would be happy to lend out her services....she can catch just about anthing that scittles....

[Guest armanntoo]

We had one, it held up to about 24 of the little creatures. All we had to do was put it up against the baseboard, and as they ran along, they ran right in, couldn't get out.

 

Soon to be ex-wife thought that it was great, it had air holes so they would not suffer. She didn't read the instructions...the holes were so that you could immerse it in a bucket of water and drown them. She would drive a couple of miles to release them instead.

 

I think we got it a Home Depot.

[RobinM]

I would NOT call the pest control guy. Quite apart from the fact that they use very inhumane methods (I'll spare you the details), they do also use poison and that puts all wildlife, and dogs, at risk. I have used a humane trap (the Havahart trap) to catch both squirrels and mice, and they work fabulously! However, you need to make sure you relocate the critters at least a mile away. The problem with field mice is that they do reproduce quite fast, so the best possible thing you can do to keep them out is to make sure that all the following are done:

 

All cabinets should be closed;They are

The chalet in general should be clean;Spotless and I mean spotless!

No food should be left out NEVER

All dry food should be in sealed containersor in refridge. YES

Check the whole place for possible points of entry for the little critters. That we have never thought of doing as this is the first we've heard about it!

 

Prevention is the best option! Good luck!

 

We are only up there a few times a year, for one reason or another, we have not been able to go. The last time we were there was November and the time before that, May! We will plan on going up the last weekend in March with peppermint oil and hope for the best.

 

I'm not afraid of them, they are actually cute but I know they are disease ridden so I don't need anyone picking up some strange mousey strain of bacteria or something!!!!

 

Thanks!!

Edited March 8, 2008 by RobinM

[Guest TBSFlame]

Humane traps and that sound great in principle, but the nasty buggers by and large are laughing at you and breeding like crazy while you are trying to be nice to them. I tried twice when I moved in houses with humane traps and snap traps. Never again. Close your eyes and call a pest guy.

 

Snap traps are still the best way to get them. Put them in places the greys can't reach. Mice love PB. We have field mice that come in from time to time. I hate the little buggers. They can't take a step without ......, well you know. We found a snake skin in our attic last year. I am sure the snake was hunting.

[robinw]

hav-a-heart traps or loca

[RobinM]

Loca--- come on over!!!!

 

The problem with any kind of trap is that we are not there to release it. We have no idea from time to time when the next time will be that we go up, it could be months.

Edited March 8, 2008 by RobinM

[galgrey]

As much as I hate the thought of sharing my living space with feral rodents, I simply cannot go the poison or snap trap route (there's no way I could dispose of dead mice in a trap ). I'm very afraid of the poison -- years ago when I worked as a vet tech I saw several dogs die as a result of eating rodent bait or the rodents who had eaten it. I will never forget that. If you call a conventional pest control company they will use poison. They will tell you it's a "safe" poison because that's what they're told to say. Personally, I find those to be mutually exclusive terms.

 

I don't know if this will work for your particular situation, but I have used these with great success: Humane Mouse Trap. After finding droppings in my kitchen one morning, I bought two of these traps and put them out that night baited with peanut butter on a saltine cracker. I turned off the kitchen light and went to the bedroom to watch TV. I heard the trap slam shut not 20 minutes later! I got dressed and put the trap with the mouse safely inside in my car and released him/her in a nearby wooded area. Despite the fact that I was sure there was a whole colony of them invading my house, I've never seen another one or any more droppings. I know I'm probably lucky here, but I've still got the traps if any more show up. If this won't work for your situation, you could call a local humane pet removal service to clean them out and then use peppermint oil or other non-toxic deterrents to keep them from returning.

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ahicks51]

The newer baits are much safer for dogs. From one website (an animal hospital), emphasis mine:

 

"Bromethalin is a new nonanticoagulant (Assault, Vengeance) designed to be lethal to rodents after a single dose. The minimum lethal dose for the dog is approximately 21g bait per pound body weight, meaning that a 30 lb dog would have to consume 630g bait (or 15 packs of bait) to receive a lethal dose. Ingestion of rodents that have consumed bromethalin does not cause toxicity in the dog. Thus bromethalin is a safer rodenticide for use where dogs are present than the anticoagulant rodenticides. Bromethalin is a neurotoxin directly affecting the brain and cerebrospinal fluid. Clinical signs associated with ingestion of bromethalin appear about 10 hours post-ingestion and include severe muscle tremors, excitability, running fits, seizures and depression."

 

Not that I'd use it. I'm a big fan of snap traps.

 

As for keeping them out of the home in the first place- steel wool and plaster. Fill every imaginable void to keep them from getting in. Then live trap 'em and evict them.

[RobinM]

As far as driving them to a wooded area. This is the poconos! This house is in a wooded secluded lot with nothing but woods!!!

 

I think we will have to learn how to share nicely and just use the peppermint oil as a deterent. They can use the house when we are not there but will have to evict when we come.

[Hubcitypam]

The newer poisons work only on the animal that eats it first and have low to no secondary toxicity. I have a friend that does pest control and he said the reasom mice die from the bait is that the process food very poorly and must eat way more than, say dogs, in terms of mass to survive. In turn they consume huge quannties of the bait that your dog wouldn't even if it had the chance.

 

If you are not there I see no reason not to just bait the house where the dogs can't get the bait (crawl space, attic, water heater) and have it all vermin free when you get there. As stated, snap and humane traps have to be monitored. You could end up paying big $$$ to have traps tended. Poison in my mind is way more humane than glue traps.

 

signed -

 

The woman who had a shed torn down out back when I moved in and the rats and mice invaded my house. Peanut butter in snap traps did not work. Sewing popcorn to the snap traps did not work. Humane traps did not work. They chomped right thru steel wool more times thn I can count.

 

 

[Guest snakes]

peppermint works well here too, but i found the best way was to figure out where they were getting through and plug up the hole with steel wool. They can't chew through it because it wears their teeth down. I imagine it'll be hard to eliminate all cracks, but the holes the heating pipes and plumbing pipes run through are major thoroughfare's here. You can put down flour to see where they are walking.

[tydyelady]

Ahh, mice and rats, something I have MUCHO experience with. I used to live in a canyon area in So Cal, and had lots of field mice. I now live in a ruralish area of Washington, and here we have rats. Just caught one this AM, so had to laugh at all the sympathy for the rodents. Mice and rats carry disease, and are very destructive. They can chew holes in walls, and electrical wires. They are not cute little pets like the kind in the pet shops. We know how they get in - through the laundry room, where the furnace pipes go up into the ceilings and walls. Its very hard to block that off. From there, they actually chewed on the door that leads to the kitchen (on the bottom of the door) until there was a space large enough to scoot through. We know have metal strips on the bottom and sides of the door. The draw in our house is the birds - seeds scattered all over the floor, and I vacuum daily. We now always have a trap set back by the furnace (dog never in there, door always closed.)

IMHO on getting rid of them:

-1. Glue traps are the least humane. I tried those in CA, before I realized that you would have a bunch of mice stuck on glue - and then what?? You either have to kill them (drowning or hammers?) or throw them in a field where they will die a slow death, be eaten by birds or snakes, or chew their legs off- INHUMANE!!

2. Poison - well, dont know about the new poisons, and will look into them. I never use them IN the house, and have only on occasion used them outside - put them down in rat holes. Which is, but the way, what a pest service will do if they see them outside. The old poisons make them bleed to death from the inside out. I think it takes a few days. This would be bad inside, as they would begin to feel sick, crawl away and slowly die somewhere. You would know they were dead by the smell, and would have to let your nose lead you to it. I had this in So Cal - one crawled under the deck to die, it was hot, the wind was blowing, and it stunk to high heaven. Opinion - INHUMANE!

3. Traps - If you choose to use the catch and release traps, and want to put the little disease carriers in your cars and take them to a happier home, fine. More power to you. I use the snap traps - quick and painless. And not the fancy plastic ones - must use the BIG wooden rat traps, not the little mouse ones. I have had even little mice only get a leg caught and drag it around. The big, old fashioned rat traps kill quickly and completely.

Unfortunately before we metal bottomed our laundry room door, a few had gotten in and taken up residence, so I think we got the last one last night.

Oh, another point of entry was a hole behind the dishwasher. We never would have known this, but we had our dishwasher replaced last month, and there were all the droppings and seeds when the guy pulled out the old one. He told us to stuff with aluminim foil, which we did. I HOPE this is the last of the little buggers, I HATE rodents!!

I think the pepperment oil would help, although it seems like you would have to know the entry points and put it there. Otherwise, they would just avoid the areas and go into another room. If you set traps in your empty place before you left, that would solve the problems. Not to be gross, but after a few days the smell would be gone, and by the time you got back there, you would just have dead shriveled mice to toss. If you dont want to reuse the trap, toss the whole thing (plastic bags on hand to pick up.) Traps are cheap.

Oh,and our Opie is not a mouse catcher. Although he did bark at one he saw run across the living room floor though to tell us it was there!

[Hubcitypam]

peppermint works well here too, but i found the best way was to figure out where they were getting through and plug up the hole with steel wool.

I'll be glad to send you examples of chewed up/pushed out steel wool.