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

[RobinM]

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!

 

Very imformative- thank you.

 

BUT you ahave to understand a trap would only be good if you lived there., not for someone like us who go up maybe 4-6 times a year. Imgine what I would walk into if I left traps out and then came back 4 months later. YUCK!!!!

[Guest SoulsMom]

Sounds like the peppermint is the way to go . . . .I'm going to try this in my attic, even though I've had success with the humane traps. Would the peppermint ward off bats too? Had one of those last year as well. I recently had a mouse in my kitchen. There was a major snow going on outside and I heard a rustling behind a cabinet. I peeked back there with a flashlight and saw the smallest mouse with a ginormous piece of dog food in his hands. He musta thought he hit the motherload. It was the size of his entire face. The next morning I saw his itty bitty tracks in the snow around the perimeter of the fence in the back yard.

 

[RobinM]

Thanks everyone. I opted for the oil which I just bought on ebay. They have different sizes of 100% peppermint oil.

 

Hopefully, that will keep them away when we are there. I will have the girl who cleans (and told me she saw droppings) wipe the low lying areas of the living spaces she saw the droppings. When we go up, we will take a look around and where they could be getting in and have our handyman close it off.

 

 

[Guest Celestes_Dad]

We used to get mice in our house all the time in the winter and we used glue traps.. that is until a cat got stuck in one (he was walking around the house with it on like a snowshoe)... Funny to laugh at for a couple minutes but it takes forever to get all of teh glue off...

 

 

What I resorted to were ultrasonic repellants. I put one in the garage and I have a nother couple in the basement. The sound drives off rodents without harming cats and dogs.. We haven't had a mouse since..

 

Here are some examples...

Victor sonic repellants

Edited March 9, 2008 by Celestes_Dad

[RobinM]

Celestes Dad- no problem with the dogs??? You said you used it garage, but have the dogs been around it? I would have no problem with a couple of those with the peppermint oil.

 

Thanks.

[Guest Celestes_Dad]

Celestes Dad- no problem with the dogs??? You said you used it garage, but have the dogs been around it? I would have no problem with a couple of those with the peppermint oil.

 

Thanks.

 

No - no problem with the dogs at all.. They don't hear in that range.. And no problem with cats either - I have two in the basement where they have their food and litter pan.

 

one of the basic repellers covers a room that is 400 sq ft. - that's a big room (20' x 20').

 

you just put them in areas where mice can get in to prevent them coming in.

Edited March 9, 2008 by Celestes_Dad

[tydyelady]

Now this might be an option for me also. I was always afraid to use them around other pets. I could put one in the garage, which is where we think they get into the ceiling to get into the laundry room. Do you know if these things affect birds? We have two in the dining area, just off the (closed off) laundry room.

[Guest Celestes_Dad]

Now this might be an option for me also. I was always afraid to use them around other pets. I could put one in the garage, which is where we think they get into the ceiling to get into the laundry room. Do you know if these things affect birds? We have two in the dining area, just off the (closed off) laundry room.

 

Victor (the company that makes them) says that it affects only rodents and "normal pets".. I would ask them though.

 

I would think that the range of these are seriously affected by walls as it cuts down on the sound waves.

 

Personally speaking - I did the glue traps a couple times and it is not always pretty. one time one of the cats brought one mouse up in the trap and played with it in the trap throughout our kitchen - mouseblood everywhere. Obviously the mouse was not dead until the cat finished playing with it. Not exactly humane in my eyes..

 

I had a couple plastic snap traps in the garage and that caught an unitended victim - a cardinal got into our garage and got it's tail feathers snapped in the trap. (that was a shocker).