Mice in the house

[d_meister]

I've had success using flour as bait on traps. Whole grains can work, as well.

[RAV2]

Got a vacation cottage in Maine.

Always have mice. Use plenty of DCon. All the time.

Fill holes that I find with a combination of steel wool and spray foam.

For traps at my primary home, I sometimes put them on a string. You can slide then under and behind things and then pull them out when 'filled'.

I have a unique problem in my garage. I kept getting empty boxes of Dcon. Got a little worried when I started seeing larger then expected droppings that were pretty green (Dcon color). Set up some spring traps and discovered I had a bunch of moles running around in the garage. They thanked me for feeding them throughout the past season. Cured the problem with a few more spring traps.

Also had a horrible experience with glue traps at my grandmother's house. She survived the ordeal but like in the coyote ugly example, the mouse did some pretty last ditch efforts to get out of the trap - including dragging it thru the kitchen. I'll never use them again.

[mpc]

Canned spray cheese didn't work (although one of the dogs set off 3 separate traps trying to get to it)

ThAT is the best laugh I've had in days!

doggie is okay I hope! 3 tries/traps... is the dog learning slower than the mice?

mpc

[atgcpaul]

ThAT is the best laugh I've had in days!

doggie is okay I hope! 3 tries/traps... is the dog learning slower than the mice?

mpc

That dog is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. To his credit, he is extremely fast so no trouble. He really makes me question being a "dog person". Unlike our other dog, he is VERY food motivated so I was careful to move all the bait traps out of his reach.

[JimD]

Two houses ago we had mice that got into some bird seed that was in an old plastic diaper pail. It had a working lid so I still don't know how they got in there. You don't have any bird seed around, do you? Are you sure they aren't in the pantry eating their way into containers? They have to eat pretty regular so they must be getting food somewhere.

[atgcpaul]

Guys! I think I cracked it! Do you want to guarantee that you get no mice in your kitchen? Setup cameras! Once they realize they're being watched, they move on to another corner of your house. There was activity 3 nights ago (and every night before that), but the past 2 days, nothing.

Now I just need to buy about 50 more cameras and I'm set!

[bigstick509]

My solution is our cat, not as good a pet as a dog but mouse free for very little effort.

[sailor55330]

A friend came up with an ingenious way to catching mice. He took a 5 gal bucket, cut a small notch on opposite sides of the top to hold a 1/2 inch wood dowell. He then drilled a 3/4 in hole in a 2 liter PET bottle and placed the rod through the pet bottle. The pet bottle has to rotate freely. it is placed on the bucket in the notch on both sides. Then he puts peanut butter around the middle of the pet bottle. And he leans a board for the mice to climb up to the 1/2 inch shaft and pet bottle.

Once the mice get on top of the pet bottle, it rotates and they fall into the bucket.

I haven't seen it in action, but he swears by it and talkes about it quite a bit.

I've seen multiple variations of this and it does work. One variation includes adding water so the rodents drown. Others, just starvation. I guess it could be catch & release. Definitely effective.

[MBG]

Are you re-using the same traps? I do but someone told me not to or to scorch them with a flame.


Mike

[atgcpaul]

Are you re-using the same traps? I do but someone told me not to or to scorch them with a flame.


Mike

No. If I catch a mouse, I toss the mouse with the trap. I used to recycle traps years ago, but the traps are cheap enough to toss.

I'm wondering if they are avoiding the human scent, but they've gotten into all kinds of food packaging handled by people so I don't know how traps are any different. They are food conveyance device, too. Or maybe they know it's a trap?

[capncarl]

I've recycled a lot of traps. If the "guilty" rat made a mess of the trap or I found him a little late I trashed him and the trap, but the trap was tolerable I would reuse it. I remember that the recycled traps were more productive than a new trap. I guess that it still smells like mother or cousin Ed and must be ok!
capncarl

[JimD]

Could be the "human smell" keeping them from the traps. Hunters use scent eliminator sprays. Might be worth an idea. Or maybe just smear food all over the trap.