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Thread: Mouse Holocaust

  1. #21
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    After 14 years of no-pest living, mice started showing up in my mom's place (my rental property) this spring. Without an idea of how extensive the problem was, I hired a pest control guy. He sealed entry points from outside (well, almost all of them, anyway) and set (Victor) traps. Quickly caught three or four mice and that was the last I heard about mice.

    Until about three weeks ago. My mom saw another one so I reset the traps I hadn't tossed with dead mice and got a couple more. This time I used Tomcats. I think they're much easier to set than the Victors. They do seem sensitive to how much bait one uses; too much makes the trap unsteady and it snaps shut prematurely. But, properly baited, they're effective. Within a day or two, the Tomcats landed three more mice. Press the spring, mouse goes bye-bye, and the trap is re-baited and reset. Haven't heard from my mom that any more have been caught but I haven't had a chance to go and look myself.

    I don't have a problem killing mice in the house. They can be quite destructive and they're filthy. We have some mice in our backyard and garage (probably hers too but no one uses it). But we also have (garter) snakes and neighborhood feral cats and we have hawks and eagles which will swoop down on mice once they're in the open. We also have a compost-heap mouse pet. I tend to leave the outside mice alone. They'll feed a predator I'm happier to have around.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  2. #22
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mamalatte View Post
    Here's a question: when using snap traps, do you remove the "corpse" and re-use the trap? Personally I just throw the entire thing away -- they cost less than a dollar each and not handling a squished dead mouse is worth a lot more than that to me! But I remember when I was little my dad used to always re-use them.
    I dont k ow, my Moise Guy handles this unoleasant task. He is the killer of all small animals. Once in a while he removes and relocates rather than kills, but that is seldom.

  3. #23
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    We reuse ours, but environmentally, I don't think it's a problem if it's all metal and wood. Any plastic ones I would reuse, for sure.

  4. #24
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    We always expect more when the weather turns cold. They always seek shelter. Hey.......mouse lives matter too!

    The one good thing about them, is that you always know when they've been somewhere! (thanks to the little gifts they are always leaving behind!) (or should I say "always leaving from their behinds")

    O.T......One day, out of the corner of my eye I saw something on my carpet. I went towards it and it hopped! It was a little tree frog! Now how did that little guy get in there?? I chased him for awhile, but he was too fast for me. I finally threw a towel over him and he stopped. I set him free. I love tree frogs!

    Back to mice........Our crawl space is huge.....the length of most of the house and is lined with white radon barrier. DH went in there once to fix something and was overwhelmed with all the mouse poop. He tried to vac it up with a shop vac. I guess if we just had plain soil under there, poop wouldn't show up like it does on white plastic. The mice also chew holes in the radon barrier. DH has had PTSD ever since and he hasn't gone back in the crawl space since.

  5. #25
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CathyA View Post
    DH has had PTSD ever since and he hasn't gone back in the crawl space since.
    In the process of shopping for both my house and my mom's place over the years, "crawlspace" pretty much knocked a prospective house off my list. Only one of them was finished; the rest were dirt holes under the house. No.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  6. #26
    Moderator Float On's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveinMN View Post
    In the process of shopping for both my house and my mom's place over the years, "crawlspace" pretty much knocked a prospective house off my list. Only one of them was finished; the rest were dirt holes under the house. No.
    The front of my house is over 5'5" off the ground so once I'm in I can stand. It's pretty easy to 'light up' by opening the two access doors under each end of the porch that goes across the length of my house and the vents along the side can be opened too. It slopes up to the rock base the back of the house sits on. It's only the back 1/2 of the house I actually have to crawl to access. If I had to open a small panel and squeeze to get under the house from the start I probably wouldn't do it...and I was a caver!
    Float On: My "Happy Place" is on my little kayak in the coves of Table Rock Lake.

  7. #27
    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    I've been hearing them in the walls, so we set 4 traps in the cellar. Two are untouched, but the little suckers licked the peanut butter right off the other 2 traps without springing them. Licked them so clean you would have thought they were never baited!

  8. #28
    Williamsmith
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    Quote Originally Posted by rosarugosa View Post
    I've been hearing them in the walls, so we set 4 traps in the cellar. Two are untouched, but the little suckers licked the peanut butter right off the other 2 traps without springing them. Licked them so clean you would have thought they were never baited!
    Squeeze a small cracked sunflower seed under the bait holder and cover with a little peanut butter. You are dealing with young mice, small tongues with a light touch. When they go after the seed......wham! Lights out.

  9. #29
    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    Thanks for the advice, Williamsmith. We have plenty of sunflower seeds for the birds.

  10. #30
    Yppej
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    I have not heard any since I pulled out all the old insulation and DS sealed up the foundation with Pest Block spray. It is a foam to seal cracks and crevices and hardens shortly after application. You can add an extra layer of protection with steel wool under the foam, though we didn't. Two mice were trapped shortly after, but could have been in the house already.

    If they come back our next DIY step if they come back is to get a black light and look fir mouse urine trails to track their paths.

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