Friday, August 27, 2010

This means war!

Our war on mice continues.  Yesterday I bought a lot of new traps...

And we had a marathon trap-setting session.  Six traps on the kitchen counters (here are three of them):


Six traps on the washroom floor.


This morning there were two dead mice in the kitchen:


And five in the washroom.



The battle continues...

17 comments:

  1. Um, is that a bag of dog food in your washroom? If so, that's a mighty big enticement for mice. Have you considered keeping the dog food in a bucket with a tight-fitting lid? The dog food will stay fresh longer and the mice won't be able to gnew into
    it. Just a suggestion, not meant to be a
    criticism.

    Anonymous Patriot
    USA

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  2. Surprisingly the mice don't seem to bother the dog food. We've never had any holes nibbled in the bags (like we did in our old house in Oregon) and only once in a blue moon do they actually manage to get inside the bags.

    But we have mice poop all over the washroom floor. I have to shake it off the clothes before I wash them. Got tired of it.

    - Patrice

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  3. Surprising about the dog food. Well, whatever they're after in the washroom, soon they'll all be dead and then no more poop on the clothes. Hooray!!!!!

    Your trapping skills are excellent!

    Anonymous Patriot
    USA

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  4. Oh the carnage! Never seen so many dead little mice-ies at once. We just watch our cat eat them alive - one at a time. LOL

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  5. When my kids were little we received a Hamster as a pet, and a care and information book about them. My kids did the math according to what the book said and, with uncontrolled breeding and good food supply, one could have 1 MILLION hamsters in a little over a year.
    Mice are similar, though they don't have quite the size of litters that hamsters do. All you need is one pregnant mouse and the war is on!

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  6. I say skin the little buggers, tan their tiny hides, and make..umm..make...oh! Cell phone cases to sell on the export market!

    You could do it in your spare time!!!

    BWAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HAAA

    A. McSp

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  7. And here I have been complaining about just finding mouse sign and catching just two of them... My "trap line" consists of five regular traps and 2 Havaheart traps. Good luck with your traps - hope you start to find them empty one of these days so you know the tide of tiny visitors has ended (for awhile)!

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  8. believe me..they are after the dog food, and anything else they can carry off..you just have not found the little pile of dog food yet-probably behind the china cabinet or under a chest of drawers. and there were alot of spaces under the wall trim that needs caulk. also, if you bring anything being stored in the barn, like softball gear, golf bag, whatever, empty it well before bring over the threshold otherwise you may just be bring the mice inside yourself. also, if you are gonna use those awful traps then best use a dab of peanut butter as bait. they love that! i have even seen mice come out from under my old bedroom carpet..that was before the caulking gun came out. yes, you have a war on your hands for sure!!!

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  9. Here in SE Missouri, we had an ice storm in Jan.'09. During our 12-day power outage, we had to clean out the freezer. A bag of flour that got put in a pot on top of the freezer led to some unexpected consequences. The freezer is in the basement. The mice found the flour sometime in the spring. Soon we had a serious mouse problem. After a 3-day trip to Indiana to visit mom, we were back in our humble abode. My wife asked me why did I leave a rubber snake on the living room floor. A chill went up my spine. No, I don't own a rubber snake. The invader was stuck on a sticky trap and was pretty well worn out trying to get off of it. It was a black snake, non-poisonous. After getting on the welding gloves and scooping up the snake with a shovel, I unceremoniously dumped him in the woods. Shortly thereafter, I found the bag of flour along with a few mice in the pot. The snake was after the mice. Removing the flour and trapping/poisoning the rest of the mice ended the problem. Our cat, who stayed home during our trip to Indiana was somewhat traumatized. She was jumpy for the next 6 months or so.

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  10. Peanut butter is a weapon of mass destruction.
    Put some on those traps and sit back and cackle like a mad despot.

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  11. It may sound silly but, Oh man! There is a real sense of satifaction and revenge killing the invaders after they have done their damage. I suppose the best defence is to be on the offence without letting up.

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  12. Just a warning from the voice of experience: the little blighters learn! You have to switch up the types of traps you use, or they'll start avoiding them.

    We went through every type of kill trap on the market (no, I will not release them into the wild, just so they can come back again!), and finally had to resort to poison to get rid of them...at least, to get rid of enough of them that I'm not finding their little "gifts" all over my dishes, silverware, Tupperware, etc...

    Have I mentioned that I HATE MICE?!

    Melody

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  13. Melody, I only wish that you had said that, "I hate meeceses to pieces." That is a great old line from a cartoon(I don't remember which one.) Damb dirty little vermin! Poison is a bad idea. You don't want them to get ill and die in your walls. No, this is you against them. Surely you can appreciate what is at stake. This is a small personal war but it is deadly serious. Trap them, no live traps.

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  14. Here are my 2 cents:

    Recently we "had" a mice problem. The little buggers got bold enough to come out during the day and run across the floor ... in front of us! These mice were TINY! They wouldn't set off the regular wooden traps. After trying some other traps the one that works over and over again are the trap from Ortho. They have a little handle that you just squeeze and it releases the dead mouse.
    Don't EVER use poison. A friend used poison on a rat problem she was having and didn't realize they had a nest in one of her walls. They all died in the wall and after a while stunk up the place. She had to pull out the wall and ... well you get the point.

    Margaret
    California

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  15. I realize this is an old post and maybe the problem is past, but, do you have sufficient cats? We had horrible problems with mice, voles, shrews, moles, etc, etc, etc on our couple acres back when we lived in Oregon. We tried trapping and then moved to poison. The poison worked better, but not all our rodents were attracted to it and, frankly, it was a constant stress that my little ones would find the bait box. A friend of ours had a momma cat give birth to six kittens in her storage shed and she worked on us until we finally agreed to take a brother and sister. We fed them at night to lure them into the garage (our most probable rodent entry point) and away from the coyotes, and then all day they hunted around the rest of the property. We never had another mouse get inside and, bonus, within two years the moles were gone as well. My understanding is that the cat to land ratio for pest control is 1 cat:1 acre so our duo was just right for us. 40 cats might be overkill, but maybe having a couple with an overnight station near your washroom or most probable entry point would put your night watchmen where you need them most.
    Mouse-free wishes to you!
    JCD

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  16. We have two barn cats (strays who adopted us) but no house or yard cats. Our dogs Lydia and Major would promptly kill any cat we brought into the house. -- which is a pity because we all love cats, the girls especially.

    - Patrice

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  17. Decon works great. Our 3yr old cat just started mousing dog 7 cat 3. How embarrassing, standing at the check-out with cat food and rat bait.

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