Getting rid of a mouse in the home?

TECHNOKID

Last winter, I found and killed a mouse in the house and did not have any problem until now.

This evening while I was cleaning in the kitchen I noticed a running mouse on my counter but could not kill it. I don't know where it went but I know it is still somewhere in the house.

I never had any such problems for the 20 years I own the house until last winter. How can I get rid of that once for all withouth the services of an exterminator? Are repulsive sonic frequecy gadgets efficient or is it a must to use poison?

Thank you in advance for any help!
TK

VR3

Anytime we had a problem in my Moms house we used Mouse straps that are just sticky...

They release an odor that attracts the mouse and the mouse sticks to them.

No blood, no guts, easy and simple.

dorourke07

A hunk of peanut butter in the center of the sticky trap works really well.

fatpiggy

Go to the pound RSPCA and ask if you can borrow a cat for a week or so.Who know you might like the cat, great pets.Get a fix male they make good rat catchers.We have 3 boy cats around the farm they catch all the rats.

Fat piggy

TECHNOKID

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote: »

Anytime we had a problem in my Moms house we used Mouse straps that are just sticky...

They release an odor that attracts the mouse and the mouse sticks to them.

No blood, no guts, easy and simple.

I was trying to avoid mouse traps but if that is a necessity, I'll look into this.

fatpiggy wrote: »

Go to the pound RSPCA and ask if you can borrow a cat for a week or so.Who know you might like the cat, great pets.Get a fix male they make good rat catchers.We have 3 boy cats around the farm they catch all the rats.

Fat piggy

Now, I don't want to trade a problem for another I can't really stand cats, I had a very bad experience with one, I had to give it away. That stupid cat would destroy my curtains, it also climbed on my speaker cloth face plate, it jumped on my face while I was sleeping. I also read many cats don't even bother the mice.

My worry is infestation. Is finding a mouse something isolated or is their a nest somewhere? I heard cases of people having to replace their insulation. Any input advice on this?

bigaudiofanatic

dorourke07 wrote: »

A hunk of peanut butter in the center of the sticky trap works really well.

This or start charging them rent.

messiah

Well, if you don't like cats you could always get a snake

Outfitter03

Mice coming inside during the fall is a normal occurrence where I live. They can get through amazingly small holes. If you let one stay, then there are two and soon whole families.

Personally I believe that regular mouse traps are the safest and most humane way of dispatching mice. 90% of the time a well set trap will do it's thing to the little guy in less than one minute. Death by the poison is the most disgusting and they will smell if not found and the sticky traps are pure torture also.

So Man up and set a trap or two. Use peanut butter on the trigger even if they are the scented/pre-baited type. Best setting locations are back and in dark places. Such as sliding trap alongside refrigerator, back about 1 foot. A yardstick makes a handy tool to both slowly place the trap and retrieve it.

Germs on mice are real, best to wear latex or urethane disposable gloves to dispose. Generally I just toss the trap as they are about $0.50 apiece.

Good Hunting!

fatpiggy

If you dont like cats get a snake, they eat mice.I nice big python thier not posionous .Snakes only need one mouse a week to survive.Scare all the neighbours, really cool.

I have huge big lizards that tear the iron roof off the chicken house and go and steal a chicken big mean muthers and very fast.They see me with the shot gun and they run like their tails are on fire.

I caught one stealing eggs that the chickens had layed in the machinary shed, scared the daylights out of me, man that lizard was huge at least 6 feet long.Like a real sceen out of durasik park.


Fat piggy

disneyjoe7

I do think those ultasonic pest things work wonders. But I'm all in for a cat, doesn't have to be an indoor cat either.


Steve

BlueFox

I had 2 mice that would not fall for the trap, so I got a kitten. While she is a good cat, at that stage she just wasn't into catching mice.

The funny part is I caught both myself in the same way. I have a small plastic trash can in my office/den/library, and, for whatever reason, both of those dumba$$es got into it, but not at the same time. I would be sitting in my chair reading, and then start hearing a rustling in the trash can. Bingo! Magazine over the top, out to the trash, and into the big can.

I should have had them mounted.

fatpiggy

When we get rat plauges, we use buck traps.A pece of food is placed on the trap door on top of the bucket the rat walk up the ramps going to the top of the bucket walks out on to the trap and the trap door opens and the rat fall down into the bucket.the trap door has a counter levered weight that resets the trap door.These buckets are the size of a 44 gallon drum. In one night we caught over 900 rats, all died from fighting each other to get out of the drum.

To get rid of them you make a big fire and have a rat bar be que.I dont like rats.

Fat piggy

messiah

Cats don't catch mice because they're hunting, they catch them because they're playing with them. It really only works if they still have their claws. The mice either bleed to death, or have a heart attack, and the cats don't eat them. If you get the right size shot for your shotgun, you can actually vaporize them.

FTGV

Since your in the PQ an order of Poutine laced with Warfin should do the trick.

fatpiggy

My cats eat rats.Nothing better than hearing the skull of a rat crunch when one of my cats eats a rat.The only thing they leave behind is the intestines and stomach sometimes the tail.But they eat the lot fur and all.Then about 3 hours later they coff up all the fur and leave a nice rat fur ball lying around some where.

Our cats like to bring home the rats live and they will sit at the door with the rat.They think they are bringing home food for the family.Usually I just give the cat a good boy and a pat and tell him to eat his rat.And he does.

Cats a great animals

Fat piggy

TECHNOKID

bigaudiofanatic wrote: »

This or start charging them rent.

Good idea, save the money for upgrades

messiah wrote: »

Well, if you don't like cats you could always get a snake

I,d probably prefer that :biggrin:

Outfitter03 wrote: »

Mice coming inside during the fall is a normal occurrence where I live. They can get through amazingly small holes. If you let one stay, then there are two and soon whole families.

Personally I believe that regular mouse traps are the safest and most humane way of dispatching mice. 90% of the time a well set trap will do it's thing to the little guy in less than one minute. Death by the poison is the most disgusting and they will smell if not found and the sticky traps are pure torture also.

So Man up and set a trap or two. Use peanut butter on the trigger even if they are the scented/pre-baited type. Best setting locations are back and in dark places. Such as sliding trap alongside refrigerator, back about 1 foot. A yardstick makes a handy tool to both slowly place the trap and retrieve it.

Germs on mice are real, best to wear latex or urethane disposable gloves to dispose. Generally I just toss the trap as they are about $0.50 apiece.

Good Hunting!

Great pointers. I'll be shopping tomorrow I guess.

disneyjoe7 wrote: »

I do think those ultasonic pest things work wonders. But I'm all in for a cat, doesn't have to be an indoor cat either.


Steve

I'll use the ultransonic too, I think it is worth the expense just to see if it works. However, I was searching online and it is confusing. Some vender claims a frequency while other have different frequency claim. It seems like different frequency will be used for different type of pest so which frequency would be most efficient for mice?

Keep the advice coming, I need to clear this ASAP and will use a combination of anything that makes sense however, the cat is out of question. I can't stand cat and I don't believe in slavery I prefer cats go to a good home which imne is not.

kawizx9r

You can always blast the stereo to some Black Eyed Peas or something else that others would consider to be music. Hopefully that'll drive it away!

Lost

These are the ones I use, have had very good luck with them. Theres a hole in the bottom of the trap that you put peanut butter in.

http://www.d-conproducts.com/traps/nvnt.html

fatpiggy

Do you like dogs, their is actually a small dog called a Jack Russell which is a rat dog.small yappy things the girls like them cause thier small and cute and you can put them in your jacket pocket.

fat oiggy

disneyjoe7

I think your neighbor need's an outdoor cat...

TECHNOKID

kawizx9r wrote: »

You can always blast the stereo to some Black Eyed Peas or something else that others would consider to be music. Hopefully that'll drive it away!

I was thinking of that, If I knew the right frequency to use I would blast the mouse away, might as well put the system to good use :biggrin:

Lost wrote: »

These are the ones I use, have had very good luck with them. Theres a hole in the bottom of the trap that you put peanut butter in.

http://www.d-conproducts.com/traps/nvnt.html

Noted, I'll check for them tomorrow.

fatpiggy wrote: »

Do you like dogs, their is actually a small dog called a Jack Russell which is a rat dog.small yappy things the girls like them cause thier small and cute and you can put them in your jacket pocket.

fat oiggy

Never really been attracted to small barking dogs but I have to admit this dog is really cute :cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgEOG5JVZp4

If you have a mouse or rat problem then the Jack Russell Terrier is the dog for you. They love to catch mice and rats and if you are allergic to cats and are not allergic to dogs the Jack Russell Terrier might be the answer for you.

I thought dogs would be useless for chasing mouse but I guess I was wrong.

But a Jack Russell Terrier does not do well alone so if you are gone from home a lot a Jack Russell Terrier is not the kind of dog for you.

This is an issue as I live alone. I was thinking of adopting another dog (had some in the past but not for a few years) but I think leaving the dog alone home is somewhat cruel.

Maybe I could get a pair of them so they could keep each other company when I'm away (However, not really looking forward to cleaning after dogs, I had my share of kids and dogs to look after )


http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/132409/jack_russell_terriers_are_great_family.html

fatpiggy

One of our rat cacthers

F1nut

Outfitter03 wrote: »

Mice coming inside during the fall is a normal occurrence where I live. They can get through amazingly small holes. If you let one stay, then there are two and soon whole families.

Personally I believe that regular mouse traps are the safest and most humane way of dispatching mice. 90% of the time a well set trap will do it's thing to the little guy in less than one minute. Death by the poison is the most disgusting and they will smell if not found and the sticky traps are pure torture also.

So Man up and set a trap or two. Use peanut butter on the trigger even if they are the scented/pre-baited type. Best setting locations are back and in dark places. Such as sliding trap alongside refrigerator, back about 1 foot. A yardstick makes a handy tool to both slowly place the trap and retrieve it.

Germs on mice are real, best to wear latex or urethane disposable gloves to dispose. Generally I just toss the trap as they are about $0.50 apiece.

Good Hunting!

Yep, the tried and true mouse trap is the best way to kill a mouse unless you have a cat. One slight correction, the trap breaks their neck, death is instant.

Cats don't catch mice because they're hunting, they catch them because they're playing with them. It really only works if they still have their claws. The mice either bleed to death, or have a heart attack, and the cats don't eat them.

That's not quite right. Most cats hunt, kill and eat mice. The ones they don't eat have something wrong (probably disease) that the cat can sense and therefore will not eat. Cats are extremely smart.

fatpiggy

This is our youngest rat catcher Jasper, he also thinks hes a chicken,as he like to watch the chooks, he dosnt chase or eat them. A strange cat.Have caught eating the occassional rabbit.

F1nut

Have caught eating the occassional rabbit.

Yep, my cat will kill and eat mice, bird, rabbit, chipmunk, snake and praying mantis. Never had rats, so I can't say.

fatpiggy

The cats make me feel sick when they eat the large cockroaches we have here.But they seem to enjoy them.The first cat Thomas he dosnt like prey mantisis, they are too agreesive for him.He tried to eat one but the skites on its legs kept stabbing him so he just stayed away from it.Mind you though he had pull most of its legs off.

TECHNOKID

F1nut wrote: »

Yep, my cat will kill and eat mice, bird, rabbit, chipmunk, snake and praying mantis. Never had rats, so I can't say.

I could picture a large snake eating a cat but never pictured a cat eating even the smallest snake however, cats are indeed hunter afterall and will chase just about everything that moves

fatpiggy

I dont know what it is about cats they seem to know if a snake is dangerous or not.They will go the green tree snakes we have around here but they keep a wide berth of anything that posioninous.

TECHNOKID

Anyone familiar with this and would recommend it or not?

http://www.getridofbugs.com/

I have noticed there are many proud cat(s) owner on this site and often threads like this will prompt owners to to withness their attachments and affection to the beasts :cool:

BuckeyeTim

Go for the trap and be done with it. If you can't deal with killing a live mouse then go for the spring trap. You catch it with the sticky trap and you are going to have to kill it on your own. They just get stuck to the sticky kind and are still alive.

You don't need an exterminator...just a few traps. An exterminator is only going to set traps which you can do yourself. Just throw the entire trap in garbage when you catch it.

One thing you need to think about though is how the mouse got in to begin with. If one got in, others can too.

messiah

F1nut wrote: »

That's not quite right. Most cats hunt, kill and eat mice. The ones they don't eat have something wrong (probably disease) that the cat can sense and therefore will not eat. Cats are extremely smart.

I'm just going on what I've seen. I've only had indoor cats, and when my friends outdoor cat caught a mouse he just played with it, and when it was dead he lost interest and left it there. Maybe most cats do eat 'em. Either way the mice are dead :biggrin: