Mouse problem in your house? (Vanity)

Self

[L.A.Justice]

Have you ever had a mouse problem in your house?

I have a friend who rents a room in some big house...The house is in a big city...

His landlord put some mouse traps in the kitchen area...

My friend saw a mouse on a trap...It was a sticky trap...A mouse was stuck on it...It was not dead yet...

He lived at that house for several years...He never saw his landlord using mouse traps before...

[21twelve]

Funny post!

I set up some traps around the outside of the house in winter (Seattle area - rats love to try to get inside). I block the traps and cover them so my dog can't stick his nose in them.

Also - I use heavy fishing line and tie the Victor traps to something solid. Years ago I had a mouse trap in the house that went missing. Moving a couple years later the trap and desiccated remains of a mouse were found under a piece of furniture.

“So THAT’s what that smell was!”

[dgbrown]

I have an old house and had a problem and got a cat. Problem went away. My cat is also very lazy and doesn’t really go out of his way to hunt but he kept them at bay. I’d have one come through every once in a while. The past few months the mice have been heavier than normal. I brought my boy to the vet because I thought he wasn’t eating. Apparently he is, just not my food.

Keeping small rodents out of my house is a fool’s errand just like trying to keep all the water out of my basement. You can reduce the amount, but never eliminate.

[Flaming Conservative]

ROFL! I’m going to put some glue traps inside my cabinets, so the same thing won’t happen to our cat.

[rlmorel]

In my experience there are four types of cats who hunt:

1. Those who hunt and kill EVERYTHING from bugs to squirrels

2. Those who hunt birds

3. Those who hunt rodents

4. And those who are completely inept and do not hunt

I had one of each kind, but the funniest one was the one I wrote this poem about after watching him deal with a mouse inside the house:

The Ballad of Boots The Lazy Cat
Sitting in a room this morn
Commotion on the rug
What was Boots the cat chasing?
Could it be a bug?  

There before my startled eyes
In the middle of the floor
A disheveled little grayish lump
Quivering and sore  

Hovering all around it
As it twitched and wiggled still
Was Boots the lousy hunter
Looking at his kill  

As fast as you could blink an eye
It jumped and ran away
But Boots declined to let it go
And ran into its way  

But back and forth the mouse would run
With Boots to stop his run
Until panting with exhaustion
He was back where he’d begun  

The deformed paw came down and then
The mouse flipped in the air
Then prancing to the other side
A feline Fred Astaire  

Would paw and poke and claw and scratch
That mouse till he lay still
Then wiggling his scrawny butt
Would move in for the kill  

But kill he didn’t want to do
He simply liked to play
The mouse I think already knew
This wouldn’t be his day  

I could no longer take the chance
That it would get away
I had to interrupt this thing
And bring and end to play  

So brandishing an implement
Meant to make it grovel
I put an end to Bootsie’s game
With the flat end of a shovel  

The toilet flushed, the paw was licked
A peace was soon restored
To end the tale of lazy cat
And mouse that never roared

[Chickensoup]

Yes anti freeze is used by many in the North.

I just check the buckets daily and havent run into icing in the garage and basement. I also do not want to dump antifreeze on my land.

[Born to Conserve]

“It’s an extraordinary cat that is a mouser.”

It’s a hungry cat that is a mouser.

[Demiurge2]

That’s what I don’t like about the sticky mouse traps. Yes, they catch the mouse... but then you find him still alive, and giving you a “Please set me free..” sad face.

[dfwgator]

Genesis - All In a Mouse’s Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4m9JDzJ2wo

[redfreedom]

I disagree.

Our cat of 13 years has never eaten a mouse that we know of. As a youngster she’d play with them. We had mice in the garage, so we set her out to do her job. We caught her just watching them.

Now we’ve had other cats that could not stand the sight of a mouse, bird or squirrel and killed everyone she could get her claws sunk into. She was constantly on the hunt. She was an outside feral cat that kept our home absolutely free of mice. Being feral, we could not get within five feet of her. She was finally gotten by a coyote or hawk.

I think the difference is how much of a pet they are and how well fed they are. Be nice to them, but don’t make cuddly pets out of them and do not over feed.

[dfwgator]

[unclejohncornbread]

Then you would just submerge the little devils?

[sport]

I had them to snap on my fingers a time or two. I would not use a sticky trap. I will and have shot them, knocked them in the head, or used a regular trap.

[Kickass Conservative]

Josie Wales, Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.

[alexander_busek]

I pick the trap up and dozens of them swarm out and I can stomp on most of them. It's fun trying to get all of them.

Stomping on ants swarming out of decayed mice carcasses... That's what counts as "fun" in your area. Winters must be rea-aally boring where you live.

Oh, well: Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Regards,

[reformedliberal]

Irish Spring soap deters mice.
______________________________

Basically, they dislike strong, sweet-ish odors. I’ve had success with peppermint oil or lavender fragrance oil. Peppermint tea bags work. You need to replenish the scent periodically.

In my new home, they prefer the cabinets under the bathroom sinks, for some reason. They ignored a trap set out in a corner.

Traps set in the cupboard they were accessing worked, but it was too easy to set them off reaching in for something.

[doorgunner69]

Lived in a townhouse, the adjoining house had them in the attic. Clown there decided to poison them. They crawled over to our attic to die. One died right over a bathroom ceiling light, warm I suppose.

Wife started screaming as maggots fell from the light.

[Right Wing Assault]

My best fun winter is when I do the snow removal off our sidewalks and the same of the neighbors' stuff, too. I love snow and cold!

The rowboat I built in 1963 hasn't floated in 30 years, but I'd like to get in again!

[Don W]

Interesting. My Quatorze was a young rescue that lived the indoor life of Riley until I bought my house. She had never seen a mouse or rat until we moved in, but she kept that house utterly vermin free the whole time she lived. Within 3 weeks of her demise, I had rats in the living room!

Some cats are better than others, I guess. I’ve been lucky, pretty much every cat my family has had has been a successful mouser/ratter.

[Daffynition]

That’s an option or release them back in the woods; or take them for a little ride, far away.

[Covenantor]

LOL...that came to mind just after I posted my reply.