Last night my husband woke me up to tell me that we had a mouse. Now, I don't leave food out, and I consider my house to be clean but some how we have a mouse. So we put out several mouse traps with cheese on them and much to our suprise this morning the cheese was gone but we had no mouse. Now what do we do? Any one have any suggestions?
Add your voice! Click below to answer. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
Hard cheese is easily removed by the mouse without getting trapped. Try using squeezable cheese or some peanut butter. The mouse will have to lick it and is more likely to get trapped. The mice come in the house through very small holes in the floor, like where your water pipes come in. Get a can of expandable foam at your local hardware store and fill in all the holes in your floors, walls, etc. ""
You can put peanut butter on the traps instead of cheese. Mice love it and they can't just snag it and pull it out of the trap.
buy a humane trap. It'll be a metal box or cage. They go IN after the food and cannot escape. remember to check the trap frequently, then take it someplace far from your home (hopefully someplace wooded like a park, away from other homes) and let it go there.
If you're not concerned with being humane - I certainly wasn't when it came down to cleaning up all of the mouse droppings around my sink and counter area - a regular mousetrap with peanut butter did the trick for me. We put the trap in the sink, then when it got caught, it didn't have a chance to drag the trap and hide elsewhere until we found it in the morning.
I was going to suggest a humane trap, too.
Try your local pet supplies store, or here:
www.seabrightlabs.com/
you can also use a raisin, that works well too.
They have sticky traps that work wonderful, just put peanut butter or bird seed on it and they will be attracted to it.
sticky traps with p nut butter in the middle or on the side closest to a wall work good, too.
I am a big animal lover, but when we had not one but two mice soon after moving in to a rental, I had a hissy. A trap with peanut butter did catch them very quickly. I did not want to but the traditional mousetrap that breaks the neck, because with small kids, a trap that can snap a mouse's neck can break a child's fingers, toes, whatever..
I'd rather find a mouse squeaking in a sticky trap and know we are now mouse-free than have children with broken fingers/toes or think of mice craling near or on or worse, biting my babies.
As everybody has said . . . peanut butter. Prepare for there to be more than one. Once you get the family, you'll be fine. DO IT SOON. Make sure that if there are any babies, they're not being housed inside, perhaps under the sink. They will not venture out to take care of themselves and you wouldn't want them expiring where you don't see them.
I have used peppermint oil. Mice do not like this stuff. It makes everything smell like candy canes for awhile. Just put a few drops of peppermint oil on cotton balls and place all around your house. You will have to reapply the oil frequently.
I go with the peanut butter method, but with a difference. Take about a one inch piece of spaghetti and stick it in the p-butter. The mice try to get the pasta and boom, they are trapped. I once got two mice in the same trap this way.
A humane and easy to load and unload trap is called a live trap. Big enough to hold a whole family of mice plus you can carry it and unload it without touching any of them!
I would suggest using "coke cola classic" put in jar lids and set them under sinks and ontop of cabinets where they are likely to crawl. The reason? #1 it will NOT hurt children if they find it and drink it (I have small grand children).
I would suggest using "coke cola classic" put in jar lids and set them under sinks and ontop of cabinets where they are likely to crawl. The reason? #1 it will NOT hurt children if they find it and drink it (I have small grand children). #2 rats and mice cannot burp OR pass gas.......so they EXPLODE....the end of your problem. Otherwise, you may have to get a cat. Hope this helps...I am mouse free... have been for years.
Mice can come into the cleanest of homes. They come in for all different reasons (ex.: looking for food, wanting out of the cold, wanting out of the heat). Where there is a hole, they can come in. But also consider that where there is a hole for a mouse to come in, that also other critters can come in, like snakes. My sister had a hole around her dryer vent & thought that mice were coming thru there, so she put a fairly good sized glue trap under the hole, thinking she could catch several mice on it. One day she heard a noise & went to see what it was. Much to her surprise, it was a snake on the glue trap, about 16 to 18 inches long!!
A pal of mine found a black snake stretched out in her bathroom, up around the top of the cabinets, in some artificial green vines she had up for decoration. She said they don't know how long the snake had been in her house. She also said it wasn't the first time they'd found a snake in the house, either. I can live in a house with a mouse, but if I found a snake in my house, I imagine my house would be for sale!
I had the same problem, only I was using both sticky & snap traps. I tried bread, cheese, peanut butter. My dad suggested that I needed to put the peanut butter in the holes of the snap trap, instead of just on top. That way they have to try harder. And also make sure the trap is LIGHTLY set. They even ate that!!! You'll never believe this, but one night I was making No Bake Cookies and decided to try it. I wet a small amount & formed it around the snap trap (where you put the food) FINALLY caught 2 mice!!!!! The night I caught the second mouse, I had rescued a momma cat & her 4 kittens from the pound. Since then, with all 5 of them running around in the house, we've seen no sign of mice, plus, the kittens are a big joy to watch. My daughter keeps them entertained when she gets home from school, and also teaches her responsibility. P.S. I also found the mouse entrance and fill it from the inside & outside full of foil. GOOD LUCK!!!!!
We live in the country, where there are about 4 houses and a million mice per square mile. We keep mouse poison (the kind that comes in a box and is turquoise) out all the time, have five cats, and still get them sometimes! The best bait we have found for snap traps is a raisin that is tied on with a piece of string. They tug on it and you've got the little pest! And no, the traps won't break your fingers. They're not THAT strong!
The best thing I have found to block the holes around water pipes, etc is steel wool. It's very cheap, and you can break off the exact amount you need to stuff the hole. Mice cannot chew through it -- they can chew through most other stuff! Steel wool costs way less than that "Great Stuff" expanding foam.
The best thing I have found to use in a mouse trap is a fourth of a peanut cut lengthways and forced into the hole in the mouse trap. When the little rascal tugs to get a bite -- he/she is history! :)
I agree with the humane trap. All of these others sound horrible, exploding mice?? They're just doing what comes naturally. The humane trap works every time & you just drive to the nearest field, part whatever & let them go. Peanut butter & cheese work.
Any time you use a solid bait it is always best to tie it to the trigger with a piece of fish line or unscented, unflavored dental floss.
I purchased a book from a guy on an infomerical who advertises natural solutions of getting rid of mice. I purchased oil of peppermint. I had been bothered with mice for a long time and hate having mice. I'm happy to say I put a cotton balls in little medicine cups and put 3-4 drops of peppermint oil on the cotton balls. I then placed one under my sink in the cabinet and along the back edge of my counter top. I am happy to report that I have not had a mouse here since. I believe he said mice don't like the peppermint smell. Anyway its worked for me. The oil of peppermint only cost me about $4.d
Put a dab of Peanut butter on the mouse trap instead of cheese. Mice will have to work harder to get the peanut butter and will soon meet their demise. Secondly, Find out where they are entering your house if you can and put some steel wool in the hole. they will not be able to chew through it and will then try to find another way in. You have to be diligent with this method.
hello, i just had to leave a message here on the humane traps, they never worked for me, i have 3 out, so far its been a week, & still havent catched that crazy critter, so im still trying to catch it, ive got my frig so packed with all my food, im not gonna feed em, im gonna catch them some day, haha, just wanted to let folks know it never worked in our house.
my boyfriends old roommates use to get them all the time. in the middle of the night i would here the things eating thru the wood floor in the trailer. we finally decided we'd get the suckers. we put a SNICKERS bar on the mouse trap since they kept getting into my boyfriends dresser drawer and put holes in everything. i mean i would here them entering into the dresser cause i would here a thump. we caught 4 of them with the SNICKERS BARS.
Let me tell you when it comes to mice I have tried it all.. We bought a lake house 4 hours from our home and did not expect that while were gone the mice would play and multiply like mice do. Yikes! I can't even begin to tell you how many we had after a month. Mouse pellets everywhere :( I have used and still do some glue traps for the really little ones, regular mouse traps for the fully grown ones and the ultimate "Tom CAT" sealed boxes with the decon type blocks staked inside. I have built the ramp onto the bucket filled with antifreeze and the tight rope across the top which worked too.
It is kind of a drag to fish out all the dead ones., Bottomline is the Tom Cat set up has continued to work the best over the long haul and it always amazes me when I open them up and half the poison is gone. Decon works but it is open to the world and pets could walk over and eat it if it's on the floor. I am really a Green at heart, but when it comes to mice I had to draw the line. I see no sense in just repelling them from one area to show up somewhere else. Mice=Bad News.
Out of everything I have tried the one thing that didn't work ever was the stupid little plastic trap that looks like a clam shell that they tell you you don't even need bait...wrong, never even one mouse so I pitched them out. Another trick is to use a rat trap to get the squirrels out of the barn. You really need to wire tie them down and use some real fine wire to tie a nut onto the trigger otherwise they will steal the nuts most of the time without tripping the trap. Sorry to ramble, but this creatures can really mess up your stuff. Happy hunting.
Oh no anti freeze or poison please!! You will kill cats, dogs, anything!!
You should put peanutbutter out in a box and set a piece of string making a closing system and in the morning when the box is closed look inside.
Add your voice! Click below to answer. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
