OT: Mice | The Boneyard

OT: Mice

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I know mouse eradication has been discussed before. Just wanted to share my slightly shocking experience yesterday.

So, we have had mice here & there in the basement. We have a cat. She usually brings them upstairs to play with. Good kitty. Anyway, I can't seem to find where they enter, so I deal with it by either Havaharts (don't like to kill them) or a natural mouse repellent I just discovered (Grandpa Gus's if you are interested).

Yesterday I was outside putzing around. I had left a bucket by the stairs and the rain had filled it halfway with water. I rounded the corner and JESUS! there were like 8 dead mice floating in the bucket!

Not sure why....maybe that bucket was in a path they use jumping off the steps? Really weird...and sort of disturbing!

PS I refilled it after dumping the mice. I felt kind of bad doing that, but hey, if they want to commit suicide....
 

Dream Jobbed 2.0

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We had chipmunks drown in our kiddie pool a couple times, so we had to remember to always empty it. Actually, I hated chipmunks always running out of some place and scaring the crap out of me. It was a lot quieter when we had that kiddie pool....
 

cohenzone

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We had chipmunks drown in our kiddie pool a couple times, so we had to remember to always empty it. Actually, I hated chipmunks always running out of some place and scaring the crap out of me. It was a lot quieter when we had that kiddie pool....
In our last house we had mice in the basement issues and chipmunks under our deck. One used to sun himself in a patio chair. Occasionally a mouse got upstairs. They love to hide in insulation. We finally hired an exterminator, found over a dozen dead mice. He also patched possible entry places. We captured one chipmunk wuth with a Have a heart, at its entry hole and unexpectedly one mouse. If you are going to release them into a wooded area, it needs to be several miles away. They will find their way back if released within a few miles of their territory. Moving to a high rise condo, we have neither mice nor chipmunk issues and surprisingly haven’t ever seen a spider.
 

geordi

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In our last house we had mice in the basement issues and chipmunks under our deck. One used to sun himself in a patio chair. Occasionally a mouse got upstairs. They love to hide in insulation. We finally hired an exterminator, found over a dozen dead mice. He also patched possible entry places. We captured one chipmunk wuth with a Have a heart, at its entry hole and unexpectedly one mouse. If you are going to release them into a wooded area, it needs to be several miles away. They will find their way back if released within a few miles of their territory. Moving to a high rise condo, we have neither mice nor chipmunk issues and surprisingly haven’t ever seen a spider.
Just one word: Bats. Mice with wings.
 

cohenzone

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Just one word: Bats. Mice with wings.
Never get in here. Years ago in South Windsor we had a bat in our house. I tried to capture it in a blanket, couldn’t and my son swatted it with a tennis racket. Killed the poor thing.

Here in the high rise, we did have an injured hawk on a window sill and an injured pigeon on our balcony. Kinda weird because my son is a prof of wildlife biology who specializes in endangered birds. Those birds must’ve known I could consult an expert. Thousands of window sills to choose from around here. Animal Control took care of them. Watching the officer capture the hawk was neat. You know the bird had trouble flying. Never moved.
 
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I have boneyard chickens and I use the bucket trick myself to trap mice hanging around. Keep the bucket next anything they may use as a trail (anything really) and they'll find their way into the bucket.

I previously used the nuclear option called FINAL and didn't see a mouse for a year! Felt bad so I went the more humane route and used the bucket with water.
 
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Yeah it must be their trail! Found one more this morning. I left the drowned mice from the first time in the garden last night and evidently somebody found a nice treat- all gone today. At least they are food for someone. And no poison!
 
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In FL I have a big window above my front door. Had these frogs that continue to sit up there in the shade, pooping & peeing all over the place. So I would always knock them off & they would just poop & pee everywhere even more in the process, just to go back by the time I shut the door behind me.
So I googled humane ways to repel frogs. Found a vinegar and water mixture keeps them away. Read the directions wrong and threw the water in them directly versus wiping the area they congregate down with it. Long story short, they all caught the Holy Ghost, started flopping and shaking all over the place. Borderline traumatizing
 
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In FL I have a big window above my front door. Had these frogs that continue to sit up there in the shade, pooping & peeing all over the place. So I would always knock them off & they would just poop & pee everywhere even more in the process, just to go back by the time I shut the door behind me.
So I googled humane ways to repel frogs. Found a vinegar and water mixture keeps them away. Read the directions wrong and threw the water in them directly versus wiping the area they congregate down with it. Long story short, they all caught the Holy Ghost, started flopping and shaking all over the place. Borderline traumatizing
Did you and @8893 hang out together as kids? ?

 
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Wife went to get into the vehicle this winter and a mouse hopped out. I have tried mothballs scattered around the garage but it was not enough. So I filled a 5 gallon pail 1/3 full with water and rubbed some peanut butter on the inside of the pail and placed a pine board on an angle like a ramp to the top of the pail. Had a dozen mice in the first week. Have to remember to empty the pail or it starts to stink. In the real cold nights it froze as the garage is unheated. Leaving the dead mice in the garden is good for the night visitors as they are gone.
Mice in the house is a different problem but needs to be addressed. Renovating a kids bedroom I found a chewed romex wire with the jacket opened up and some of the white and black insulation chewed as well. Mice love to tunnel through fiberglass insulation and compromise its effectiveness. I sealed all openings between the house and the foundation as best I could sometimes using aluminum drip edge under the ledger board tight to the cement and caulk in other areas. If you still hear the buggers running around in the ceiling at night get some professional advice.
 

CL82

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Wife went to get into the vehicle this winter and a mouse hopped out. I have tried mothballs scattered around the garage but it was not enough. So I filled a 5 gallon pail 1/3 full with water and rubbed some peanut butter on the inside of the pail and placed a pine board on an angle like a ramp to the top of the pail. Had a dozen mice in the first week. Have to remember to empty the pail or it starts to stink. In the real cold nights it froze as the garage is unheated. Leaving the dead mice in the garden is good for the night visitors as they are gone.
Mice in the house is a different problem but needs to be addressed. Renovating a kids bedroom I found a chewed romex wire with the jacket opened up and some of the white and black insulation chewed as well. Mice love to tunnel through fiberglass insulation and compromise its effectiveness. I sealed all openings between the house and the foundation as best I could sometimes using aluminum drip edge under the ledger board tight to the cement and caulk in other areas. If you still hear the buggers running around in the ceiling at night get some professional advice.
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*Among the many things CL82 is not is a pest control specialist. I profess no particular expertise regarding vermin eradication.
 
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If you want to get rid of chipmunks, mice, red squirrels, fill two buckets half with water and sprinkle a layer of sunflower seeds on top. Put one bucket in front of the house, and one in the back. Fish them out in the morning, throw them in the woods, spinkle more sunflower seeds, and repeat. You'll get 5-10 critters a day for a while.
 

Dove

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Our dishwasher recently coded that water was not draining, so it shut off seconds into a cycle. So, we pulled it out from under the counter to start the repair. It was soon observed that mice ate the insulation around the unit and had eaten a hole through the sheetrock to get into the dishwater cavity. Mouse turd and piss all over. We abhor mice. Will dot the bucket, water and seed trap this weekend.
 

Horatio

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An abandoned house in back of mines got fully renovated four years ago. Roofing, walls gutted, everything. That’s the first time I saw evidence of mice in my house. Apparently the rodents in the renovated house were “ disturbed “, ran to my house and mimicked the same behavior. They traveled throughout the house by way of the openings in the baseboard heaters. I had to block those openings with Loctite and I bought glue traps, etc. The infestation lasted about 4 months until I placed poison in my basement and outside the house. These boxes work and you cause purchase them at any hardware store
B5FB4D8D-214C-4901-ACDF-A2B8C081CE82.jpeg
 

formerlurker

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At this point I'll give the mice a spare key.

A few weeks ago I was in the garage and saw a fairly large spider. Sprayed her with ortho bug kill and no joke, 1,500 tiny baby spiders jumped out as she died. They died peacefully when I spritzed again. I felt guilty as but also knew I had held the fort.
 
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I had a condo about 6-7 years ago, and they were getting in from under my kitchen sink. I had one walk over my body in the middle of the night and that was IT for me, terrifying and gross. While it was not the most humane way to deal with it, I covered the area next to the pipe they were crawling up on with sticky traps and boyyyyyyyy did that solve the problem. I would replace them every few days usually one day I'd have a bunch of ripped off hair, and the next day I'd catch the one that got away. One time I had a screeching one on a sticky trap, I took it outside and banged it against the dumpster like 5 times before I tossed it in.

Mice SUCK, I didn't feel bad at all.
 

HuskyHawk

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We had a situation in our attic. Mice (who would sometimes enter the walls and die...lovely smell), bats and flying squirrels. The squirrels were noisy (way smaller than grey squirrels) and we eventually called some professionals. They went over everything in the house and sealed up every possible point of entry. The removed the mice and flying squirrels. The put in a one way door for the bats, so they could leave but not return, since it was illegal to harm them. Have not had any issues since. So: call a pro. A mouse can get through a hole the size of a dime.

Now my shed, it has had loads of mice problems. They chew up anything soft (like rope) to make nests. Since I also had a lot of insects and spiders in there, I tried something I hadn't: a bug bomb/fogger. Cleared some stuff out and let it go. There were a lot of dead bugs, but it also has kept the mice out quite effectively. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that they don't like that poison.

Edit: I'm not sure if the stuff you get at the hardware store is the same, but the poison the pro guys use is slow acting and it makes the mice thirsty. So they leave to get water, and die outside your house.
 
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When I was teaching the building had a rodent problem - rats and mice. One time a boy transferred into my classroom from another because he was being bullied. So I put his desk next to mine. As it was a Friday and the first thing in the morning was the weekly spelling test the room was silent as I gave the class five minutes to review their words before the test. So I hear squeak, squeak, squeak and I thought it was the new kid rubbing his sneakers together to make that sound. I say "Johnny, that's no way to impress me, stop it." "Honestly, Ms. H, I'm not doing anything!" I look around and there is a mouse stuck to a glue trap.

In our old house mice would get in the basement and our cat would bring them to the bedroom, play with them for a bit and then eat them.
 

ClifSpliffy

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tsk, tsk, tsk. all this jibberjabber aboot mice on a UConn board, yet nary a mention of UConn's worldwide leadership for some mouse stuff.
'The laboratory is also the world's source for more than 8,000 strains of genetically defined mice, is home of the Mouse Genome Informatics database and is an international hub for scientific courses, conferences, training and education.
Jackson Laboratory - Wikipedia

on the udder hand, mebbe mr jinks ain't too busy today.
 

tdrink

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Please try to avoid using poison to control rodents.

I am a remodeling contractor who specializes on older homes. I have seen every type of infestation under the sun.

Poison does not result in a humane death. The poisoned mice do seek water. Sometimes they exit the building to do it, but then become a poison threat to other wildlife. You don’t want to kill off a nest of bald eagles because you are inconvenienced.

And sometimes those mice are drawn to tiny bits of condensation on pipes and die en masse inside a wall. Picture above was from a wall cavity behind a vanity. Clients remodeled the whole bathroom because the smell was so bad.

The bucket method is very effective, but not very humane either. The mice struggle to get out until they fatigue and drown or their hearts explode. Still preferable to poison.

Have-a-hearts are also not as humane as people think. Releasing wild animals into territory that is not their own is basically a death sentence, usually by others of the same species because of territorialism.

Spring type traps look awful but are one of the best ways of dispatching unwanted critters.
 

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