What is The Best Way To Get Rid of Mice

[Lynx_Arc]

I don't find glue traps any more cruel than a smack by a mousetrap that doesn't kill immediately. I typically pick up the traps put in a bag and take it outside on the sidewalk and smack it with a brick.... instant death. I once had 6 rats and tried traps for a month didn't catch a one... tried glue boards... nothing.. but realized the problem when the temps warmed up to 78 degrees and I caught all 6 within about 8 days. I had to put boards in places the rats were and check them several times a day.

[batvette]

I don't find glue traps any more cruel than a smack by a mousetrap that doesn't kill immediately. I typically pick up the traps put in a bag and take it outside on the sidewalk and smack it with a brick.... instant death. I once had 6 rats and tried traps for a month didn't catch a one... tried glue boards... nothing.. but realized the problem when the temps warmed up to 78 degrees and I caught all 6 within about 8 days. I had to put boards in places the rats were and check them several times a day.

I have to say if we were talking about rats that would require a whole new thread, rats VS mice is truly one of those "know thy prey" discussions. Mice are just so dumb they almost stumble onto the traps on their own, and are not nearly as destructive, so outside of being startled by them they're hard to hate on. With either rodent you see signs of their presence before you see them, mice have droppings less than 1/4" in length. Full grown mice may live their whole lives never going farther than 10 ft from their nest. They are as they say quite blind and thus will almost always travel close to a wall, using their nose whiskers to navigate. They don't usually need a water source, getting sufficient water from their food source. They are not adventurous eaters, so if they get used to feeding on your boxed cereals or dog food don't be surprised that they left your food baited traps alone. They spend a lot of time building nests and looking for nesting materials, thus the idea of cotton on traps for bait- but most important to lay those traps perpendicular to the wall with the tripper side in.

"The Great Kern County Mouse War of 1927" is considered the largest mammallian infestation in US history, they estimate 100 million mice:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tkksummers/3354880331/


Rats, and my experience is limited to roof rats have droppings 1/4-1/2" long, that's the best way to ID your prey. (incidentally, Norway rats aka sewer rats as found in the east coast are so badass they will eat roof rats if the two species mix) Rats need water and will commonly travel 150ft from their nest daily to their water source. Rats teeth grow up to 6 inches a year and will chew the heck out of whatever they find, they are very destructive. Rats will move in and adapt their schedules around yours so they can feed while you sleep. They will sense your breathing and heart rate and freeze quietly when they sense you are awake and active. They generally don't fear you and will attack you if threatened. They are adventurous eaters and will try new foods but this is offset by their distrust of anything new in their living area.
The proper way to use mechanical traps on rats is to place the traps in their area unset, with no bait, for up to a week. Then place bait on them unset, allow them to take the bait (fresh cooked bacon is perfect) a few times, then set it with the bait. The big risk is if you just lay it out they are fast yet cautious, if you miss the first time they become "trap shy" and will never get near another trap.
I know a guy who used to live in an old building in Indianapolis that regularly had lots of rats. He said an old man used to come around once a year or so, father of one of the tenants. He'd capture one of the rats in a live trap, and fire up a propane torch, and take it to one of their hind legs and burn it real bad, then set it loose to go back to its nest.
Within a day or two nearly all the rats would disappear, and none would return until the next year. Kind of tells you the level of intelligence you're dealing with there.

I say all this because one year about 10 years ago I had mice, ended up bagging 20 of them. My dog thought they were his friends. They were so dumb and easy to catch. The next year I thought I had mice again and was very casual about doing anything about it, it went on for months, never got one but I kept hearing them at night. I'm kind of a slob so early one morning I get up and decide I'm going to clean up the house and then I'll get 'em. After about an hour of moving stuff around I pull a couch away from the wall, look down and see an electrical cord. Move. "Hey look at that big fat cord. MOVE!" I pull the couch all the way out and there's a rat as big as any cat I've ever seen, it hissed at me then casually scampered across the room and under a piece of furniture. Not a bit scared of me. This couch was where I usually laid down watching TV, and from the looks of the carpet that's where the rat spent all its time too! Right under me!

As the rat was still under a big chair, I took all the glue traps I had- big ones- and stapled them to plywood and laid a solid perimeter around the chair and headed straight to big 5 for the biggest repeating pellet gun they had. .22 pellets, six shots, okay, that works. Never got to use it, as I got back home and she's* on the glue, and ANGRY. Picked it up and put it in a 5 gallon bucket in the yard, covered with plywood and a cement block. My dog at this point is very mad AT ME.

*I say she because as we're putting furniture back I see mice! Oh no those aren't mice, I got a half dozen baby rats who ain't getting away from ME. At their age they were still more aggressive than any mouse, I had little choice but chase them down with a baseball bat and 4 go down quick, the last two gave me fits for an hour, took multiple strikes, and were quite elusive.

As for mom, well now I have a VERY angry full grown rat in a bucket. And some nice chemicals in my shop. First we try Electric contact cleaner, brand new can. "dangerous or fatal if inhaled!" I drill a 1" hole in the plywood cover, spray the whole can.... she seems just more angry! Okay, "Foamy Engine Brite Cleaner" Lots of warnings. Spray again a whole new can.... doesn't phaze her, she's still hopping mad. LIQUID NAILS we're getting serious now. Squeezed out the whole tube into the hole. Bingo, that did it. My dog BTW kept trying to rescue the rat!

Haven't had one since. I'll never forget the attitude of that rat though, she was not afraid and felt I was in her territory. If you have children take heed of this, any hint of a rat in your home get 'em out quick.

Oh yeah, Cats. They work, usually young females are the best. Some Toms won't hunt at all. But get it fixed or you'll go from rodent problem to cat problem to getting a dog to deal with your cat problem. I attribute my neighbor's cats, who I feed from time to time, to why I have not had another rat come around. I will say though that the full grown rat that was in my house would have killed either of those cats, especially to defend her litter. Rats have different physiology from humans and other animals and roof rats can repeatedly survive falls from 4 stories without injury.

The only good rat is a dead one.

[beerwax]

scary stuff. big smart rats. must be a few different species of rat. the ones ive dealt with are what id call'normal ' size and while smart will always come back to take the next bait if the trap misses.

the terrier breed of dog, i believe , was bred to kill rats. a lively little jack russel or a fox terrier would sort the biggest rat . if you watch some of these dogs they have an instinct that gets em to lie down and sleep with one eye open where they reckon there is prey, and they will learn the when and where of the preys daily routine and when the hour approaches they will move into position. not as good as a cat at hunting but still pretty good, and once the fight is on the dog has plenty of destructive power.

cheers

[Lynx_Arc]

rats can be tougher to catch but I've had mice that didn't like traps either. I have caught them in weird ways too. I had one crawl into a bag of potatoe chips and another into a box of crackers which both became emtombed in their selected feasts. I caught another one that crawled into a trash bag I found where it was making noise and played baseball with a large screwdriver handle in the area till it get very quiet. I had another mouse trying to hide behind books on a shelf.... I just shoved the books it was behind very quick and hard... no more mouse. None of these mice took the bait on traps. I have had mice very dumb that would get caught in an unbaited trap too. But like batvette said... rats can be very smart sticky traps however they haven't figured out how to outsmart though.

[march.brown]

If you trap and release, release at least 100 yards from your home.

Release into a 12" deep stainless steel bucket with 6" of water in it ... That's the only way to release mice ... They breed so fast that every one you release will multiply rapidly and a large proportion will return to your property.

The snake idea is great ... They make great pets (and useful too) ... When they get very big , they will keep the population of local cats in control too.
.

[ASheep]

I have a small mouse problem in my ceiling at the moment, they seem tp be nesting up there, so i'll have to take care of it quickly.
Many years ago now I had what I believed to be a rat problem in my roof, so naturally I set a couple of rat traps. I checked them about 2 days later, and found about five dead mice in the three traps... Two of the traps had killed two mice simultaneously, and the third trap had sliced the little mouse clean in half!

I generally don't like to use poisons, or any other method which does not cause a quick death, I don't like to cause needless pain, butthose mice and rats must go!

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

[TyJo]

My Dad caught two mice in his house in a half hour using a small piece of cotton ball wedged into the mouse trap trigger (so it won't come out) with a drop of vanilla extract on top. He used to use peanut butter but they licked both traps clean, that didn't happen with the cotton.

[Quest4fire]

Once you kill a mouse it can never trouble you again. Apparently though, a clever mouse thread will resurrect again and again

[Train_Watchman]

I ran across a similar thread on another forum today. Among the suggestions (besides cats and snakes) was the peppermint oil (make sure you get peppermint oil and not extract of peppermint), and these traps: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007NY5CO>. They're not a "catch-and-release" type, but easy to open up and dump out the dead mouse. It kills them without breaking the skin, so there's less risk of biohazard blood, etc. A suggested placement was along the sill of the foundation. A small amount of PB was suggested for bait, because they might have better luck stealing a large dollop and getting away with same.

The bucket with antifreeze was mentioned on that forum, but with non-toxic antifreeze, in case the dog tries to drink out of that bucket. (The antifreeze helps to preserve the dead mice until you can dispose of them.)

Maine Coon cats are supposedly good mousers, but I don't think ours has ever caught a mouse. Our chocolate Lab brought in a dead mouse a few weeks ago when she came back from a "potty break." I don't know if she caught it or just found it, but she was rather proud of herself for presenting us with that "gift."

I don't think I saw any posts in this thread where somebody was downplaying the nuisances, etc., of mice infesting a house, but just in case, I Googled "hantavirus." I first heard of it a few years ago on Medical Detectives or a similar show, back when TruTV was CourtTV. There were a number of deaths of young Native Americans in the Southwest that were traced to it. Apparently the spring of 1993 (like 1918 and 1933) had been rainy, so there were lots of pine cones, which in turn led to a larger mouse population, and the scientists got that clue from tribal elders.
Imagine my surprise when I found out a case of it was discovered in Maine last year. <http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infe...ntavirus.shtml>

We've had good results with glue traps, but I think I'll get some of the ones from the Amazon vendor above. (Although sometimes from the noise in the walls and ceiling, I think we might have elephants in there.)

[127.0.0.1]

peanut butter and spring traps. but you gotta set the trap uber sensitive or it just gets licked off

will try cottonball and vanilla next time

[flashflood]

Best way to get rid of a mouse is to use a touch screen.

But you have to press really hard.

[StarHalo]

A cat with a good throwing arm, apparently:

[Train_Watchman]

[87james]

that's a good way to prevent the mice outside, but what if they have settled down inside? finish all the food and water in the refrigerator and have a journey.

[MarNav1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0T-DceJlg0

[Mr Bigglow]

When I was overrun with house mice in the walls where I couldn't catch them, I used to dream of releasing ferrets on the little, ummmm fellow travellers through life. It would be an interesting experiment, and is in fact the sort of reason ferrets were created. Got ferrets?

[TEEJ]

I had ferrets to get the mice, but then I had to get wolverines to get rid of the ferrets.

[correspondent]

Prevention is the best! Before you even set out on your plan of attack, search your house for all the possible places that these mice might use to gain access to your house. When you've marked all these possible tiny cracks, cut to size and fold tightly some aluminum screen and wedge these into those cracks. Apparently when they try to chew through this, their mouth and gums get injured in the process and this deters them from pursuing this point of access. It has worked for me so far.