Mouse in the house!

Anyone know how to get rid of mice in the house? We've tried mouse traps (works sometimes) but they always seem to come back!
Any tips? or maybe some old school techniques that work great?

TIA

Might try putting steel wool in the hole or place they're getting in. They really don't like chewing thru the stuff. Fortunately I've got three kitties and haven't seen a mouse in years, even though I live forty feet from a cornfield! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

There's a thread from way back with some options & links that provide some good info...I'll try and find it.

Have to plug up as many holes as you can find, I forget the exact number, but they can fit through something like a half inch hole!

I'm a poison believer if it's a serious outbreak. There's also some really nifty traps on the market that look like a little black metal box. Not only traps them inside, but the floor is electrified and zaps em! At least that would prevent them from escaping from a standard trap.

The bad thing about poison, is they run off and become poison food for dogs/cats, still stinking up the walls and such.

Those glue tray/traps work, but it's got to be a bad way to go! Well, if it's me or them...it's war and I'm not planning on being on the losing side!!

First get rid of anyway they are coming in. We had vines on our house (and after arguing about the asthetics with my wife "they look so pretty", we took them down and NO MORE MICE!)

Secondly, traps set with peanut butter have always worked for me. Cheese is doesn't work well. Poison mixed with peanut butter or chocolate works well too, but I don't like the idea of a dead mouse dead in some corner of the house where I can't find them.

So, if you have traps with peanut butter set and they aren't going off, you have no mice, IMHO.

Here's a "thread" from last year... and "another" ...and "yet another" ... "even more" some GREAT info on "Mouse Control".

I am a cat owner and cant say I have ever seen a mouse....or evidence of one living in the woods on a lake....
Bugs dont even fair well ......hehe

Nice threads, but the part about trying to track mouse pee, well, LOL. You'll need a very frequency specific UV for that. Repellants sound good too, but the smell of PB on a mousetrap is irresistable.

If my parents cat can't find any mice inside, she goes out and brings one in....... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

cat is about as old school as possible... and very effective. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/xyxgun.gif

I too have mouse problems once in ahwile. Just the other night i got into a cat and mouse game with a mouse and was running all over the living room trying to hit him with a stick to no avail.

I was so mad once that a mouse kept coming back that i actually sat in my living room with a bb gun and waited for him to show up. Well he showed up and charged me (no lie) i nailed him as he charged and he slid accross the floor as the bb went right through his body and bounced off the wall and hit me (no penetration on me).

Sounds like i may have to declare war on another mouse....

I sure wish I lived closer to all you unfortunate souls.. I do mouse control for a living. My company specializes in the removal of mice/bats and structural sealing.
Some tips:
-Ultrasonic mouse repellants do not work
-Cats will keep mice from running acroos the livng room, sometimes, but will by no means keep them out of the house.
-Steel wool is an excellent deterrent to keep mice from going through a hole, but only if you remove the original mice first, otherwise they will make a new hole somewhere else. There is a spray foam that contains a rodenticide that will also prevent them from chewing.
-Mice can walk up a brick wall as easily as walking down the driveway.
Mouse traps will "train" the mice to avoid mouse traps, when you stop catching mice it doesn't mean they are gone, it means they got smarter.
-90% of the time mice start in the attic, work their way down the inside walls to the basement, there they get on the hot water lines and follow them, go look under the kitchen sink and you will see. Once mice are under there you can be assured you have a problem.
-Bait/poisons are the ONLY way to stop the problem, the keys to this is to spend some money, you get what you pay for with that stuff, skip the hardware store and go to a farm supply place, they tend to get better stuff. Good bait will prevent mice from dying inside a house, thus avoiding the smell. When using baits, keep a constant supply, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Never let the bait all dissapear then start again.
Bait the attic first, the mice will be drawn to the attractants in the bait where ever you put it, if you put it in the living room you will have mice in the living room. So stick to the attic, they will all be there eventually anyways, and a little bonus is the safety issues of having a bait in the living quarters of your home.
-The fear of an animal cat, dog, preditor birds... Finding the dead mouse and consuming it are WRONG. The amount of bait in a dead mouse is NOT enough to affect a domestic animal, also the active ingredients are mostly depleted. None of you have the ability to purchase a bait strong enough to cause a "chain" effect with a poison. Otherwise you would already know what I am telling you.
-There is no such thing as "a mouse" if you can see them you have a problem. Educate yourselves on the health issues of mice and their droppings for you and your family.

I get a mouse or two every six months or so. When I had a ball python I used a live trap which provided him with a little variety. After he moved to a classroom I got a Victor Electronic Mouse Trap. This is the electrified floor model referenced above. I've had very good luck with it. Whenever I spot some droppings, or hear tell-tale rustling on my basement ceiling, I put the trap out with a little peanut butter and am virtually guaranteed that I will have a mouse in one to two nights. Empty it in the trash, and repeat until I don't get any more and am not seeing or hearing any more indicators.

Maybe I am missing the smarter mice, but if so, they're also quieter and much tidier mice than the ones I catch so perhaps they're not so bad. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Great info, Pydpiper. And funny you mention "under the kitchen sink" - I've sealed every other opening in the house I could find, and they're still getting in... from under the kitchen sink, it seems! Steel wool's goin' there next!! Thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
Sigman said:
info on "Mouse Control".

[/ QUOTE ]
They regularly gnaw on wood, pipe-insulation, wire sheathing, or other commodities, and their presence is often announced when we find the shredded remains of this gnawing. By gnawing on things, rodents wear down their constantly growing teeth, which enamel is hard enough to penetrate some metals.

Too bad man didn't evolve with their teeth regeneration, like sharks; sounds like it'd be handy sometimes.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

The trap that really seems effective is the Ketch-All, I actually caught the same mouse twice even though it was clever enough to escape from a box I put it in until I had a chance to move her elsewhere. I haven't heard of any reports of it failing to do the job.
There are different types of mice, commensal and field mice. The commensal ones prefer to live in the company of man, and are the real problems, the field mice generally aren't. The one I dealt with was probably a field mouse that wandered in by accident, and when I trapped it and disposed of it, that was the end of the problem. The little greyish ones are the ones to worry about..
yet another mouse thread- flashlight related, even!

Mouse traps with peanut butter. I just put them in an out of the way section of my house. I check it every month or so and replace it if need be. I used to have a lot of trouble with mice in my house. It got very VERY annoying hearing them running around all over the place. Plus, it wasn't good for the cats because they would literally run and jump right onto a wall (yeah, ouch). So, my dad got pissed and I got mouse traps and read somewhere that peanut butter works best. I set up about 10 of them in different parts of my house. Checked one week later and every single one of them was full. So, put 2 more around. One week later, only one of the traps was full. It seems that they have learned to stay away from my house. Either that or I wiped out the whole family. But I just keep ONE in ONE spot in my house now and it is very rare that I catch anymore. I check every month, but I usually only have to replace it about every 6 six months. But, the best thing is there is no more kitties jumping onto the walls. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Hope that helps.

A mouse in the house is not a problem. A RAT in the house IS a problem.

Long story #1:
I'll jump to the conclusion- baited traps lose their effectiveness if there is other food in the area. You have to remove all of the other food before the mice will be sufficiently drawn to the traps. I had a big rat in my garage and he was good at avoiding my traps. I found out later that he was getting into the dogfood. I moved the dogfood into the house and caught the rat the next night.

Years before that we had rats travelling across our backyard. We discovered them when they started eating our new tomato plants. I bought some large traps and started catching them. Over a month or 2 my dog caught about 8, I trapped about 8, and I killed about 8 with an airgun. One night about 10pm I was going outside to check on the dog. The dog had cornered a rat against the back door so when I opened the door and stepped outside the rat came inside. I heard my wife screaming bloody murder in the house so I went back inside and discovered the rat. I had her hold the dog away from the door and I tried to shoo the rat back outside. He didn't want to go back outside with the dog so he ran into the other end of our house. My wife said we were not going to bed until the rat was removed from the house. We could not see where the rat went so I started looking. I started pulling cushions off of the living room couch and found the rat under it. He ran into the bathroom so I shut the door behind him and went for my airgun. The rat jumped into the bathtub so I closed the shower doors and stood on the toilet to look over the doors into the tub. The rat managed to climb the hose on our shower nozel and jump onto my shoulder. I knocked him off and finally killed him with the airgun. My wife was on the phone giving a play-by-play commentary to the neighbor.

Long story #2:
A few years later my wife suggested I find another place of residence, and a little after that she had a rat decide to live in her garage. I suggested that she get rid of the rat before he chewed wires and started a fire. One night she called me in tears saying that she caught the rat in a trap but he wasn't dead and she couldn't bear to kill him. So late at night I come driving up in my car and go into the house carrying a big airgun. 5 minutes later I come out of the house with the big airgun and drive off. If any of her neighbors had seen that, knowing that we were newly divorced, they would have been somewhat suspicious. Anyway no more rat problems after that.

Ditto on skipping the traps and going for the bait and keeping the bait supply full. Nothing else really works.

Also, remove or isolate food supplies. Sounds pretty basic, but I've known a lot of otherwise intelligent folks who'd pack all their foodstuffs in containers... but leave out sacks of pet food, bird seed, lawn seed, etc. and wonder why the mice were taking over.

BTW, the reason cats (and sometimes dogs, too) bring mice into the house is that they are bringing you a "present." They want to show you that you're part of their family and consider it sharing a treat.

Thank you Pydpiper, gonna check out under the sink

hahaha bjn, long story #1 was a great one! Thanks for sharing

Chmsam, thanks for the dog info, highly interesting! I love dogs....mans best friend. It doesnt matter about the present right? its the thought that counts /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Pydpiper!! You were dead on about that under the sink thing. A mouse trap was put there, and the next thing you know, we found a dead mouse right under the sink! Thanks!

How does a mouse learn to avoid a trap if it's caught? Dead mice tell no tales. OK, just trying to be funny.

I used both approaches (poison and traps) in my house and after 2-3 weeks I had no problems. Having mice in the kitchen next to the sink, very very true, my mom has had that problem for years. PP knows his stuff. Too funny to hear that again.