A mouse pisses me off!!!!!!

[Tdhurl1103]

I like the glue traps. You can catch mice with the small ones, but I usually go with the big ones for mice. And with glue traps you also catch any other pests that happen by too. Just try to place them where your pets won't bother them.

Yep. Low maintenance too. It's also cool if you happen to be around when the little shits get stuck on it. They squeal and squeal, lol. Oh I must be a sick individual.

 

[schmittie]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned using raisins as bait. Sure, peanut butter works ok. But a raisin is freakin amazing! Jam it into the old loop style trigger traps and you'll catch every mouse around on one raisin. It works.

 

[TMHunt]

All great suggestions, I havnt done anything yet. Figure he was scared off. Had a real bad day Tuesday, just one of those days when nothing went right, the icing on the cake was right before I hung it up to go in the house, last thing I saw before I hit the light switch was that little bastard flipping me the bird! Vengeance will be mine!

 

[1066vik]

as we were pulling into the drive Tuesday evening, one of the barn kittens came out of the barge carrying a rat.
we were very proud of her - and she was having a grand ole time with it.
chomp, shake, growl, drop - wait for it to kick/wiggle and repeat.
she's 4-5 months old and while it wasn't a large field rat - as rats go - it was still half the size of her head!

yay, kitten!

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Go ahead and get some kind of traps out. The bastard has NOT gone away if you don't see him. He's crawling around at night peeing and pooping on things, chewing up things for a nest or for food.

They really love "modern" electric wires. A lot of the insulation on wires is a corn oil based plastic. It provides absolutely no nutrition for the mice that eat it off the wires, but since the plastic smells like corn to them, they chow down on it. That's what the Toyota dealership service manager said when my mother's car wiring was destroyed. He told me that they get 2 or 3 cars a week with some level of mouse damage.

A great mouse trap during a drought is a kiddie swimming pool. I have one out with 3 or 4 inches of water for the dogs to splash around in to get cool.

During the drought this past summer, at least 2x per week, I had to fish a drowned mouse or young rat out of it. IIRC, I fished 49 mice and rats out from July through September, after 6 weeks of no rain (after 19"+ in May) had dried up most of the free standing water in the pastures. The curved edge around the top is slick and if the water surface is an inch or so below the top of the pool, they can't crawl out after they slip off the edge into the water.

Doesn't work on grown rats though. They will fall in but full grown rats are big enough to crawl out. I happened to walk outside one morning just as a FG rat managed to jump out of the pool, so I know they would fall in, but then escape.

 

[wood-butcher]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned using raisins as bait. Sure, peanut butter works ok. But a raisin is freakin amazing! Jam it into the old loop style trigger traps and you'll catch every mouse around on one raisin. It works.

Another vote for raisins from me, don't know where it came from, but that's all we've ever used in my family. Whenever anyone is having trouble with mice that's what I tell them to try, and they keep catching them until there's none left. Gotta take a pair of pliers and crimp the loop down some too, so it can't get tugged out of there...

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Another vote for raisins from me, don't know where it came from, but that's all we've ever used in my family. Whenever anyone is having trouble with mice that's what I tell them to try, and they keep catching them until there's none left. Gotta take a pair of pliers and crimp the loop down some too, so it can't get tugged out of there...

Dental floss -- I use it to tie beef jerky tight to the loop at the tip of the trap trigger. I've caught up to 6 mice with the same small piece of jerky.

In other rodent news.... I already know that I have caught my 13th skunk of the year from under the house. I heard the trap trip while I was in the bathroom and went out and checked. I'll dispatch it in the a.m.

Our house is half slab/half pier & beam. The skunks get under the house by 2 methods - digging under one of the concrete sidewalks or porches and then on under the house periphery beam or by ripping the vent covers from the vent holes in the concrete periphery beam and taking up residence. It's the 19th skunk of the year on the farm. The other 6 have been caught while they wandering around in the areas around the barns at night. I keep traps set year round to keep down the skunk/armadillo/possum/rat population. Armadillos and possums get hauled off 10 or 15 miles and released. Skunks, rats and mice are exterminated.

Rabies is endemic in the central Texas skunk population. Skunks have been #1 on the rabies case list for my county for the last decade or more. 25 of 28 cases in the county in 2014 were skunks. The other 3 were 2 bats and a dogs. The dog most likely got it by being bitten by a rabid skunk or eating a dead bat.

 

[TMHunt]

Well, I have obviously underestimated my adversary..... I figured Im able to outsmart a mouse, and the little varmint would be pretty easy to take care of. I set a couple of the poison traps out last week where none of my pets, or Murph could get a hold of it. Hadnt seen him in a few days (the mouse) so thought it was all taken care of. Well, not so. This evening Murph was over giving me a hand getting Christmas orders out. Sure enough, he saw the mouse run through my leather working room, and then a few minutes later, zip behind my drill presses. I think at this point the little furry bastard is toying with me, trying to get in my head and intimidate me. Because I'm trying to figure out what kind of hellish beast not only freely frolics through my shop but also is not scared to make his presence known to a war seasoned marine like Murph with not a care in the world....... I can see this is going to get ugly. Time to hit the war room and strategize! My pride has been compromised! Vengeance will be mine!

 

[cbwoods67]

Haha. You show that little bastard who is boss!

If you put traps out, stick them in known paths of travel. I had a mouse problem last fall and caught 4 of them overnight after watching where they go.

 

[Jerry D.]

Might just be time for good old fashioned vigilance and a BB gun.

 

[PURPLEDC]

I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if this was mentioned. About 10 years ago I discovered mice in the attic. Lots of them. We put out trap after trap and they just kept replicating like ultron. Finally we got this $30 device from ace hardware that emits a frequency mice and other pests supposedly hate and within a couple days they were gone. We kept it plugged in and it just died this past summer. I figure it was only $3 a year and we definitely got our moneys worth. I didn't really care about the humanitarian aspect of not killing mice. I was just glad I didn't have to dispose of armies of bodies. Could of had a fur coat with how many of them things were up there. Funny thing is right after the device broke we were invaded by another army. This time mice with wings. Now I have bats to deal with.

 

[Murphnuge]

Interesting thing is, Todd makes slingshots from time to time. Hell, there may even be one or two hanging in the shop at this very moment.....

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Well, my war on mice and rats is ongoing,and now I have to add squirrels to the enemy list. Before, I just shot squirrels for a little fried squirrel every now and then.

Here's the damage - the main electrical harness was chewed nearly in half Tuesday night. I drove the car into the back yard parking area about 2030 and the next day when I went to leave around 1200, the car would not start. Found this vvv under the hood, along with red fur stuck to the glue trap I had under the hood.

KBB on a 2006 Prius w/ 179K miles is $5300ish and the cost to repair my car is $6150. BAh!!! a working, running car that still gets 49+ MPG should be worth a lot more than $5K.

Now, either an extremely large red rat or a squirrel has totaled my Prius - literally. I'll probably find out on Monday how much my insurance company is going to pay me for totaling out the vehicle.