Cat?

Get a cat! We live in the foothills and have lots of wild animals and critters around! :) We got a cat--she stays outside, in the garage when it's rainy, snowy, or too cold... She NEVER comes in the house, but our indoor mouse population has decreased by about 95%. And the voles in our yard are nearly non-existent! Yay--we love our cat!!! And BONUS--she's as good a pet as she is an exterminator!

Could be worse.. could be a rat. LOL
The cat should keep the mice at bay. Even just the scent of the cat in the house would help. Years back, my husband and I lived in a 100+ year old apartment building in Lincoln Park. We'd lived there for a couple of years when we started suspecting that we had rodents behind a cabinet wall in the kitchen. Thank god for the cat! The problem would have been much, much worse. He didn't catch anything, but his scent kept them from entering the apartment (just the cabinet under the kitchen sink)...

Just because you have mice doesn't make you a slob. It is YUK! YUK! YUK! But, most of the time it is out of your control, especially if you live by forest preserves or open fields.

Yes a cat makes a difference, however, you say you are having another baby so if you do get a cat, Dad will have to be the one to clean the kitty litter because this could be a medical threat to you. You may also want to consider that if you do have a cat and you are in a community with close neighbors, your neighbors may not appreciate your cat in wandering in their yard all the time. I was THAT neighbor who had my neighbor's cat in my yard every day, in the winter. It never occurred to me, until Spring, that my "large flower bed" was his kitty box. And yes... that was gross.

You may also want to get a few of those "sonic mouse traps" that plug into an outlet and emit an offensive noise only heard by these critters. I use these in my garage and it helps to deter them. Coupled with the easier (Tomcat) mouse traps, that look like a larger, pinching clothespin, this should help. These are my preference. I hate setting the old fashioned mousetraps.

Even if you get a cat, you will probably want to determine the possible source of entry and reduce their access.

If your basement is unfinished, have someone go down in your basement during the day, with the lights off so that you can see any tiny cracks, spaces in joists, window wells, etc... so that these can be filled with steel wool or foam (canned) insulation. If there is old, fiberglass insulation, you may want to consider removing/replacing it so that you can see where these cracks are.

If this doesn't work (or if you don't get a cat)... have the place exterminated. It's amazing the small spaces that these varmints can squeeze through.

Good luck.

My MIL is a very clean person and she has a problem with mice as well. it is not you. Try those "noise" thingy's.. not sure what they are called but you plug them in and the high pitched noise keeps them away.

You can try a cat, but not sure if that will work since my MIL had them even when she had a cat.

Good luck

I wouldn't get a cat if mice is the only reason you want it, but if you and your family would enjoy a cat, go ahead. Our 100 year old house always had mice for the 35 years that our neighbor was aware of, and we saw a mouse the night we moved in. Our two cats took care of it quickly. In 15 years, we've seen a handful of mice, but they do usually stay away, and when they don't, they regret it.

I would advise getting a couple of kittens, because not all cats are mousers, and kittens shouldn't be threatened by babies. Most shelters won't let a family with babies adopt kittens, but a few will (Kay's in Arlington Hts is one), and it really isn't that hard to teach a little one to be gentle with a kitten. If you'd rather have one grown cat, some shelters know their cats well enough to place a calm older cat with a family with young ones. Talk to people about their experiences at different shelters.

Ah, fun with old houses. We had mice when we lived in an old house in the city and just had to be religious about plugging up any holes, keeping bait in the active areas (out of reach of the dog we had at the time, which would have been safely out of reach of kids if we had had them then as well). They are probably climbing up the inside/back of your stove so I'd definitely be using packets of bait under and behind the stove. Also if you have baseboard or radiated heat, that's another favorite pathway/hiding spot for mice. We finally did beat them in that house -- it took some time and some sleuthing out the places they'd hide and travel through in the house -- but I really believe we had more luck with the bait blocks and packs than any traps, whether they be glue or spring or the humane variety. We thankfully never had any die out in the open, though did have to deal with a few days of stink occasionally when one would die in the wall or some other place we couldn't access or figure out.

Hi!
Have you tried the sonic mouse deterers? My parents used to get mice in their garage and as soon as they plugged that in the mice left!! We had rats in our garage so I know how you feel about not beig dirty!! We had some spilled dog food that brought them in and once we set up a poison bait box and the sonic thing they were gone in a couple days!! It is NOT fun!!

Good Luck!
L.

My husband is a pest control technician, so these are his words:

With a home that's over 100 years old, there are going to probably be multiple places for a mouse to get into the structure. Typically some of the most common are the holes cut into the house for A/C pipes, behind the electric meter if it doesn't fit flush against the foundation, around the water spigots, etc (your Pest guy should have checked these first). However, again, with an older home, and being in the midwest with the frequent climate changes, cracks and crevices will develop. Remember, mice can squeeze into a space the diameter of a dime, so finding them all and/or sealing them can be a challenge. The most effective way of solving the problem is exclusion, so this may be a tough win.

As for having small kids and having some food hit the floor, this is NOT the cause of your woes. Mice are in your house.....because they have a way in. They may appear in places where you're more likely to visually see them if there is a food source, but you are NOT the cause. Having cats is a definite help, along with "over the counter" baits and traps - placed in the proper areas: basement on top of the foundation walls where mice run, in the garage if attached, in the crawl space.

Hope this helps.

Oh, half the people I know in Oak Park have dealt with mice. Old houses. We spent half a summer sealing holes and cracks a couple of years ago to get rid of ours. Our cat killed a couple of them, but traditional cheap mouse traps worked very well. You just have to be persistent - keep looking for their access points and keep up the traps and bait (we were lucky that they were coming in through our basement so we could put traps out of the way of the kids, but you could also put them in places like under the sink.)

Good luck! A cat might help with the scent, it's true - our cat stays mostly upstairs and we didn't see too much signs of mice upstairs. Mostly they were making themselves at home in our basement pantry storage area.

Cats definitely help. Don't tell the adoption places you want a mouser though! As strange as it sounds, my sis and her four loving kids were turned down because they said they wanted a mouser!!! Seriously. The people said it wasn't healthy for the cat?! HELLO!! Cats have been eating mice forever. lol. Anyway, she got a cat from a friend and that was the most spoiled cat ever so the shelter's cats missed out for sure. And their vole & mouse issues went away, as did mine when we got our kitty nearly 4 years ago! Plus your kids will love having a cat! And studies have shown people who had pets as kids suffer less with allergies when grown.

Have fun!
D.