When we moved into our house it had been empty for about a month, I remember looking over the banister into our kitchen and seeing mice running every where. It was awful I had two kids under 3. We set up traps at night because that is when they are most active. I would suggest putting your dog in your room with the door closed and setting traps up at night everywhere you think they will run. Then in the morning go down and move them for the day. I would not use those sticky traps they are horrible, the mice run over them and get stuck and then you throw it in the garbage and they starve to death or suffocate in the garbage. They also tear hair and even pieces of their body off trying to get off the traps. It is very in humane. Snap traps are the best it breaks their necks instantly. By the end of two weeks we had caught 13 mice. Now we don't have any problems. Good Luck!
I know how you feel. I just recently caught a mouse that has been haunting me for weeks. We even called in a professional to take care of the problem, but that didn't work. I watched as the mouse avoided every trap and continued to sneak into my pantry to contaminate my food.
The trick I used to catch the mouse was this. Out smart/trick the mouse. I used some sticky glue runners made for catching mice that you can find at Lowes, IFA and other places. It's very sticky and if you accidentally touch it, even you will have a hard time removing your finger. I put the traps directly under my pantry door, and created a line of them, so when the mouse went dashing under the door, he/she would run right into the glue trap without seeing it. It took less than 24 hours to finally catch the mouse.
The next problem is to promptly kill the mouse so you're not torturing it. I wrapped the sticky trap with the mouse in newspaper and using your foot, or the wheel of your vehicle, give the creature(s) a swift death.
I suggest only using poison in the garage areas. Dead mice in your house can be super stinky.
Foil will not keep a mouse from entering your house. Mice will eat through wood and dry wall to get to food. I suggest filling in any holes larger than a dime with steel wool (Mice will not try to eat through this). Use some caulking to secure it in.
Try hobo spider traps. You can buy them at Home Depot. (I cant' recall the brand name - it may have been Victor - Ours had a large red "V" on them) When set up, they look like a little paper box with both ends open. When you put it up against a wall, the mouse trys to run through the box, but gets stuck on the extremely sticky glue inside. We have caught several mice this way. I would set out lots of traps against walls and behind furniture - especially in the basement. Good luck!
My only suggestion is to get a cat. A good mouser does wonders with mouse problem. Our cat took care of both mice right away, and there have been none since! Better, IMO, than putting poisons around the house where small children play.
Good luck, Brittni, I hope some-moms here will suggest more options!
Good job mommin'!
A
We, too have unwanted little pets. I tried a Have-a-Heart trap to no avail. I tried peppermint oil, no luck there. We got a cat...in a year and a half, he has caught one mouse. It was outside in the garden, and he didn't even finish the job. With traditional snap traps stuck in little places where neither cats not kids can get to it, we've got 15. A few tips: they tend to run along the baseboards of a room rather than venture out in to open space. The broiler drawer under the oven has been a gold mine! I felt bad about it for a minute or two. Finding my daughter's beloved bean bag from eviscerated helped me get over feeling bad pretty darn quick. Also, we learned that a mouse can squeeze through an opening about the size of a dime. That makes sealing them out of this drafty old 1924 house unrealistic.
Good luck!
Jen
Brittni, I know your frustration! We live in the country, and our first house was a mouse-magnet. I used the traps that are very easy to set - you just squeeze them, set the bait (peanut butter or Velveeta cheese worked well for us), and put them along a wall or under the sink and they worked great (65 mice in one week!). (We didn't have kids then, so I didn't have to worry about little fingers getting caught!)
Another suggestion is to get a cat or 2 - unless your family has allergies or your dog will harm them. Cats will naturally attack mice and help keep them under control.
If all else fails and you can afford one, call an exterminator. A good one will inspect your house and be able to find where they're getting in. They will block off all entrances except for one, which they will fix so that the mice can get out but they can't get back in. After a couple of weeks, they will come back and seal that up, and your problem should be solved. My sister had a problem with rodents - from mice to a flying squirrel - living between the floors of her house, and this is how her exterminator got rid of them.
I wish you luck!
Okay...you cannot used dcon with a dog in the house...if the dog eats the mouse he is also eating poison..... So, bad idea.
You MUST set traps. BUT you only have to do it at night as they are more active then. If your dog has free reign kennel him at night and collect them in the A.M. before you let the dog loose. The BEST bait for them is Reece's Peanut Butter cups.
I AM SO SORRY that I have information on this.
Gotta love living on the prairie!
I am sorry but I do not have a cheap solution to your mice issue. However, I wanted to warn you about D-con. A couple of years ago we had the same issue (we finally called an exterminator) we put D-con out and our dogs ate it. I guess it is designed to taste good to all animals, anyway we had to take our labs to the vet and have their stomachs pumped, to the tune of $800. It seems that D-can has the same effect on all animals and depending on how much they eat it can kill your pets as well. The moral of the story is if using D-con, be sure to place the D-con in places your animals can not get to.
We had a mouse on our deck and saw one in our front yard so we were very worried that they were in our house. I asked around and a bunch of people told me about those things you plug into the wall. You can get them at walmart by the traps and stuff. They come in packs of two. I think they were around $12. Anyway, we plugged one outside by our deck and in our kitchen and a few other rooms and haven't seen them. I was very skeptical but everyone has said they worked and so far they have worked for us!
Hide the traps wherever you find droppings. We discovered our mouse was in the couch (and to think we were sitting on it how gross). Anyways I put the trap under to couch, we also put one in the pantry behind the trash can and in the cabinet under the sink places where the kids, cat & dogs could not get them. The one under the couch worked in less then 24 hours. We have since removed the other 2 and have not found any other droppings so hope its over. Good Luck and hope it all ends soon for you because I agree it is really gross.
Be careful where you put sticky traps if you have dogs. I had one behind the curtain and when she needed to go out to pee she went to the door, sat down and proceeded to wag her tail.... right into the glue trap. I couldn't help laughing my guts out as she went yipping across the house. I felt bad for her when we had to try to pull it off.
plug-in sonars from home depot - we put them in the baby's room and in room she played in the most and they worked great.
Get a cat... No, really... a cat is a good, fairly clean answer to a mouse problem. We live next to an empty lot that brings mice into the house when it gets cold. We tried all kinds of things and then finally broke down and got a cat. She was a great mouser and took care of the problem pretty quick. When the mice were gone from the house she took to hunting in the empty lot.. We haven't had a problem since. Most cats are pretty good with children as well and are pretty clean creatures, especially if you have an outside cat that doesn't require a box. (And outside cats are better mousers.)
shove sos pads or some other type of material like that into the holes around the pipes.
I'm feeling your pain! We lived in the country for a year and had a huge mouse problem. We even had one climb through the pipes of the propane on our gas stove and get onto our countertops and steal the valves from the sippy cups we had drying up there (took us a while to figure out why they kept disappearing every night and once we found out, I thoroughly sanitized my kitchen). We found out they were mainly coming in through a little hole by the bathtub in the master bath and my husband caulked and we didn't have problems until the one in the kitchen. We tried the traps, although I couldn't handle them (we had a cat growing up so I never had a mouse problem- I thought it would just trap them so you could take them outside-I learned otherwise)- peanut butter worked best for that because with cheese, they would just steal it and set the trap off and it wouldn't get them. We put the trap out only at night (they are usually nocturnal) after the kids went to bed. What worked best was an ultrasonic repellent (you just plug it into an outlet and it sends high pitched signals that only they can hear and repels them away (if you have pet rodents, such as hamsters, you'll want to make sure they have a wall between them and the repellent or it'll drive them crazy). You might want to look into whether it would affect the dog or not- my mother-in-laws dogs came over and it didn't affect them at all and the package doesn't say anything about dogs, so I think it would be okay. When we moved, we had mice in our garage (maybe they followed us- who knows), but once we plugged that back in, we haven't had any problems. I love because it's easy, painfree, in the long run costs less than traps or decon (with that, you don't know where they will die so you can have a decomposing mouse in your wall or couch, and it makes me nervous with kids), and does not actually kill them- this is more humane and the kids won't stumble on a dead mouse. Good luck- hopefully you can get rid of them
We have the same problem! We like to use the sticky traps, they work nicely. You can also put bounce dryer sheets in your cupboards and drawers. Believe it or not this actually works.
I HATE MICE!!!
We had them in our oold house, but haven't had them in our new house...The trick is to REALLY seal up the areas they are coming in. They can squeeze their bodies down to 1/8" to get in places. If they are coming in under the sink, use that spray foam in a can to seal up the hole. Also, check to make sure there are no windows cracked open--we had mice get in because we had a window open a tiny bit for an extension cord. ALso, if you put out the traps at night, and pick them up in the morning, then the dogs shouldn't mess with them. Keep everything clean, don't leave food, dirty dishes out, etc. Good luck...mice are the worst!
Hi Brittni - We've been using one of those ultrasonic devices for several years and have been really pleased. We had mice and voles in our garage, probably attracted by all the crickets we had in there too! We have small children and wanted to avoid any kind of poisons or chemicals.
The mice and voles left right away. The bugs were gone by next season (it upsets their breeding cycle). You might need to install more than one depending on the layout of your house. We got best results when we put one in the garage and one in the basement.
Good luck!
I agree - get a cat. But make sure it's a good mouser (only I don't know how to tell unless it's coming from someone else who knows the cat is). Our cat was so effective and catching the mice that we never saw them or their droppings until we brought another cat in. Believe it or not, the adult cat was teaching the other to mouse! She was not entirely effective at first and we'd see her with one, or she'd leave it behind after. (But I think she figured it out pretty quick).
And, cats are also great for controlling spiders too! Cats are a natural predator for Hobo spiders, and I've heard they aren't affected by the bite. Our indoor spider population dropped when we got the cat.
There is a pet safe trap that is made by BlackCat it is a short black cylindar. Just put an almond extract or vanilla extract soaked cotton ball in the bait hole. They love it, it's an old trick my Dad taught me and with curious kids it's needed.
Good Luck!