I'm with Scout. I love mice, and ahve been avoiding the thread until now...and it's making me gag. I love all animals, even rabid killing mice.

Pleeeeease don't kill him!! lol

Shadow...lol believe me when I say this...This thread has been going on since...Jan. 4th...if I wanted to kill him..he'd be a gonner already!

I have been going back and forth so much over the past week, that I wonder sometimes if I dreamed him gone. Does that make sense??? It's like one of those things that maybe I'm in denial...I wanted him to leave so bad on his own...that in my mind, he left! And now, all of the sudden, I can't find anymore traces of him. It's my way of saying...Hmmph, he's not here anymore, but deep down inside..I know he is...and I know I HAVE to do something about it :o( The question is...when and how. Sucks though...I should just "dream him to Shadow and Scout's house" :o)~

Seems like we're in the same boat! The hurricane took away a lot, but left us with 1 (or a FAMILY) of mice in the attic! All the ceilings have come down. No mouse, not a single one has been found, but I can hear it up there AND we've found droppings!

Back to the traps we used last time when they were clearing the lot behind us after the brush fires. The little critters were scared to safety, in MY home! The clear palstic, humane traps with 1 way doors worked like a charm. Mice can get in but not out. We used peanut butter and crackers.

***Edited By: pyrmom on 1/13/2005 5:26:19 AM***
Reason: typo

I have been meaning to mention that they do have a new traps like the ones for roaches. where the mouse checks in and doesn't come out thingys. they are kinda spendy ??

Oh by the way you all. ummmm I have had mice before and also cats in the house. but my cats are fed to good as they do not keep the mice away ??? in fact the reason that I think I have the mice is cause the cats bring them up to the house to me when they are not dead and let them go under my porch ????? lol

Oh and I am not a mouse hater. In fact when the cats bring the mice to me and I get the chance I take them away from them and go let them go out in the feild. I also have a live trap , that you can catch and release but I think they have figured out what it is and avoid it ???
Jubilee

I'm new, and i was reading this thread b/c I have mice in my apartment right now. I know your mice were there about a month ago, so maybe you've already cured the problem. If not though, I'd recommend you don't ignore it.

Mice move in when it gets cold outside. So it's probably been there since October. Plenty of time to have at least two litters of kids. (Not Good = Dirty) I caught a big one Monday morning and found another today. The one I got today just had its leg caught.

The trick to getting them to not chew it off, is to check your traps as early in the morning as possible. They move around at night and are hidden during the day. They start to get scared when it gets light out and people are moving around - that's when they start chewing. So get to it early. I just smashed mine a few times with a can of chopped pineapples. A hammer will work. Anything, you want that thing dead.

Just don't let them go. It's seriously disgusting to have mice in your house. and DO NOT keep it as a pet. They have TONS of diseases and you will get sick if you keep one. If you do want to release it, take it at least a mile away from your house to do so.

Ewwwwww, I could never do that...it gives me the hibbie jibbies just thinking about it...I think he is gone...I say "think" because you just never know. I haven't seen any traces of him for over a month...nada..thank goodness. Hopefully he won't come back...the weather is starting to warm up a bit...I'm sure he has moved on.

What an interesting topic. We had mice when I was a kid, and we have mice right now. Jury is out on how we'll deal with them. The way some of you guys go on about how dangerous it is to have mice in the house, Im surprised I haven't keeled over dead already.

We used the old time traps when I was a kid. Every mouse died instantly or with minimal suffering, we used peanut butter on the traps, not a big glob but just a dab. Sometimes the mouse would get away with just licking it off, but eventually the trap would snap and that'd be the end of it. I will say if we'd found a live mouse, we'd have just thrown it into the ditch behind our house. We also used poison.

I'm not freaked out by the presence of mice in the house at all, though I'd prefer they weren't here. I'm also surprised by how many people foam at the mouth over wild mice being present in the house, but not over the white mice from stores (field mice are a dull grey color, not white). They're the same species and thus can pass the same diseases to humans. But people are more than willing to bring other wild animals like squirrels, raccoons, etc into their houses. Personally I think it's the 'cute' factor. Mice are percieved as vermin (which they are) thus they die.

I've actually been doing some research on mouse traps. There are glue traps now, ones similar to the 'roach motels' of day old. The mouse goes in, gets its feet caught on the floor and can't get out. Then you throw the whole box away. If you decide you want to let the mouse go, using vegetable or mineral oil will negate the effects of the glue. There are also 'cage' type live traps but they're hard to find and more expensive. And there's of course the old time 'bait' traps.

ANd there's poison. Whoever said that poison makes the mice seek water so they die outside? THat was a new one. Mice and rats die from eating poison because they have lack the physiological ability to regurgitate. That's why poison is so effective on them. In my experience, you can tell that the mice are dead when their bodies start stinking from death and decay. Yum!

The truth is, with the exception of the cage live traps (if you can find one), mouse traps are pretty cruel, there's no avoiding it. Then again, I think it's beyond cruel for someone to bash an animal's head in with a pineapple can, that's just me. I think we're going to go with a glue trap or a live cage trap here.. then again if I catch a mouse alive I'm just feeding it to our pet snake so either way it's curtains for the mouse.

What worked for us, was Kraft Singles Cheese.

Are you needing to kill it or catch and release it? I can tell you if you catch it and release it anywhere near your house, it will be back. I would go for the quick and as painless as possible trap. Peanut Butter or cheese. =(

Finally got the dreaded vermine. It avoided the glue traps. It could not resist peanut butter in the traps and would lick it off and re-visit. This went on for a couple days and I was getting a complex that we were just feeding the critter. I was fed up and wanted to outsmart him. I wedged a honeynut cheerio on the trap along with the savory peanut butter. Only this time I did something different.....

Instead of simply facing the trap towards the wall in the basement I found a cozy corner and placed it there with two bricks against it to build a death trap surrounded by four walls. The next morning I went down and there was a dead mouse. My general observation was that in the initial attempts the mouse had ample room on three sides to casually reach in and dine on the peanut butter delight. This time he had to climb up the bricks to come in and had no breathing room to have so much as a slip or bump.

My lesson learned is if I ever again have an intruder to outsmart them from the beginning. They only have a brain less than the size of a pea - they are bound to "slip up."