Mouse *
You might remember I had a mouse here in my brand new apartment a few weeks ago. I called the office and they sent a guy who put steel wool in the place where it was coming in. A week later, I still had a mouse. {Mouse droppings!} Then came the Orkin man. He put out sticky things to catch the mouse. Time passed but I still had the mouse because I still had mouse droppings! So, I called the office again. Today along came another guy with better {he said} sticky traps. When I called the office this last time, I asked why they were not putting down poison. I have no pets and no children and that would seem to me to be the ideal solution. But apparently, "they" whomever they may be, don’t allow it! After a pause she said nonchalantly, "Well, of course the tenant can use anything she wants to…"
I put down poison when I lived in Vermont because I knew my landlord wouldn’t. I really really don’t want to have to do it again! Anyway, now I have better sticky traps, the guy who came today said and he said if it catches a mouse, call the office and one of the handymen will come and deal with it. Incidentally, if you have bad feelings about me wanting to poison mice, don’t leave me a note about it, please. I am the one who deals with the mouse turds and the fact that I can’t put the potatoes in the mesh basket I bought for them. And this diatribe was sparked by the fact that I went into the kitchen to put the dishes in the dishwasher and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the mouse skitter across the floor and hide from me. And when I cleared the dishes from the sink, I saw where the mouse had nibbled on the paper towel I used to wipe up the spaghetti sauce that spattered on the counter…
Tomorrow and Wednesday, the tenants who rent what are called the phase two apartments–and that includes me–have to put their cars in the phase one parking area so the lines for parking and crosswalks in our area can be redone. I will move my car early in the morning and leave it there for two days. I can’t deal with having to carry grocery bags from one end of this complex to the other so I can’t buy groceries {or mouse poison for that matter } for a couple of days. Actually, all I really need is bread since I have plenty of food so I will load up the bread machine tomorrow.
The Virgin Mobile fiasco is still ongoing. More about it later…
Sorry you still have mice. 🙁 I’d rather have them poisoned than the sticky traps. We had some mice in our garage and I used one of those traps that you can release them into the wild. Except they didn’t go in for over a week…I checked daily…and then went out of town. Came back to find two dead mice in the traps. 🙁
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I say either borrow a cat, or put down poison. We use snap, no-touch traps, and they tend to do well when baited with peanut butter.
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Peanut butter and a piece of a pretzel stick on a snap trap. Works for me. 🙂 – — –
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I have a no-mercy rule when it comes to mice, especially here in the southwest where hantavirus is a real problem. I avoid poison, though, because I have pets and also because the dying mice often crawl back to some inaccessible place and stink. Bleh. Plain old spring-loaded traps work pretty well for me.
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I say kill em! I’m with Kimber above about the poison and where they might die. I say go with the traps that kill em. They aren’t doing any good and spread germs. However that said I will not touch even a brand new trap ewww. In all my adult life I’ve had one mouse and Jimmy took care of the trap and dead mouse. That is when mother told mt to plug any holes with steel wool. Jimmy did that to andno more mice. Hope you can catch yours. I will get in trouble for this but I say kill everything bugs, spiders or whatever. I could not believe it when I read the first time on OD that people turn varmints loose outside. They might come back!!!
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I would hate to have a mouse running around my kitchen. It’s bad enough I have bugs(cockroaches?) all winter. I would use anything I could to get rid of it. Good luck!
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I would hate to have a mouse running around my kitchen. It’s bad enough I have bugs(cockroaches?) all winter. I would use anything I could to get rid of it. Good luck!
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I am cheering you on as you try to get rid of your mice! I hate having them in the house too!!!!! hugs, Nicky
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i have no problem with poisoning mice. angela had mice in the basement. pearl kept bringing up dead ones for angela! kurt sprinkied moth balls around the house. don’t know if it was the moth balls or the scent of pearl down there but there haven’t been any mice for a while now. if it’s an outdoor critter and it get into my house… it’s dead as oon as i can get it dead. take car,e
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I agree. The sticky traps seem to be the most cruel. When I worked for the demolition company, the owner had a couple of dogs. The mice would get in the shop and get in the dog food and then invade the office. I wanted to be all humanitarian, so I went and bought a live animal trap, put dog food in it, and put it in the shop. Those little varmints somehow figured out how it worked and got in, atethe dog food, and got out! Didn’t catch a single one. A guy who worked there said that a poison called Barr (from the IFA store) worked. They eat it, get insatiably thirsty, and go to a water supply and literally drink themselves to death. I don’t see how steel wool would work in keeping it out if it’s already in your house! The snap traps worked best for us when we first had them. We’d throw them away with the mouse still in them. When I was a kid, though, my parents would unload the trap and keep it (costs money, you know!). Good luck with yours!
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Sorry about the mouse. I think they are smart enough to know to avoid a sticky trap. Of course, if they are poisoned and get into the wall…ew. Really there isn’t an easy solution. Too bad they can’t read…you could just leave them a note to tell them that the better food is across the street at the neighbors house:)
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You need a cat! The biggest problem with poison bait is that they eat it and crawl away to die and it might be somewhere where they can’t be got at. You wouldn’t believe the stink one little rodent can cause if it kicks the bucket in a wall cavity. Something died behind my parents pantry once and it stunk for a YEAR! (huggles)
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I have a “trap line” at the Lake house. There are 12 old fashioned spring traps that I place around the kitchen, hall and living room at night. In the morning I do a trap run to see how many I got. Last October I got 21 mice. I put the bodies in a pile outside and some critter usually takes them away by the next day.
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Mice carry the hantavirus. Domestic mice raised as pets are cute. Wild mice area big disease vector. Peanut butter and a quick snap with no notion that it’s about to be all over is humane. Poisoning them could leave you with a dead mouse in your walls, and that smells. Wrap a moth ball in a stocking so that you can retrieve it and push it through the hole, then use steel wool. Mice hate it.
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I think you just need to do whatever it takes to get rid of the mouse.
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Whatever method you use to get rid of mice is OK with me! They carry disease, leaves messes, & damage property. “Off with their heads!”
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I had rats in my old garage and I didn’t want to poison the neighborhood cats that went in there, so I used HUGE old fashioned mouse traps…rat traps, really! Wow…talk about messy! I killed 6 rats in a week! Had I not had neighborhood cats in my garage, you can bet your sweet bippy I’d be using the poison! AccckkK!!! I hope they work for you sooon.
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Ditto – peanut butter and snap traps always worked for me! Tuna works too.
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