Ugh, Mice

PS - Aldi had 30 count disinfectant wipes for 49¢. I bought a few packs for disinfecting the cabinet

How old are your cats, OP? House cats lose interest in mousing as they get older. Mine used to be absolute terrors to rodents -it looked like they worked as a team. But after a few years they... retired from mousing.

They might have gotten that disease from your cats that can cause some women to miscarry that’s transmitted by cat feces. I can’t bring the name to mind right now but It takes over the mice brain and makes them attracted to the smell of cat urine. They think cat people can’t smell how badly some of their houses smell because the humans are infected.

Stuff steel wool into the little holes, that will keep them from using the pipe holes as an access point.

Oh the life of 2 bottoms

My cats are 11 and 12. They love watching the chipmunks at the bird feeder, but they just watch, since they’re indoor cats.

Buy a Kness Ketch-All mousetrap (looks like a metal box). Wind it (described in the directions) and then overnight, put it against a flat surface like a wall near where you think the mice are running. It will catch them and you can release them outside, clean the mousetrap, and reuse it. It can catch more than one at once, but you shouldn’t leave them in there together for hours because sometimes they turn on each other.

I don’t suggest this because I care about humanely catching mice (sorry guys!) but because I had an exterminator come over once and tell me it was the best possible mousetrap. You don’t even need to bait it. Y

You should also get a contractor or handyman to come patch up their sneak route. If it’s just a small hole, you can put some steel wool in there.

Mice are gross.

All I heard the OP say was,

[quote]"Yada yada yada I live with shit piled up in a verminous house."

R3, it’s toxoplasmosis. It can make people crazy, I think.

I had them in NYC. Impossible to get rid of, especially when you live in a large residential building. I absolutely hate them now.

I have caught a few on those sticky traps. They were alive. There was no way to get them off. I wasn't going to touch them and even if I pulled them off their feet would have probably been torn off. One I drown by holding it in the toilet. The other looked almost dead so I just put it on the trap out with the garbage.

I guess that makes me a sociopath in some DL eyes. I grew up in the late 1950s/early 1960s in the rural South. We regularly killed things.

I saw something online just now called duct sealant. I’m going to go to lowes & see if I can get some.

I think you should probably just move, op.

I saw a mouse in my kitchen once, and since my boyfriend had a cat I asked him to bring the cat over for the weekend. The cat went into alpha hunter mode immediately, sniffing around the kitchen baseboards.

We went upstairs to go to bed and were both asleep when WHAM! the cat landed in the middle of the bed to show off the prize he had caught. Somehow the mouse got out of his mouth and the chase was on all over the bed while the cat tried to recapture it. A fun night.

^ Funny!

Hi!

R11, my roommate put out glue traps, and I was home alone when a mouse got caught on one. I didn't want it to suffer, as I had read that sometimes they will gnaw their paws off to try get out. I put the mouse and trap in a bag, got a hammer, and hit it, killing it instantly. This happened twice. Finally the landlord called an exterminator, and I asked him what I should do if I found a mouse on a glue trap. He said just chuck it out, alive.

Snap traps are the way to go, if you kill one, you still have 4-6 left (if youre lucky)

Kill them. If you let them go free outside they'll come back wiv their friends. They're rodents, they're not your friends.

Snap traps so they “pass” quickly.

I just had a moment of nostalgia for the Christmas Mouse … and then the Christmas Moose

Glue traps are cruel and not very effective . I wish there were some chemical that is abhorrent to mice, some cat urine component.

Snap trap them

They've become a bigger problem in my NYC apartment over the last few months.

They could be coming from anywhere—supposedly they fit through holes as small as a dime.

Do any of those ultrasonic repellant things actually work? What about peppermint oil?

I live in NYC. Trust me on this.

Get yourself a Rat zapper.

You have no other effective choice.

I’m still confused-did you think you have mice because your husband buys cheap garage bags? Or because you live In squalor.

It is both dear R26

r25 is right. My building has had a terrible problem for years. (3 towers being constructed in the neighborhood and my super leaves the basement door open all day.) I've caught so many in my electronic traps I lost track. I use these at the link.

I got to the point where I just open the window and dump the dead ones out. They land right near the basement door that is propped open. Let my super deal with it, he's a big cause of the issue.

[quote]Do any of those ultrasonic repellant things actually work? What about peppermint oil?

No the ultrasonic things don't work and peppermint oil will work for a little while ... and then they get used to it and don't care.

If you live in a house, it doesn't matter how clean your home is if it's in the country or near a house where mice are. You have to have the outside sealed, every opening and every crack. Then you have to have the same done inside. They move from home to home, from field to house (when it's cold.) If you live in an apartment, they move from apartment to apartment. As someone else said up above, if you live in an apartment, you'll have to find out how they're coming in and stop them. That won't do much though, unless your landlord is actively trying to exterminate them.

Hi Hunca Munca!

The cat disease is Toxoplasmosis (sp?) but isn't the danger of it still being debated?

I have two "husky" cats. I found a dead mouse in the bedroom a few weeks ago, but we are pigs. The problem is that I'm sloppy, but not dirty. My husband used to clean. I don't really like cleaning. Our kids are slobs. So all together we're sloppy and dirty. But I totally thought the smell of the cats would keep mice away, like OP. I didn't know the cats had to be really into going after the mice. I just thought their scent was a warning. (I am on top of the catbox, just so you know. I clean it every other day.)

People in NYC just act like it's normal to have vermin running around all over the place inside. Rodents piss and shit constantly, probably on the dishes and food, yet it's normal.

When I was a kid we had a field rat in our house and my cat hid behind me. They aren’t all into hunting.

R31, I guarantee no one in NYC is jazzed to have mice running around their place.

Did New York touch you in a bad place? Show your therapist on the doll.

If you know where they are coming in you can use shredded steel wool to block cracks or openings behind counters, or cut sheets of tin for larger openings.

OP, the big ones aren't "daddy mouse bears."

They're called "rats."

I got them during covid lockdown in NY and was hysterical over it (MARY!!!).

My super took the cover off the radiator and found huge holes where they were getting in. He plastered those off and it solved the problem.

Before that, I tried the peppermint oil and sonic things - they didn’t do shit. Those mice were running wild all over my apartment. I would scream and they wouldn’t give a single fuck.

[quote] They've become a bigger problem in my NYC apartment over the last few months.

Construction. They're tearing down every 6 story apartment building in NYC and replacing with a 50 story high rise. I lived next door to an old building that was torn down and mice were going inside my bird cage at night eating the bird’s seed. Some really bold mice. When I first moved in I heard scratching from the apartment upstairs. “Someone upstairs has a dog that’s scratching in the corner,” I told my bf. “It’s really annoying. It scratches all night. I wish the owner woukd let that poor dog sleep in bed with them.”

Yeah, it was no dog. It was mice making tunnels.

Years ago, when I was in law school downtown, the dorms were infested with rats. I had a classmate who opened her oven one night and a rat ran out of it. She and the rat faced off in her tiny studio apartment. The classmate (who was very tall and quite obese) stomped her foot and lunged toward the rat. In response, the rat got up on its hind legs and just stared at her.

Shudder.

R36 plumbers are often responsible for infestations, they cut large holes to run pipes and don't seal them.

Chimney stack

Starting to crack

The mice are getting bolder

Walking home near Washington Square in NYC, one foggy winter afternoon, very close to dark, I spotted a possum sniffing the trashcans outside of the Angelica movie theater on the side street. It was taking its time, being very deliberate with its sniffer. I thought it was surprising that possums could live in a park as small as Washington Square, but then it hit me, it was rat that was as big as a large cat. Hideous, it had big pink tumors sticking through the fur, here and there. A lot of people were walking right past it on the sidewalk, and it wasn't the least bit concerned about any of them.

What’s nasty is late at night when rats run along the subway platforms. The subway runs garbage trains late at night and it is gross.

Can we stay focused on mice? This is a MICE thread. They can be as annoying as rats, even worse. Just because they don’t have the Black Death flea connection doesn’t mean they can’t be lethal.

I’ve never understood people having rats as pets. I’m sure their fine if raised from babyhood, but it’s still yucky.

^^ they’re

[quote]Stuff steel wool into the little holes, that will keep them from using the pipe holes as an access point.

That will help, but steel wool starts to disintegrate, a foam sealant would work much better. Home Depot has many choices.

Years ago, I once had a mouse in my co-op, it came in through the little door on my living room radiator cover. I literally heard it scamper over a cardboard box of books I hadn't yet added to my bookcase. I sure wasn't going to kill it. I kept the radiator door open, then, a day later I heard in go back through the radiator door and into the hole it came up from. I'm on the 18th floor.

One of the maintenance guys came up with that foam sealant, the type which hardens. He filled up all the holes and cracks in every radiator area. I never saw another mouse since then, this was over 10 years ago.

lol r43 demanding the focus stay on MICE!!!! Not rats everyone. MICE!!!!!!!!!!

Fair enough r43.

Yes another vote for foam sealant instead of steel wool. You need to plaster those little jerks out of your place.

Lesbian here. Hello everyone. This topic is kinda my forte if you will.

We had a wicked snowstorm down here in Memphis back in February.

Some mouse crawled through a little opening for a pipe. This was under the kitchen sink. I almost saw the point since snow and ice is highly uncommon in Memphis.

The mouse died on the glue trap I keep under the kitchen sink. Bless his heart. He was a tiny thing.

I scoured the hell out of the kitchen Joan Crawford style. Then I went to the hardware store and bought some steel wool and duct tape. I shoved a crapton of steel wool in that little hole around the pipe and duct taped that bitch shut.

I rent an apartment and actually move soon. The duct tape matches the color of the little opening near the pipe and so fuck it. I had to do what I had to do.

That foam type stuff is alright but I would dare say a rat or even a mouse trying to escape the cold might eat it's way through it. So, the moral of the story is to "duct tape that bitch."

Do you live in a free-standing house? I.e., mice not coming over from the other side of the wall.

You need to get serious and have a professional exterminator come to your house. After that, you need to do the upkeep.

Cats, even young cats who like to catch mice, are not the solution to mice.

They love fresh flowers. They will eat your soap, and candles as well, including the all-parafin ones. They aren't picky.

Let's face it. It's not fresh flowers, soap, and candles that the mice are surviving on.

If you are trying to keep from providing them with food, I am just trying to point out that there are things you likely haven't considered. I have LOADS of experience with them in four different places. -R50

akkk! i had one i'd see every morning scampering about predawn. i put poison out. i do not want to touch it.

a couple days ago my rat terrier (ironic) jumped on the bed to wake me up. the mouse was dead in the water bowl. akkk!

Understood, R52. Sorry to hear about having to deal with mice in so many locations.

Oh shit, I opened my dishwasher to put something in it and it STINKS! Yesterday the dishwasher smelled vaguely of what I thought was mildew, but saw my husband had put a stale-looking sponge on the bottom rack. Ok, probably something he used in the garage, I figured.

But today the smell is REAL BAD. The washer is right next to the cabinet where the mouse came in. The hole in the wall the plumber brought the pipe through goes right behind the dishwasher.

I’m not looking any further. I locked the dishwasher and my husband can look in there. He’s the one responsible for changing the waste baskets in the kitchen. I do the floors, refrigerator, outer cabinets, oven, stove, toaster, microwave, etc. all he’s responsible for is changing the garbage bags, wiping down the garbage bag holders and spraying with Lysol. He needs to do his damn job. I’m afraid something died in that dishwasher. I have macular degeneration and can’t see well.

'S'awlrite, R54, the mices are the ones who are sorry. Defeated 'em.

[quote]That foam type stuff is alright but I would dare say a rat or even a mouse trying to escape the cold might eat it's way through it. So, the moral of the story is to "duct tape that bitch."

Maybe a very tiny mouse would give up up trying to gnaw through the hardened sealant. Who knows. I do know, using the sealant, I haven't seen any mice for over 10 years.

Putting tape and steel wool near hot riser steam pipes sure doesn't keep out mice or those large roaches. The heat causes the wool to get weak and the glue on the duct tape stops working.

A friend lives in a fairly large ground floor apartment in Manhattan, they've been there forever, the rent is very low, they sure aren't going to leave because of vermin. Over the years, he's had mice and large roach problems.

He put steel wool down all the riser pipe spaces by the floor, he used duct tape to "seal" all the spaces. When the heat started coming up, he suddenly had an influx of those disgusting large roaches, the ones some people call waterbugs. He had mice years ago, but hasn't seen them for awhile. But the large roaches have been problematic.

My friend is a neat freak, he's sure not dirty, the large roaches aren't there because he has a filthy apartment. Ironically, he doesn't have any regular roaches, just the very large ones.

He used the steel wool and sealant method, that seems to be working...for now. I told him to Super Glue the metal rings to the floor, the rings which are at the bottom of each riser pipe.

Not to get off topic from MICE, but the large roaches are impossible to get rid of with a ground floor apartment in Manhattan if the surrounding area or building is infested. The smaller roaches can be controlled by keeping the place spotless, but those waterbugs... ugh. They are almost always LONE WOLVES and searching for water. God I hate them.

Unknowingly moved into an infested apartment years ago on the UWS and it was hell. The first night there, I woke up at 2AM and they were in my bed. I was able to get rid of the small ones because I was obsessive about being clean and used those bait traps, but the waterbugs would make appearances depending on the weather. And that wasn't even a ground floor.

SHUDDER........

Anyway... back to MICE. Sorry OP.

The expanding foam sealant works, but you have to get the one that has some type of irritant mixed in. The normal stuff is just foam. I think the sealant irritant is fiberglass or something similar.

Although I have advocated before to keep the topic on MICE I do want to say something on WATERBUGS. I had them in New York. They move pretty slowly actually, so you can step on them.....Don't!!!

Southern college, housing by the river.

Stayed at a friend's partying. Fred was their "pet" waterbug.

Something landed on my face sleeping there overnight. Slapped it. Fred was all over my forehead.

The best Waterbugs are the pregnant ones.

My first apartment had roaches and water bugs. I worked at a hospital & it was hospital housing. Turns out it was kind of a self segregated building. The white nurses only stayed briefly until they got an apartment in another hospital building. But black Caribbeans stayed in the first building. They really were not skeeved by water bugs because they were all over the Caribbean, especially after thunderstorms. One of our secretaries said, “The worst was using the outhouse after a thunderstorm. They were dripping off the roof like water.” Agh! They thought I was crazy, screaming like I was being murdered.

Anyway, it was an old building and it didn’t have garbage chutes. It had a garbage room on every floor. Maintenance was off all weekend, so you can imagine what that garbage room was like on Sunday nights in summer. The hospital had an exterminator to come on Thursdays. They paid for a visit once a month for each apartment but I paid the exterminator to come every two weeks. Didn’t help. The only thing that helped was Combat. They’d just come out about a month before I moved to another apartment and they were helpful.

That apartment was also full of mice. There was a space of 1/4 “ to 1/2” between the walls & floors in that apartment. My mother came in one Friday and we pushed steel wool into every crevice around the entire studio with a knife, nice & tight. I left for the weekend. When I came back Sunday night, the living room floor was full of steel wool.

The only furniture I had was a desk with a chair that were already there when I moved in and a cot I bought I refused to buy any other furniture because I didn’t want mice or bugs to have more places to hide.

R14 you write like a novelist — thank you for the loud out laughter!

out loud*

I live in a 90 year old 6-story apartment in Flatbush and had a bad infestation a few years back. They were leaving turds on my stove, sink and even on top of the refrigerator. Then they migrated into the living/sleeping area (studio apartment) - I would see them run from behind a dresser into the bathroom, where I found there was a small hole behind the heat pipe - that was another pathway. I caught a few on glue traps and I went to snap traps - got a few more. To give an idea of how bad it got, one day 6 mice were caught on glue traps, and I watched as one mouse bit a second mouse on the leg in its frenzy to get loose, and watched a small mammal bleeding on my floor. I don't have the heart to kill them, so I would put the damn mouse/glue trap in a plastic supermarket bag and dump them in the trash.

After 6 weeks of headaches, I sprang for an exterminator for $160, who plugged up some holes with foam and threw down some poison and left. He did a half-assed job - because the building is so old (open grill covering the steam radiator, kitchen sink bottom cabinet put in in the 70's) he couldn't be bothered to put in the effort to get to every opening. Of course the mice still used my place as a playground.

I eventually bought an electronic trap like the one shown at R28 and it did a great job. It may take a couple days, but I was getting 2-3 mice a day in that thing. After about a week, I guess the rest of the nest had been caught and no more rodents. About once a year I may see a new mouse creeping, and I will have to pull out the trap again, but so far, the problem has not gotten as horrific as it was back then.

Don't even ask about the one time I got bedbugs. Oy.

ahhh!

Has anybody ever had sex when a mouse/water bug showed up?

I know this is a "mice" thread, but to share another horror: I bought this beautiful condo in an old 1920s highrise, fully furnished. It's steel, concrete, brick, and plaster with steel casement windows. The day I got my keys I found a few dead TERMITES in one of the windows. WTF? I moved a piece of wood furniture that was below the window and there was a pile of what looked like sawdust and a ton of discarded termite wings. There was a drywood termite infestation in the wood trim on the inside of the window! On a high floor! I could push my finger right through the wood because the entire inside of the trim was eaten away. I had a termite guy treat the area but it didn't get them all. Across the room there was a piece of furniture sitting on a wool rug. I kept finding live termites squirming around in and under the rug. They were eating the furniture! I had to throw out that furniture and rug and have a termite guy come back and strip off all the wood window trim and replace it to get rid of the termites. I guarantee the seller knew and didn't bother to disclose.

I have a similar story to R14. I had a cat and one night I was in bed and heard it running around, eventually realizing it was chasing a mouse. I had not really had a mouse issue before this night, so I just rolled over and figured in the morning I may find a dead mouse the cat had caught. I was just drifting off when I felt the cat jump on the bed, not laying down, but fidgeting and pouncing. It took me a second to realize that the cat was still playing with the mouse ON THE BED. I leaped up, grabbed the blanket and flung everything up into the air... the cat went one way and the mouse somewhere else.

It took me a little while to settle back down after that excitement.

My friend’s husband owns an apartment building in Manhattan that was infested with termites. Cost a fortune. It’s a rental, so he had to pay the exterminators and workmen.

One night one of my cats began this horrible, terrible screaming in the middle of the night. We’d just lost my husband’s favorite cat to illness, so we were freaked out. We couldn’t find her. It’s 3 am and we’re running up and down stairs checking in corners trying to find her as she wails louder and louder. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Turns out we were missing each other by seconds as she ran down stairs while we ran up. I was going up the 2nd floor staircase and just as my head got to the top of the stairs the cat came running into my face howling with her mouth wide open and drool coming out of her mouth.

But wait…is that drool? Its kind of wide and dark, maybe it’s blood, oh no.

It’s a tail.

Yeah she had a mouse in her mouth. Same story as everyone else, she brought it upstairs to present to us. She ran under the bed and started batting it around. I nearly passed out. My husband took care of it. I couldn’t look.

A former coworker lived in the east village in a ground floor apartment. She was a real character. Basically nuts. She had a former street cat who would come in and out of the apartment through an open window. One night she was sleeping and felt the cat get in her bed and he was wet with something. She turned on the light and there was blood everywhere. She went to the kitchen and there was a dead bloody rat the cat dragged in.

I’m laughing as I type this because I remember her coming to work the next day and screaming about bleach and being up all night “cleaning up rat blood.” Everyone was clutching their pearls disgusted.

I’m asking the ones who have the electronic mouse trap. Where is the best place to set it? My cat won’t do nothing. I wasted money on those stupid sonic things. I have never mice. But they are building new homes near me. So they have wandered over. I had the glue traps and got a few. But the electric trap sounds a lot better.

Realistically the only thing that works is Poison.

Since my neighbours fitted a large wooden deck around 10 years ago the rodent population in my garden has increased 20 fold.

They can not be reasoned with regarding them providing an almost perfect vermin home, they love their decking.

I now have 8 mice poison bait stations and 4 rat ones in my garden (plus around 15 various sized traps). I monitor all of them regularly and top up the poisoned bait.

The problem is pretty much solved, it however costs me around £400 ($600) a year to keep it that way.

We live between a very large park area and a lake, having decking in our location is a fucking terrible idea.

[quote] I’m asking the ones who have the electronic mouse trap. Where is the best place to set it?

Wherever you think they may be coming in or wherever you’ve seen evidence that they may have been.

I set mine by the baseboard near my stove. I point the opening towards the gap between the stove and the wall.

I encourage you to get one. Just throw a bit of bait inside the machine, set it down and turn it on. The mice will find their way in. When it’s trapped a mouse, just pick up the machine, tilt it into the garbage and then rebait it. I use pieces of cookie or a Hershey’s kiss.

One night, I couldn’t sleep it was going off so many times. A whole family had moved in and I got four in a two hour time period. I didn’t sleep much that night, but I left the thing running on my kitchen floor for a month and never caught another that season, so it was worth losing a bit of sleep to be rid of them for a little while.

With the electronic zapper, do you see them? Or is it a covered box?

Yes, I could look it up, but I'm so phobic, I can't look at pictures of rodents. Just typing this is making my heart race.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the cheapest solution of all: moth balls. I had a mouse problem years ago and then again last year. Each time I opened a box of moth balls near where I had seem them run. Within a couple of days, they were gone. Yes, you have to put up with the smell for a short time, but it's worth it.

With poison the little things eat it and then die in your baseboards or some other inaccessible part of the structure, and then you have the smell to deal with. For a VERY long time.

[quote] With the electronic zapper, do you see them? Or is it a covered box?

The rat zapper is a long plastic tube. When a mouse is caught, a light flashes on top. You never have to see the mouse. Just pick up the tube and tilt it into the garbage.

[quote] I was yelling at my husband for buying cheap small garbage bags because every time I opened the kitchen sink cabinet,the bag wasn’t properly in the frame.

Tell me you're the bottom without telling me you're the bottom

R75: I'm curious--why is the decking attracting rodents?

Is it because it provides them with protection from the elements?

One side of the bag was collapsed out of the frame, so it was impossible to put trash in it. I had to keep pulling the bag up & over the handles, which was a pain in the neck. Turned out the mouse was grabbing the left side of the bag, pulling it down, gnawing a hole in it and getting inside the bag every night while we slept.

Every night I feed the cats at 10pm and put the cat food cans & lids in the garbage bag. It’s the kind of cat food with gravy. And little slices, where a few little slices always cling to the inside of the can.

Every night I’ve been feeding those little bastards.

Every morning I get up, make breakfast, feed cats…..I go to put something in the trash…the damn trash bag was hanging down, all collapsed while I have a handful of cat food cans, eggshells, crumbs swept from the counter.

I’ve got decking. It’s true it attracts rodents. I’ve got chipmunks too. But I’ve also got garter snakes so in warm weather, those snakes hide in the garden I have up against my deck, waiting…..by September, it’s totally cleared out. True, new mice will come in winter. But I’m not swamped with rodents. We also have hawks and owls.

Oh child, I have never heard of water bugs ….Im feeling faint

[quote]Every night I feed the cats at 10pm and put the cat food cans & lids in the garbage bag. It’s the kind of cat food with gravy. And little slices, where a few little slices always cling to the inside of the can.

Try recycling. You'd have less vermin to deal with. I guess where you live there are no recycling laws?

The only garbage I put into plastic bags are food scraps and coffee grinds, stuff like that. Those discards go down my building's chute in small in plastic bags.

Due to my state no longer allowing stores to put anything in plastic bags, these bags now have to be bought at Costco. Of course, the morons who created this plastic bag law neglected to comprehend there are still people who live in buildings with garbage chutes, small plastic bags are needed. Only now we get to pay for them!

Where I live, a co-op, residents must recycle or they will get fined. My co-op has one bin for glass, plastic and metals, another bin for paper, magazines etc and another bin for clothing and other garbage which must not go down the chute.

Thanks to the advice on this thread, I bought a mice-specific sealant and a rat zapper.

I've been in my apartment for 15 years, and the mouse problem has never been as bad as it is now.

And they're fucking bold! I woke up one night, hearing a kind of shredding sound coming from the living room. A damn mouse had grabbed hold of a piece of plastic bag I'd left on the floor and was trying to pull it through a gap near a riser pipe!

I used to knot up a takeout bag of trash and hang it on a hook near the door as a reminder to take it out in the morning. Fifteen years, never a problem. This winter the fucking things have learned how to climb doorframes and chew their way into the bags while I'm sleeping.

I just ordered some electronic traps off of Amazon. Thanks to this thread. I was getting desperate. I spent so much money buying sonic stuff and glue traps.

I always have a little eastern screech owl patrolling my property at night/early morning. I hear it in the arborvitae next to my deck. It also sits in my front yard tree awaiting little birds that wake up and come out of my holly hedge when the sun rises, And I’ve seen it in my pine tree at late night when my headlights catch the top of the tree. It’s waiting for mice that might come to the ground around my (empty) bird feeder

R87, are you the one who has construction going on in your neighborhood? That’s what it was like in my NY apartment when they were tearing down an old building. Mice everywhere. One night I got up about 1 am to pee. I walked past my bedpost on the way to the bathroom and VOOOOOP! Something jumped up in the air in front of my face and brushed the skin on my arm on its way down. I screamed like a banshee. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in the building called 911 after hearing me.

I had a black book bag for school that I slung over my bedpost. I had a couple of crackers wrapped in a napkin inside that I’d take to class & forgot to take out. That little bastard mouse climbed up my bed into that bag while I was asleep. It was so scared when I got up and brushed against the bag that it jumped about 6 feet up in the air.

They are phenomenal creatures. That’s why they survive. They can get into anything.

Screech owls are cute, R89.

I could use one to patrol my apartment.

This is the mouse/rat trap you want. Developed by a company in New Zealand (which has a major problem with invasive rats killing off native birds). Humane/quick-kill/auto reset.

R82 We don't have enough rodent eating predators in the UK (just owls and other birds), certainly no snakes large enough to solve the problem as R84 does.

If you install decking here you need to have 1ft deep sharp gravel underneath it and steel wire panels around the outer edges to prevent it being colonized.

My neighbours are too mean and stupid to do that.

R75

R31 is yet another in long line of DL posters who doesn't live in NYC, hasn't been here for an extended period, nor otherwise knows fuck about city, yet sees fit to make most stupid statements.

Given huge amount of multi-family housing in NYC , coupled with fact good majority is old to ancient vermin are a common enough problem. Every Duane Reade type of store, along with hardware, bodega, corner deli, supermarket and other retail sell some sort of mouse traps or poison. That is just how common problem is, but also shows New Yorkers will do what they can to get rid of them

Problem with multi-family or any other large building is vermin will move around within walls to different floors and apartments/offices. Where can find an opening, will come out of said walls and floors. If not, will move on to another part of building. Thus even if your apartment doesn't have vermin, they very well could be elsewhere, so you have to be proactive.

For both mice and rats you have to find and seal every possible hole or crack they can exploit for entry. Mice need only a hole about size of a dime, rats a quarter. In any event bodies of both sorts have adapted so long as they can get their heads through a hole, will pull rest of themselves through. This and or scratch and chew (gnaw) to make hole or other opening larger.

Big problem for both private homes and apartment buildings is vermin tend to hide or use/create openings behind large objects not moved often or at all. Behind fridge, range, cabinets, sinks, dishwashers. Many are surprised (and or frankly disgusted) when say a kitchen renovation is done and everything is yanked out and off walls. The number of rat and or mouse holes uncovered!

Every apartment I've lived in (NYC) before moving in had exterminator come and rodent proof. He sealed every possible opening (copper mesh is what professionals use, much better than steel wool), patched holes and gaps around pipes, and so forth. Result is even when others in building report having mice, we don't.

Yelling because someone bought the wrong bags ?

Even posh white glove pre-war apartment buildings have mice.

SATC episode was fiction, but can tell you of several real life examples.

Mice gnawed huge holes into my $1500 Canada Goose jacket during storage over the Summer. I must have forgotten dog treats in the pockets. Btw my dog, a Terrier, didn’t give a shit about them.

The treats? The mice?

The mice, R98. She would get crazy when she saw a rat but when a mouse zapped by a foot away she would not even twitch an ear. We have moved since so she only needs to get excited about squirrels. She does enjoy her treats, I have to say.

Simple Human garbage cans and liners. I have never had a problem with them. Mice proof. The liners are GREAT, never had one break open on me, never. Been using them for about 20 years. Expensive but worth it.

mice (and rats) are pretty smart.

Try putting peppermint oil on cotton balls and setting them out.

Pardon R4, posted in wrong thread.

What is wrong with DL today? R103 is totally off, pardon and carry on...

Numerous studies have proven peppermint or other strong scents have no long term deterent effect on mice or rats. It may cause either to avoid an area initially, but soon will grow used to scent and that will be end of things. This being said if mint is used at high enough levels suppose it might work, but you'd better like smell, because that amount of mint is surely going to be powerful.

Still some bright blub invented trash backs scented with real mint, how well they work at repelling varmints is debatable.

[quote]They might have gotten that disease from your cats that can cause some women to miscarry that’s transmitted by cat feces.

Oh, Jesus, I stopped reading right there and have unfollowed the thread.

Tell your cats to start mousing or get a job & pay some bills.

When my beloved kitty was amongst the living, I never had to worry about the rodent kingdom, she would even dig up moles & slay them. Now, I use glue traps, some might say that's cruel, but, I have no love for mice.

When I was a teenager (40 years ago) my best friends Dad died of Toxoplasmosis.

Their house was filthy with 9 cats, 3 dogs shitting everywhere. You wiped your feet on the way out.

My Mother used to almost make me strip off at the front door when I got home, so she could hot wash my clothes and I could take a shower.

R107 Glue traps are soon to be banned in the UK, metaldehyde slug pellets were banned 1st of April 2022.

Yeah, "outlawed" R109.

You're going to have Martha Stewart knockoffs showing how to construct your own glue trap in 3...2...1.

I think glue traps are cruel but so are mice so there's a standoff in values.

Those glue traps are so inhumane, just get the old fashioned traps that snap their necks. With the glue traps, you have to run water over them until they down while they scream.

^ Drown not down. Just kill the damn varmints, don't torture them.

4

[quote]I have 3 cats. I thought mice were supposed to be terrified of the smell of cats.

Fake news.

Hieeee

Fuck all y'all...

Filthy rodents, full of diseases. Don't want to torture then with the glue traps, the old fashioned traps are more humane. Every time a neighbor remodels, I have to deal with them.

Manhattan. Can't even spell the place where I live.

Years ago, my bf and I were in Pokhara, Nepal, a beautiful place in the foothills of the Himalayas. We were staying in a little guest house and at night in bed we could hear something skittering up the walls. It was a large field mouse. We cowered under the covers, terrified. In the morning, we saw it had gnawed the soap and candles. I took these to the owner and told him he needed to put some poison or a trap out. He looked at these items and said, 'For this you would take his life?' I was astonished but I knew further discussion would be useless. We moved that very afternoon.

I found mouse droppings in my house and got some poison. A few days later, I smelled something nasty in the living room. Behind the sofa, I found a tiny grey mouse, no more than 2" long. It looked so pathetic and harmless, I nearly cried. I swore, never again....humane traps if I ever have the need.

Yeah, I won't do poison in my apartment. Because they'll just crawl somewhere nearby or into the wall and croak, and then you have to deal with it.

New York City mice are too smart for snap traps. Believe me I have tried. Maybe, they work in Florida but not in NYC.

They work in NYC. Mice are stupid, thank God.

.,.,

This is the most efficient & most humane mouse/rat trap that I've seen.

The glue traps are really awful. You have to hear them scream while you drown them in the sink or flush them down the toilet while plying them off the trap. Just to the decent thing and snap their necks to get rid of them.

And you really do need to get rid of them.

Went to Lowes yesterday asked a guy where I could find duct sealant. He had no idea what it was. I said, “you use it to seal wall around pipes. It’s like a compound. It’s not in a tube, but in a small tub.”

“Like a small bathroom tub?”

“No. A tub is a container like what spackel or putty comes in.”

Sent us to ducts…where there were ducts. No sealant of any kind. Just ducts.

Went to Home Depot…once again, nobody knew what duct sealant was.

“Ok, never mind then. I’ll get it online. We want to look at garage storage cabinets. Can you show us which section they’re in?”

“You mean like boxes to put stuff in?”

“No we mean freestanding cabinets. For garages.”

Blank look.

Went online, did search, pulled up pics of various cabinets advertised as suitable for garage.

Guy send us to Bathroom section..

dude, it's foam insulation in an aerosol can.

I've had bad luck with snap traps -many times I was finding the bait gone but the trap had not snapped. Some of them are so finicky - it you don't get the trigger set just right, they don't register the weight of the mouse and it gets a free meal. So annoying. I found a brand that does a pretty decent job... most of the time. Just a bit of advice from a fellow mouse sufferer.

Snap traps don’t always work. I came home one night to find a mouse dragging the trap across my kitchen floor. The trap had caught its forepaw when it reached out to grab the bait.

dammit, another mouse took the place of the waterbowl death.

ugh!

yes, i live in the woods.

They usually enter where the central heating pipe goes into the floor. Always check for small fissures.

[quote] it's foam insulation in an aerosol can.

I don’t want foam. I don’t like it. I’ve used it before.

I won’t use glue traps or snap traps. Used those too & didn’t like them.

I’ll probably get steel wool and tape

r132 Steel wool will rust and disintegrate from moisture, choose either copper or aluminum. You know the funny mouthfeel you get if you've ever accidentally chewed on a piece of aluminum foil? Same thing would happen to a mouse, they'll leave it alone. Copper lasts a long time, well worth the investment.

I have no problem using glue traps. I'm sorry it enrages some and gives the 'icks' to others. I check my traps every day, and dispatch the culprit quickly: I pick up the trap, fold it in half to enclose the mouse, slide it into a plastic bag and use my heel or a hammer to do the job.

Add me to the list of foregoing poisons, you only have to be in the situation once of having a mouse die in a place so inaccessible to retrieve to realize you've gained little. For such a small animal to generate such a large amount of stink is mind boggling.

Yes, poison is not a good option. They die inside the walls and the stench is awful for days if not weeks.

[quote]I pick up the trap, fold it in half to enclose the mouse, slide it into a plastic bag and use my heel or a hammer to do the job.

YOU MONSTER!

Roaches are the worst, especially those horrid large ones, they can flatten out better than mice and are much uglier to look at than a mouse.

I've never had a mice problem, but this large roaches can climb everywhere. Years ago, I worked in an office on the 20th floor, we had those large roaches in our art department!

I'd hear crunching sounds, then see one of those huge roaches running across my art catalogues which I kept stacked on the floor! I know, MARY!

Since we were a graphic design art department, we kept a lot of paper oriented stuff for research and original sketches in case we needed to re-use them for another print ad or a new layout. It was an in-house fashion art department, we also needed research files for the fashion illustrators to use for certain poses and we also kept fashion magazines for layout ideas.

This was pre-computers, we had tons of newspaper fashion ads and lots of fashion magazines. Regular roaches love paper, but those large roaches are usually looking for moisture, so, not sure why we always had them. Could be they were looking for food in peoples wastebaskets? Our individual wastebaskets were cleaned every night at around 6-7PM. When I worked overtime, I knew the cleaning lady was there nightly.

Even though everything was organized and clean, for some reason, the large roaches were in that place. The building management finally got an exterminator, on the weekend an exterminator came in. He filled any cracks and crevices he found and used some poison. Thankfully, we didn't see those large roaches again for years. At that point when the roaches showed up again, I was leaving that job.

When I think about that place, I get the shivers. I'm phobic of those large roaches. I'd rather look at a rat or a mouse. Seriously.

Large roaches are so creepy and disgusting, the thought of one walking on me, I get nauseous.

R57

Those large water bugs/roaches are everywhere in NYC for past decade or so. They've always been present but things seem to have gone into overdrive with city's weather trending towards constant moistness. It's either hot and humid, or cool and muggy, either way those bugs love dampness and heat. Since many NYC buildings use hot water or steam heat basements are warm to hot all year long because boilers are firing to make heat and or domestic hot water.

Ground floor and below grade are usually cannot get rid of water bugs/roaches. But lately people far up as fifth or six floors (and above) are getting them as well.

Fucking things are huge, and make much noise as mice.

If they don't come up from basements, water bugs crawl up from sewers and enter buildings via drains. So you're wise to keep drains covered, and never let pipes go dry. Water in S-bend helps keep them from coming up to an extent.

For what it's worth....

There are worse things than mice.....

Not even luxury housing in NYC is immune....

My building had a mice infestation due to a filthy obsessed hoarder - hoarding garbage. His apt was condemned, and he was thrown out on the street. Last time I saw him he was going through garbage cans at the commuter train station. The co-op building then went big on exterminators and tightening up on rules on who can live here (no relatives of relatives of owner).

Mouse free now for eleven years. However, listen up mice, if I see another one or two or three in my apt, I'll murder you motherfucken ass so painfully you'll wish you has stayed in The Bronx.

The worst thing that can happen to you in the UK is getting a Bat colony in your loft.

You can't move them, trap them or use poison, it's a nightmare.

They are totally protected.

I know this is a mouse thread, but I wanted to throw in my recent big roach experience. Two nights ago, I see some movement out of the corner of my eye and there is one was crawling near the ceiling of my studio apartment - up about 7 feet up and he is an extra big one. I freeze because I hate those MFers after one FLEW at me years ago from about the same spot on the wall.

I sit there deciding do I go for the broom or the can of roach spray first. Mr R starts crawling down and I can't make myself move... fear of flying. I sit and watch for 25 minutes as he walks back and forth just checking things out. I realize its about 11:30PM and I gotta make a move cause there is no way I'm getting in bed with that thing still alive. I hit him with some spray and it took a little while to see if it was enough - Mr R starts having trouble staying on the wall, doing that jittery thing they do when the poison starts messing them up. He fell into a box of cables on my desk, dead, I hope, and he will stay there until I get the stomach to chuck him in the trash.

R143, I hate those flying ones. I had a flier come at me a few years ago. I ran all around my apartment chasing it with the spray can.

[quote]He fell into a box of cables on my desk, dead, I hope, and he will stay there until I get the stomach to chuck him in the trash.

R143, you'd best get it together quickly, because many of the larger roaches will lie still on their backs for six or eight hours, and then slowly recover, first moving a leg or two... until the next time you look, and they're no longer where you supposedly left them for dead.

Get a wad of toilet paper, pick it up at once, and flush it down the pot.

R145

This is largely true, but it depends upon what pesticide was used.

If an exterminator is too costly or you don't want to use one due to having pets, the Combat large roach baits do work. Think they must be replaced every 3-4 months.

Don't roaches lay eggs in if they are about to die or get crushed?

They aren't native/widespread in the UK, your house has to be pretty filthy and squalid to get them here.

I have ants. I always get ants in warm weather but never considered them a major pest like roaches or bedbugs. But my city friends freak out as if my home is crawling with vermin. Here’s my feeling about antsy if you’re outside, your fine. I won’t kill you but I will sweep away or blast the ant hills you make in between my brick pathways (which are not cemented down) with a quick squirt of my harden hose.

If you come in my house I’m sorry, but I’m putting down Terro ant bait, which will kill you. I always have some live ants near my slider doors because I open the sliders so my cats can sniff the outdoor air and watch the chipmunks run across my deck. So some ants get in. They’ll collect around my seedlings which I have in boot trays on my floor. They’ll die soon from the Terro, but new ones will come in.

Yesterday I went for a walk in local wildlife sanctuary. When I was lying in bed watching tv I saw a small ant run across my wrist. I quickly grabbed it in between my thumb & forefinger and crushed. But I didn’t feel the bug separate into two pieces like ants usually do when I crush them. I said “ut oh,” and grabbed a small tray in my room. I opened my fingers over the tray and grabbed my phone flashlight. Upon lighting up the tray, I saw it……it was only slightly bigger than a speck……It had legs and it was in one piece, unharmed….. A tiny deer tick trying to scurry off the tray.

R149.Ants are an indicator that you don't clean often enough.

If mice didn’t move so incredibly fast, they’d be cute.

If you’re rich and hate rodents, you might consider moving to Alberta, Canada which is officially rat-free.

[quote]Don't roaches lay eggs in if they are about to die or get crushed? They aren't native/widespread in the UK, your house has to be pretty filthy and squalid to get them here.

No roaches in the UK? Years ago, I did see roaches when I was going to school in Paris. So, France has roaches but the UK doesn't?!

Roaches will eat anything, which means, a home or apartment doesn't necessarily have to be filthy for a person to have them. Someone could leave a literal drop of oil on their stove and a roach can live off that oil drop for who knows how long!

A friend has meticulous apartment, she's a real clean freak, but living on the first floor, she had many of those large roaches. When she figured out where they were coming from, she used the steel wool and foam sealant by the riser pipes, then she had the super spackle any cracks under the sinks and other points of entry.

We have to be so meticulous to avoid a mouse problem (and the Winter is 9 months long some years) that roaches aren't a big problem.

R153 I don't know about apartments (flats) in the UK as I've never lived in one, only houses with gardens where mice are your biggest enemy. I get them occasionally at my place in Italy but I have a contract exterminator.

I've asked around and German roaches seen to be a bigger problem in the UK than I would have expected, they are fairly small though.

I hate mice and rats in real-life but the illustration at R16 is beyond cute. Anyone know the artist?

R156, it's Beatrix Potter.

Yes, R155, the German cockroaches are the smaller ones. In the US, the large roaches are called waterbugs, but they are simply large cockroaches. The large roaches seems to die quicker than the small ones.

Lots of people don't like to use roach spray, they use whatever is handy to kill them. Hairspray works great because it causes the roach to get stiff and die. Even if you don't use hairspray, it pays to buy a cheap brand, then keep it handy for a roach emergency, especially if you are grossed out by stepping on those large roaches.

Yes, there are roaches in UK, whoever said there wasn't is badly misinformed.

This being said like many other things Britain's climate plays a role in keeping their numbers down, at least out of doors anyway. Species of roaches that favor warm and moist environments don't cope well with Britain's usually damp and cool weather. They can survive outdoors if conditions permit during warmer times of year (such as things are in UK), but come arrival of cooler weather they will try to find warmer digs. To wit indoors.

r108, You realize that he died of AIDS and they blamed it on the cats, right?

Ty r157

Wasp and Hornet spray works just as well on roaches. I hate the fucking things. They're big enough here to put a saddle on.

R80

Mouse or rat "zappers" aren't just "plastic tubes". Rather a well constructed box with lid on top, hole on one end, and ventilation screen/window at other.

Inside box is a passage way, and at end is aforementioned window screen. On one side of inner wall near said "screen" is an area to smear bit of peanut butter or whatever bait attractant. Before screen on floor of box is a metal area that is charged from batteries. Mouse, rat or whatever vermin licks or touches bait area while stepping on metal plate and *ZOOM*! Crispy fried rodent....

Since their introduction these "zappers" have been offered to deal with a variety of rodents and other vermin like squirrels.

Thing is yes, such things do work pretty well, But once triggered and one victim is dead, you've got to remove and dispose of corpse, clean inside, maybe add bit more bait, reset and put trap back in place. Obviously if a place has an infestation of any decent size just one zapper will not do.

Mouse zapper in action....

Electrocution is electrocution, as demonstrated in film "Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. Which is why people are warned off NYC subway tracks or at least stay clear of third rail.

I made a slurry of cooking oil, hot sauce and cayenne, which I painted at the edges of my kitchen counters, So far (2 days) it seems to have worked, I'd rather deal with cleaning up the hot sauce than mice doo.

My cat has been sniffing the space between the stove and a floor cabinet.

Today he was walking around and I asked, “Where’s the mouse?” And he ran over to the stove and put his nose in the floor space. He’s a smart boy.

“Mouse” is one of his favorite words, right up their with “din din,” “hungry” and “eat.”

I hate meeces to pieces!

Mr. Jinks the cat....

[quote] People in NYC just act like it's normal to have vermin running around all over the place inside. Rodents piss and shit constantly, probably on the dishes and food, yet it's normal.

Yes, it’s normal. It’s like having pets when your apartment doesn’t allow any.

[quote]Hairspray works great because it causes the roach to get stiff and die. Even if you don't use hairspray, it pays to buy a cheap brand, then keep it handy for a roach emergency

Tracy Turnblad is a human roach nest!

Let's rename the German Cockroach.

Riveting!

So wild, i had just watched a vid on utube about how to get rid of them. You buy a small pladtic container cut a hole in the side. Buy a small box of jiffu cornbread mix, put 6 tablespoons and 6 tablespoons baking soda ( equal amounts) in container, mix it up and mousie be gone. I guess the baking soda it what kills them. Or buy de con .mouse bait.

[quote]My friend’s husband owns an apartment building in Manhattan that was infested with termites. Cost a fortune. It’s a rental, so he had to pay the exterminators and workmen.

Huh??? Your friend's husband owns a rental?

Or do you mean, your friend's husband is renting out his property?

He owns a rental property.

If it was a condo instead of a rental, the homeowners would have to pay for the exterminators. Since it’s a rental and he’s the landlord, he had to pay.

I’m not sure how it would go in a coop. Maybe someone can tell me. Woukd the coop board hire an exterminator and charge a fee to all tenants?

My co-op hires exterminators for any mice and/or roach infestation, but when a family on a lower floor had bedbugs, they needed to hire their own exterminator.

Whether or not a co-op would latch on an extra charges for a mice or roach infestation, usually depends how much a co-op has in their reserve fund. My co-op has a large reserve fund, we haven't paid for any capital improvements for many years. The co-op was also smart enough to buy the land it's on, we don't have to pay rent to the city for the land.

Our maintenance covers everything, including our property taxes. We haven't had any major infestation problems.

My friend’s husband had to pay for extensive repairs to the building due to the termites, not just the exterminator. I didn’t even know Manhattan had apartment buildings made with wood. I thought they were all bricks.

R178, ten years ago my co-op had a hoarder 3 floors below me. The building became infested with mice and the building took care of it, no extra fees to us. This was a long standing issue before the hoarder, after, building mgmt was forced deal with the mice.

Oh god R81 another thing to worry about who’s living next to you.

R181, how did they get the hoarder out? Eviction?

The city condemned the apartment, the co-op board evited the hoarder.

Hoarders aren't always evicted. Seems their mental illness can protect them from eviction.

A few years ago, there was a story in the news about an insane hoarder in NYCHA public housing. He lives in one of the most well kept public housing complexes in NY state, it's located in Queens.

This mental case saved wet garbage, not just newspapers, old clothes etc. This man was truly demented. The smell of hoarding wet rotting food was so bad, several tenants simply left or asked to be moved to another public housing complex.

The tenants on his floor as well as above and below his apartment always called to complain, Management at this particular NYCHA complex seemed to ignore the tenants constant complaints, the situation went on until one tenant was wise enough to call 911 and tell them, "I think my neighbor died in his apartment. The smell coming from this man's apartment is nauseating."

The hoarders door was knocked down, the cops couldn't believe what they saw, tons of plastic bags of rotting garbage were stacked to the ceiling in every room. Mice, roaches, especially this large roaches, came scampering out.

Since the tenant was deemed "mentally ill", seems he had more rights that the hard working tenants who lived in the apartments surrounding his. The hoarder was sent to a hospital mental ward for about 1-2 months.

NYCHA cleaned out his apartment, painted it and gave him a whole new kitchen, they replaced the kitchen cabinets and all the appliances. After all that, NYCHA allowed that nutjob back into his apartment.

Not sure if the man started hoarding again, there was never any follow up to this news report. He should have been sent into the shelter system, not allowed back into that apartment.

Not all hoarders cause vermin, depends what is being hoarded. The man hoarding wet garbage was hell of lot different than someone who hoards 100s of dolls or whatever they claim to collect.

Eviction in a co-op is a lot different than simply evicting a renter.

There are also horror stories about landlords dealing with tenants who are purposely destroying their rental apartments, once such story was in the NY Daily news a few weeks ago.

The landlord of a small six family building could not evict a tenant who was purposely flooding their apartment, which, in turn, ruined the below renters kitchen. Part of the ceiling collapsed. This insane tenant hadn't paid rent for a very long time. Yet, the landlord could not seem to evict this unstable tenant.

Exactly how are this types of destructive tenants protected, in the same way mentally ill hoarders are protected?

"Little Teeth Marks" coming to Netflix in 2024.

A gay couple moves into their dream house in the country during the pandemic. One sees teeth marks, the other oblivious. Then the partner seeing them everywhere snaps. Is the husband gaslighting his partner?

I live in Nanhatan and about a month ago was in the living room with a good friend. There were clealy a derth of repepttive sounds coming from the adjacent kitchen—you could call it 'open floor plan' but that would make my place seem way more luxurious than it really is—I knew it was mice. Friend set up a spy-cam using his phone and tablet. We retreated to living room and kept quiet.

Not two minutes later they were out in full force "They" was two or three. I was shocked by their brazenness and how they clearly knew to stay away from the sticky trap I'd just set up.

A few years back i created a humane trap using a high edge plastic trash can, a paint sir stick, some spare change and a lump of peanut butter. The stir stick juts out over the kitchen counter and is weighted with spare change on the counter side. At the other end is the peanut butter, and below it is the trash can.. it acted as a pirates gang plank of sorts and it was effective. The mouse runs out to get the bait and its body weight causes the stir stick to fall into the trash can, along with the mouse. And sometimes the spare change.

But it was hit-or-miss. I had to bring out the big guns, and large size sticky traps are 1.19 at the dollar store. They work, for better or worse. I'm a contractor and a box of ceramic tiles from a job is now in a cabinet here. So i just go at close range, close my eyes and drop one of the tiles over the trapped mouse.

And to think I had mice as pets when I was in fifth grade. Yikes!

It's getting chilly here and it seems like the mice are starting to come in to find a nice place to live out the winter months. I get an infestation about every 4 years or so, so I'm prepared to snag their asses before they settle in. I caught 6 in the last 5 days and I'm keeping on top of this before it can get out of hand. Got my electronic zapper (one today), a new set of snap traps (got 4 in those) and there is one on a glue trap currently squeaking in my kitchen. I will put him in a grocery bag and dump him down the garbage chute.

Go to home depot and get some steel wool (lots of steel wool.) and plug the hole and wrap the pipes near the hole. set traps. go to every sink in the house and repeat. Mice get into the walls and use the pipes to travel. They also reproduce quickly. So get going. There is never just one mouse.

Steel wool works to repel roaches too

Use glue in the house, snap traps kill instantly, but then there's the blow out of piss and god knows what, it goes everywhere but you can't see it but you will smell it, glue traps and be a man and step on it to kill it, never throw in the trash alive, filthy cunt humans. You know what happens in a vehicle crash, same thing, guts and bowels get released.

I use the glue traps but I don't have it in me to stomp, hit or drown the living creature stuck to it. I actually like little mammals - I had hamsters as a kid and I think mice are cute but I don't want to see their poop on my stove or in my toaster or find a hole chewed through a bread bag anymore.

I'm lucky not to have them where I live now - maybe because I'm in a stand alone house, and my kitchen with all the yummy mouse edible stuff is on the upper floor. I[m pretty good about sealing up packages and so forth, and I use glass jars with screw top lids for all my grains, but I do cook grains for breakfast nearly every morning, and I'm sure there's quite an assortment of little bits of grain stuck in the narrow gap between the stove and the countertops.

Back in my NYC days, I had them occasionally. I was living in Williamsburg Brooklyn at the time, and I bought a snap trap. I was in a Dominican neighborhood, and people kept roosters (for cockfighting) and also dogs penned up in the back yards of the tenement buildings. I found a mouse (still alive) in the snap trap. I couldn't bring myself to undo the trap and drop the mouse in the toilet and flush, so I flung the entire trap out the window (I lived on the 6th floor). The dogs outside barked and barked for the 20 seconds it took for the trap to reach the ground. Then all was silence...... They must have wondered if food from the sky was going to be a daily occurrence.

Here's something I learned. Every time a mouse runs, he pees. Yes. So you are dealing with filth. I used the glue traps once, and it was horrible to wat the liitl critter struggle so I took it outside and threw it in the trash dumpster.

GET A CAT

[quote]That will help, but steel wool starts to disintegrate

It takes steel wool 50 years to disintegrate. By 2074 you'll be too old to care. That is if Planet Earth is still alive.