MICE! i am going to kill them all! please help me....

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par0thead151

Feeling the Heat
Jul 26, 2009
494
south eastern wisconsin
i have had it!
this is the third time i have cleaned up a HUGE mess in my wood pile from mice.
the pile is housed in my garage. the door is only open for when the cars go in or out. granted a garage door is easy to navigate when you are the size of a mouse.
i have traps out with peanut butter, but they only have caught 2 all winter. i think there are atleast 203 mice left.
i am considering putting out D-con and a boat load of snap traps. is there anything i can do to make it less desirable for mice in my garage?
i also have a great dane dog, so i am kind of hesitant to use poisons, in the event the dog finds them.
they are chewing up my wood and making a huge mess from where they do their business on it.
what do you guys do about mice?

thanks
 
I had mice for years and finally a couple years ago I bought a plug in device (the size of a golf ball) that makes a low noise to keep them away. Put one in my garage and Attic and I'm two years plus mice free. It was like $20 at lowes for a 3 pack - no need for the expensive whole house one.
 
Next year you may want to store the wood outside, away from the house.

What traps are you using? If it's the traditional ones, are you setting them so the slightest touch sets them off? Are they stripping your traps?

Are you setting them by the walls? Mice generally stay by the walls.

If peanut butter isn't working, try imbedding a Bacon Bit in it.

Have you tried a few sticky traps?

Matt
 
The traps I found that REALLY worked were these grey plastic ones I could only find at Target (or Amazon). THey are like a big chip clip and you just unload dead mousie without touching with just a pinch and put the trap back, still loaded with bait usually. I had a huge mouse problem, put several of these out one night and caught like nine mice and then didn't get another one all season.
41HKZZPF38L._SS500_.jpg
 
here kitty, kitty. our little hunter caught one just the other day.
 
We live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farmlands. There was a stray cat that we decided to keep, since we didn't have an outdoor cat. Well she has been here since spring, and I haven't seen a mice since we got her. I could catch as many as 5 or 6 mice a day when she wasn't here. Now all the traps are set, but nothing. I'm surprised how well she does. There are also some homemade traps you can make that you place in outbuildings that baits them in and they drown.
 
We had a mouse problem when we move in here. I found out they were getting in at the ends of the garage door. I installed a a gasket on the bottom of the door.
Look at the bottom of the door where the bottom board meets the vertical boards. It could be bent and that is where they are getting in. I put angle iron on it to hold the boards straight.
I also put decon in the wood shed all year. In the early fall I put it out around the house (outside).
 
Roxburyeric said:
I had mice for years and finally a couple years ago I bought a plug in device (the size of a golf ball) that makes a low noise to keep them away. Put one in my garage and Attic and I'm two years plus mice free. It was like $20 at lowes for a 3 pack - no need for the expensive whole house one.
2x
I also have a few have a heart traps set with peanut butter on a cracker. These are set in the attic of the unfinished addition & the garage that has no floor yet. None in the main house.
Have caught about 20 or so in the unlived in spaces. Ig I get to them bfore they die, I take them up to the wetlands about 5 miles away and release.
 
Our puss is a wuss and won't go outside in Winter. The dog takes care of the mice in Winter and she steals the mice away from the cat any other time of year.

I usually find one or two nests in the woodpile.
 
Found this little girl hanging out by the wood stacks a year and a half ago. Took awhile to make friends but she now lives in the basement and heads out every night from six to nine to work the wood stacks. The time the mice are most active.
 

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I use Reese's Pieces peanut butter cups on a snap trap when there is an occasional mouse in the attic. In fact I am going to set one tonight. I heard one scratching in the insulation last night when I went to bed.
 
I don't have a picture of this but here's a home made mouse 'trap':

Supplies:

1 five gallon bucket
1 12" to 18" dowel
peanut butter

Drill a whole to somewhat larger diameter than the diameter of the dowel at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock about 1" lower than the lip of the bucket.

Add water to the bucket, about 1/2 full would be fine

Insert dowel from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock.

Dab some peanut butter about middle of the dowel

Place 'trap' where you want it.

The idea is the mouse climbs up the side of the bucket to get to the peanut butter, walks across the dowel to get the goodies, dowel rotates, mouse looses his footing, falls in the bucket and drowns.

Shari
 
Thats what I built and it does work. I used a piece of copper wire strung across the bucket about 2 to 3" down from the top. Then I used a soup can that I punched a hole in the center of each end. You can then smear peanut butter or bacon grease on the can to attract them. Then I made a boardwalk so they could get to the can. You want it within jumping distance so they can't get back on the can. I have heard of people leaving traps like this in old barns and in a day or two finding over 30 mice. Just don't forget to check them, they can stink!
 
I use Reese’s Pieces peanut butter cups on a snap trap when there is an occasional mouse in the attic. In fact I am going to set one tonight. I heard one scratching in the insulation last night when I went to bed.

That is a complete waste of a Reese's peanut butter cup, which happens to be my favorite candy. :)

We had a mouse problem here last year, but not because of the wood, we don't store any in the house. They got in and were having a field day in our pantry. We are very "live and let live", but when there's mouse poop in your silverware drawer every morning, it's game on. Bought some good 'ol fashioned traps and smacked about 8 or 9 and haven't seen any since.
 
pulldownclaw said:
I use Reese’s Pieces peanut butter cups on a snap trap when there is an occasional mouse in the attic. In fact I am going to set one tonight. I heard one scratching in the insulation last night when I went to bed.

That is a complete waste of a Reese's peanut butter cup, which happens to be my favorite candy. :)

We had a mouse problem here last year, but not because of the wood, we don't store any in the house. They got in and were having a field day in our pantry. We are very "live and let live", but when there's mouse poop in your silverware drawer every morning, it's game on. Bought some good 'ol fashioned traps and smacked about 8 or 9 and haven't seen any since.

It was a Reese's Christmas Bell. I love the cups too. The problem I have with them is they fall down the walls or get hung up in the insulation and die. The smell lasts a couple of weeks...
 
A nice wood shed would get your wood out of the garage and solve your mouse problem. I don't get uptight about things like that when the fix is so easy...:) Franklin
 
szmaine said:
heatwise said:
here kitty, kitty. our little hunter caught one just the other day.

2x
Will the dog put up with a cat?

+another one.... we have an outside cat and a inside cat.The meanest one is inside.
 
Every week that goes by your mice can increase by 10% in numbers!
 
szmaine said:
heatwise said:
here kitty, kitty. our little hunter caught one just the other day.

2x
Will the dog put up with a cat?

with the right cat the ? is - will the cat put up with the dog?????
 
Man... Am I glad I found this thread. Was scrolling through the turkey fryer thread, and happened to glance at the title of this one just before getting off of the computer. This will be like group therapy for me!!!

I live in a house that was built in 1895. It has a stone foundation. I've lived here for 7 years and miracurously NEVER noticed a mouse in the house. (My garage, yes, but not my house). All of a sudden, my girlfriend calls me at work freaking out about a hole in the bottom corner of her trail mix bag which is in our "chip" cabinet. We set a trap and got a mouse the next day. Problem solved, right? NOPE!! We left two more traps up there just in case, and BAM, the very next morning two more!!! Then this morning, one more!!!

The thing of it is, the "chip" cabinet is above my stove. Its not even a lower cabinet. And i see no evidence of mice anywhere else in the house or kitchen. So I'm not sure where they are coming from. Possibly my kitchen ceiling, and then dropping down?? (My cabinets have no backing to them. Sides, shelves and doors for fronts, but the backs of them are my outside kitchen walls). So, I guess from what i read here and from what others have told me, just keep setting the traps until they don't come back, hey?? (good 'ol fashioned snap traps are what we are using -- 100% confirmed kill accuracy thus far!!)
 
We used to have a cat that was an absolute predator. Did it for sport. The other cat wasn't as bloodthirsty but was pretty good, too. Never ever had a mouse inside. I used to burn corn and would leave a couple kernels on the basement floor on purpose. They never got eaten.
Those cats did good outside, too. They had to start venturing across the road to find prey. Kinda worried me. Sadly they are both gone now. The two we have now aren't quite as efficient, but they are getting better. I won't have a cat that doesn't earn its keep.
 
You do know when you are trapping rats with a snap trap you have to tie the trap down to something or else the rat could run away with the trap, right? Our son had mice in his garage (in the bird seed, inside a metal container that they somehow found out how to open). Turns out he had what are called 'deer mice' (bigger than normal but still not a rat). He ended up having to tie a cord on to his traps because his 'mice' were running off with his snap traps.

Shari
 
Shari said:
You do know when you are trapping rats with a snap trap you have to tie the trap down to something or else the rat could run away with the trap, right? Our son had mice in his garage (in the bird seed, inside a metal container that they somehow found out how to open). Turns out he had what are called 'deer mice' (bigger than normal but still not a rat). He ended up having to tie a cord on to his traps because his 'mice' were running off with his snap traps.

Shari

i had one move on me last night. not because it was a big rat, but because it somehow only caught the mouses foot.
dragged it clear across the garage to the other side, and set off another trap in the process!
i now have 10 traps along all 4 perimeter walls of the garage and D-con in 2 locations.
BRING IT ON!
 
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