Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Mice

Tom Paine's Bones

17:54 / 13.01.06

Essentially my cat sadly died a couple of months ago. Since then, some mice have decided to take the opportunity to move into the house. I suspect there's rather a lot of them, because I've seen them running about. I can't afford another cat at the moment. I obviously would like to get the mice to piss off elsewhere. If at all possible, I'd really like to avoid poison or traps, because they strike me as a nasty way to die. Does anyone have any more humane suggestions on how to sort this?

18:02 / 13.01.06

An eviscerating feline samurai strikes you as humane?

18:06 / 13.01.06

I'm not sure what your budget's like, but if it could stretch to a lump of cheese and a reasonably large helping of 'salvia divonorum' (still legal, and, if in London, more gettable than not,) I'd just deal with the mice that way, were I you. They'd never feel the same about anything, after that.

18:16 / 13.01.06

Usually if you take away their food source then they'll bugger off elsewhere. Put all your at-risk food in plastic containers and give the whole place a good clean and you should be on the right track.

18:23 / 13.01.06

You can sometimes catch them with a bucket (and a way up to the rim) with some cereal at the bottom, but it has to be a big bucket, and it's not 100% reliable. It works OK with a mouse (singular), but if you have an actual infestation Loomis's advice will be more effective.

18:42 / 13.01.06

There are non-lethal traps available for purchase (or construction if you're handy like that).

18:43 / 13.01.06

And if you have any enemies in the area, then you have a perfect place to dump the captured mice...

Mon Oncle Ignatius

18:47 / 13.01.06

You can get humane mouse traps from most pet shops, which catch the mouse without injuring them. There's a little door which trips when they come in to get the bait, and they can't get out. Put the traps somewhere secluded where you've seen mouse activity or evidence thereof, but as they are also made of plastic, try not to put them where they are likely to get trodden on. Don't use cheese as bait, but chocolate, as they love that even more.

Remember the check the traps every day, in case a mouse gets caught and then starves to death. They're quite cute to look at when you catch them, but try not to touch wild mice as they can bite and carry many diseases to boot.

Once you have caught the mouse, take it on a long bus, bike or car ride to somewhere over about 2km away so that it won't find it's way home, and release it into a nice bit of open field or wood if you can find such a thing near you.

Repeat as necessary.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

18:50 / 13.01.06

Charrellz: Oops, posted similar information at the same time as you...

paranoidwriter waves hello

18:53 / 13.01.06

Tango-Mango, I was told once that city mice are different to field mice and would actually die if you released them into a country environment as they wouldn't survive. Hmm... It sounds silly now I think about it. Does anyone know if that's true? Just wondering.

19:00 / 13.01.06

Well, see --the city mouse thinks his life is all DANGER, and is very snotty when the country mouse visits. Then the city mouse visits the country, and gets scared by a cow & runs away home!

paranoidwriter waves hello

19:02 / 13.01.06

Er... I've just answered my own daft question. From here:

Habitat: House mice live in and around homes, farms, commercial establishments, as well as in open fields and agricultural lands. The onset of cold weather each fall in temperate regions is said to cause mice to move into structures in search of shelter and food.

Seems (ahem) city mice are a tough breed. (What the f**k was I thinking?!)

*p.w backs out of the room, sheepishly*

Tom Paine's Bones

19:03 / 13.01.06

Thanks all.

Hmm, the "clean the house" option probably needs to be the first step. Damn, that's so drastic.

(And I live in innercity Birmingham. So if I do use a humane trap, I suspect that a park is more likely then the countryside).

00:07 / 14.01.06

I had a terrific mouse problem in my last apartment. The best long-term advice is to stop the little buggers from getting in. A good cleaning is a start, but you really have to plug all the holes. Example: in your kitchen, look under the sink - are the holes where the plumbing passes through the wall sealed or gaping open, and if there is a gas line to the stove, is it properly fitted where it comes into the room, or is there just a rough hole? Some thick cardboard, caulking or glue, a staple gun or finishing nails, and duct tape/gaffers tape will seal the holes quite well. Also, mice don't like the smell of Irish Spring soap very much - if you can get some, slice a bit off a bar and stuff it in each hole before you plug it; the mice will be less likely to try to return to that point and destroy your patch job (if you don't use pretty dense cardboard, they'll chew right through it). They may still stay in your walls to stay warm, but at least they won't be running around in your home. In the spring, take a look outside to see where they might be getting in and try to patch that up somehow. The trick really is to cut them off from food, so take a few hours and go over your place very carefully - check baseboards, doorframes, cabinets, anywhere they might get in and plug the holes. Good luck.

00:12 / 14.01.06

?

01:34 / 14.01.06

Mothballs. They'll repel just about anyone. Thing, I mean. Anything.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

06:09 / 14.01.06

The second picture of felis gorgeous georgious has just made me guffaw in horror and bewilderment, if such a thing is possible. Thanks, you've just made my morning!

And the mice will be afraid. Very afraid.

Actually, so will I.

08:22 / 14.01.06

Speaking from hideous experience - its primarily a food thing. We had uninvited mice and rats for several months one winter - and tried everything. We cleaned and cleaned, removed all food sources down to bowls of fruit, put everything into containers, used humane traps but still the buggers came (and we had an indoor cat, dog and several local feral cats living in our shed). We were tearing our hair out at the end of our tethers when our neighbours moved - and miraculously all the rodents vanished. Turns out (when the landlord went round to clear up) that next door were offering a veritablel feast of pizza boxes, take away cartons etc., so no matter how much we did we were powerless to stop the 24hr all-you-can eat buffet on the other side of the wall. Reckon they were coming over to ours for an after dinner fag and chat.....If its possible in your case I'd suggest trying to engage neighbours in a joint operation to de-mouse. Also Cailin's advice is sage, just didn't work in ours 'cos we lived in really ancient cottage with more holes than a block of edam.....

admiral sausage

10:09 / 14.01.06

Living in squalid student rents ive had quite a lot of experiance with mice, if you leave food/rubbish out, etc you will get them, but they can also squeeze into the smallest spaces and chew through most stuff to get at food,(cereal boxes bags of rice, they'll eat soap as well!) although if they can find it easier elsewhere then they will go there.

I have had to use mouse traps in the past, both humane and the lethal kind, i didnt want to use posion, as the thought of dead rotting mice in my house freaked me out. I left out the conventional mouse traps as well as the humane ones, I caught one mouse in the humane one (released in the local park) and about 20 in the lethal ones.

Emptying them (the nast ones) is the worst, unless you can afford to just chuck the whole trap away with the mouse in it. We left the traps uot for about two weeks and that sorted the problem out. Yes they are very cute, and i did feel bad, but it had to be done. I felt better that i gave them an option with the humane traps.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

14:15 / 14.01.06

Once when sharing a house we were disturbed for a few days by an unpleasant smell in the living room. Eventually after turning the place over, we lifted up the large armchair to find a decomposing flattened mouse underneath. The poor thing must have been crawling along below the badly-battered springs just as someone sat down particularly heavily.

I suppose being pulverised by the mouse equivalent of having a thirty storey building collapse upon you was a humane trap of sorts, if accidentally so. I just hope it was quick.

18:02 / 14.01.06

Dead mouse smell is just one of those things to get used to in life, I've found. Occasionally in your flat or workplace you'll smell that unforgettable smell that means a rodent has bought it under the floorboards or in the wall cavity. After 2-3 days they dry up or get eaten by ants and the smell goes away. Circle of life and all that, I s'pose.

20:41 / 14.01.06

I can second that smell.

When I had an office job in the town hall, for a couple of weeks I had fresh mouse shit on my desk every morning (my colleagues had these problems, too). Then the mousebuster came and put several traps in the office rooms. The traps were filled with poison food. The shit on my desk didn´t happen anymore, but we had this foul stench drifting through the rooms and started searching. There were three dead mice. One caught in the grid behind the refrigerator, one hidden under the floorboards and one, that had eaten through files and died right in the folder!