(no subject)

[the_rck]

We definitely have mice. We've had hints that we might before, but we always ignored them because there wasn't much to go on. Now we have droppings both in the basement and in the kitchen. There's no sign that they've gotten into our food, but I worry about my books in the basement.

Cordelia is now terrified to go into the basement for fear of seeing a mouse. I can't figure out why she's so scared. Mice are annoying, but they're not likely to attack a person. I doubt she'll ever see one down there.

Scott's talking traps and poison. I'm not keen on either, but we have to do something, and I've got no other ideas. I think I prefer traps to poison. They're messier, but the dead mice aren't likely to end up hidden somewhere. Also, even though Cordelia's old enough that I'm not worried about her getting into poison accidentally, I'm still not fully comfortable with having it around.

Comments

[retsuko]

I am sorry that I have to offer a very cruel solution, but the last time we had a mouse problem, the maintenance guys at my apartment complex brought in glue traps and put a dollop of peanut butter in the center. It caught the mouse and we did not have a surprise mouse corpse later on.

I felt like crap about doing it, though. :(

Please tell Cordelia that a mouse might surprise you, but they're very shy and retiring and it's highly unlikely that she'll even see it. They're probably interested in sugar products. The mouse in our apartment chewed through a tube of packaged frosting to get at the sweetness inside.

Hope it works out OK.

[the_rck]

I'm afraid that the only solutions that will work are cruel ones. I'm resigned to that. I'm just hoping for solutions that aren't messy.

I'm trying to reassure Cordelia about the mice. I have no idea why she's so terrified. Mice are shy and teeny tiny. The odds of her seeing one are minute.

[heavenscalyx]

Basements tend to be scary, I think, normally and then add weird other lifeforms on top... let's just say that I was terrified to go into our basement when I was a child because we had waterbugs (MidAtlantic speak for a particular kind of roach thing) and my parents had pest control in to kill them, and the bodies were everywhere down there in between my dad vacuuming. I was flat-out hysterically terrified of dead bugs. Tried everything to convince myself that it was ridiculous, they're dead. Didn't work. I still generally have more trouble with dead bugs than live. Basements imbue things with more than their usual scariness.

[the_rck]

Cordelia has always liked our basement. It's a good place to play, and she goes down there when she wants to be noisy and not wake us up (it doesn't really work, but she's trying). If she loses the basement, she loses half of her toys/games and most of her playing space.

I'm going to do my best to give the basement back to her.

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

because I live out in the middle of a bunch of corn fields, I have to combat this every so often. The water heater for my house is in an external closet that you access outside. Mice get into it when it gets cold for the heat (and have electrocuted themselves on the water heater and made it blow up twice. >_>) and they often crawl along the water pipes on into the house and come up in the cabinets in either the bathroom or the kitchen.

I'm combating them now. I've tried the snap traps (little buggers clear every bit of peanut butter off them and never activate them) I've tried the little black disks that you put peanut butter in and then turn them a certain way and the mouse supposedly crawls in and it sets it off and it spins around and traps them inside, they set off to easy and never catch anything. I didn't want to fool with poison either because of the cat, but ultimately that is what I wound up having to do. I put it places where she can't get to it and I keep a careful eye out for dead mice, I've gotten a couple now, hopefully they are all gone. the one I use is called Tomcat, it's a plastic tray with a slightly complicated opening mechanism that you pop open a section, put the block of poison in, and then close it up. The mouse has to climb through it to get to the poison. (it's a hard block they chew on, so it's not a risk of it being drug through the house and it's fairly kid and pet proof) Only problem is the mouse usually does get sick and dies somewhere unknown, so you do have to look about for them a bit. I had an awful scare because Toni (my cat) found one, but good girl she is she brought it to me (she's doesn't really like to eat anything but cat food, she doesn't get into stuff or beg for people food) and she hadn't chewed on it or anything, just brought it to me like "mommy it's wierd what is it?" I praised her real big and gave her a tin of canned cat food (a very rare treat) and flushed it down the toliet. (My doors were frozen shut at the time so I couldn't throw it out and I didn't want to risk another animal finding it and getting poisoned. )

So, that's my experience, your mileage may vary, etc. In the past I always had a good mouser, but Hexadigit passed away a couple years ago and Toni has no inclination. She's so little a mouse might beat her butt anyway.

[the_rck]

I wish a mouser was a solution we could use. I'm severely allergic to cats, unfortunately. (I like them a lot. I just can't breathe around them for very long.)

I'm forwarding all the information about various kinds of traps to Scott. We'll figure out what we want to try during the next few days. Thanks for all the information!

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

Well, we have had mice in the garage all winter. One ran across my foot when I was taking the garbage out (it had been behind the trash container we set out for the garbagemen), and I admit I shrieked, but it was mostly from surprise, not from real fear. Bruce got some traps that are white plastic, and when the mice go in, the trap springs and kind of crushes them. They aren't nasty, just kind of contorted, and you can reset them right after you dump the bodies into the trash. (We use peanut butter as bait.) I am not anti-mouse as long as they stay OUT of my space and my books/papers. They did try to eat books in the garage. Sigh.

[the_rck]

I kind of dread looking at the books in the basement now. Some of them would be really hard to replace. Others, I don't care so much about.

I'm forwarding the information people give me about traps to Scott. We'll be looking into those this week, I think, depending on how sick he's feeling. (His cold has come back full force, poor guy. He's so tired of being sick. He's been sick since the week before Christmas.)

Thanks for the information!

[hopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

Not sure if they'll hit anyone's allergies, but I recently read that cotton balls doused in peppermint oil can be used to drive off mice. You just have to make sure to put new ones down every six months or so to keep repelling them ...

[the_rck]

That's an interesting idea. None of us are allergic to peppermint, so we may have to try this one. We can find peppermint oil at Whole Foods, I think. It might be helpful for the places we don't want to put traps but do want to keep them out of.