Mouse in the House

[flowerbug]

They will eat their kin. I hate them even outside. B/C I have a garden, and they eat and poop on the food I am growing for my own sustenance.

they may eat some of what i grow but i don't notice them pooping on anything, the rain and sunshine seems to clean it off if they are. i never notice droppings in the gardens.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Perhaps your mice have better hygiene than mine do.

 

[flowerbug]

Perhaps your mice have better hygiene than mine do.

i will say without a doubt that they can be stinky and destructive as i had my old car parked outside and since i didn't run it very often the mice got into it and i never was able to find out how they were getting in there. i eventually sold it. the smell of them in there was horrible. when i've had to clean out nests in some places here or there if i've been able to find them early enough they're not too bad, but after several years they certainly reek. i just never find the nests in the gardens themselves. under rocks and around the edges i don't look for them much. in the winter i notice their tracks in the snow around some cedar trees and such but i'm not going to bother trying to trap them all. that's just pointless to me. i would however love to get rid of the mouse hotel we have which is close to the house enough that i'm sure most of the problems we do have left come from there.

since it is supposed to warm up again this evening i'm going to go out and refresh the peanut butter on the traps and see if i can nab this miscreant this evening.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Supposedly, "they say" that a mouse has a range of about 50'. So, I do put traps out in the garden when I see evidence of mice. They can decimate any root crop if you don't get them first. The best time to control populations IMO is when their food supply is limited. That way, the bait is more inviting.

 

[flowerbug]

Supposedly, "they say" that a mouse has a range of about 50'. So, I do put traps out in the garden when I see evidence of mice. They can decimate any root crop if you don't get them first. The best time to control populations IMO is when their food supply is limited. That way, the bait is more inviting.

ah ha! they must not like garlic or onions as those are the two root crops i grow here. we no longer do beets (i may some year so i'll keep this in mind if i do thanks ). we have voles, mice and chipmunks around so at times i'll see nibbles on plants but for the most part they've not gotten after everything. beets were a target at times, but i never trapped to find out what it was. oh, but for sure the chipmunks did get almost all of my Edamame soybeans the past few times i've tried to grow them so i gave up on those - it is hard enough to keep the seed lines clean because of all the soybeans grown around here anyways.

rarely will they ignore peanut butter. in my car i could leave a trap licked clean of peanut butter for months at a time and still catch them. i didn't want to bait it heavily since i don't want to attract yet more mice towards the car/house. so what i put out now are very tiny amounts of peanut butter on the traps. they must have a superb sense of smell. i put out six traps (one in the garage to make sure nobody is in there - if i don't get something within a few days i know it is clear for now and i'll bring that trap back in, the other five i put along the foundation outside along their most common runs where i can usually catch a few mice a week). if i put those same traps out in front of the house they usually are not touched at all unless the raccoons come around. i don't usually see any tracks in the snow out front either. if we can get some snow that helps a lot to see what the traffic is like and where.

i may have to get a live game camera, but i'll try other things first.

 

[Nifty]

Interesting thread! (now on the new homepage)

I don't think I've ever had mice in my house, but I've always had a problem with rats. I wonder if they don't co-exist?

... what I do know is that controlling them has been a nightmare and it seems they are winning!

Yesterday in fact, I setup a bunch of traps in my attic and crawl space under my house. I also setup a few of the super cheap (and AWESOME) wyze cameras to capture any movement. We'll see what happens...

 

[flowerbug]

there isn't an attic here. we do have a crawl space but the mice can't get in there unless they run in when the steel door/cover is open and they don't live long. it's very dry down there with the furnace running and the only water source (the sump pump sump) has wire mesh over it to keep the mice out. one of the first things i did when i stayed here was make sure there were no ways for the mice to get from the crawl space into the house. with all the mice action i was hearing in the walls at the time i was really worried that they could get into the crawl space but they have yet to do that. visually i would be able to notice if they ever do as i have to go down there twice a year to change the air filter i would also notice their tracks/droppings on the floor if they were around.

i'm glad we don't have rats, i'm sure they are around in the woods and barns in various neighbor's places but it is a long ways between us and most neighbors and i think the coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls, etc. keep after them. it is open enough that even the squirrels which might try to live in the north hedge don't seem to stick around for long.

it may come down to getting the camera too for us to find out what is going on. good luck! post vids! lol

once you find gaps get them sealed up with caulk/spray foam or both (i put the foam in first because if you don't seal up the tiny cracks then they can feel the air moving and will try to chew through if they can - once the foam is dried then i scrape it flat enough that i can put some caulk over it to protect it from the elements). this has worked really well to keep the bugs out too. for over 20yrs we had a pretty bad problem with various swarming bugs coming in but once i found the gaps they were exploiting and sealed those up it took care of almost all of that problem. i wished i had figured that out many years sooner with all the time we spent getting all those bugs off the windows.

 

[Mini Horses]

CATS --mine are semi-feral and great mousers. No inside cats, although I have considered one. My little min-pin used to catch mice! I've had some come in and she was on them, big time. Now, no inside pets. Have 2 adult and 3 young cats (7 mo old). The kittens are doing a lot more hunting now. Mom cat is GREAT and teaches them. While I do feed them every day, they still hunt. Not a 24/7 availability feed -- but, always enough -- I want them to hunt!!! That's their job.

Inside, I do have traps to use and an occasional mouse gets past the guard squad. I don't use poisons for fear a mouse will consume and get back out to be caught by a cat. PB & ritz bait inside, with a swirly swim once caught.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Interesting thread! (now on the new homepage)

I don't think I've ever had mice in my house, but I've always had a problem with rats. I wonder if they don't co-exist?

... what I do know is that controlling them has been a nightmare and it seems they are winning!

Yesterday in fact, I setup a bunch of traps in my attic and crawl space under my house. I also setup a few of the super cheap (and AWESOME) wyze cameras to capture any movement. We'll see what happens...

As far as I know, rats and mice DO NOT share the same space. If there's a rat, he'll drive out the mice. I think that's what happened in my high tunnel. I had mouse infestation, they tunneled in, decimated almost all of the plants in one bed, and had started on the other bed. I was catching 2 - 3 mice/night, Saw one live mouse, but not fast enough to stomp him. One trapped mouse had his belly eaten out. I presume that was done by a rat. The next night, all 5 snap traps had been sprung, but no bodies. That is more like rat MO than mouse. So... chickens are getting the remaining greens.
When HT is void of food, I'll re-set traps, and set out some Vitamin D based rodenticide blocks in bait stations. FYI, D-Con is changing their formulation to the Vit. D formula, which is the ONLY product that is approved for use on organic farms.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/science/19qna.html

https://www.rentokil.ie/blog/10-rat-facts/

https://www.rentokil.ie/mice/rats-vs-mice/