Tis the season for mice

[schmism]

Ive dealt with the fall "coming in" of mice for a while now. living on a hobby farm (on ackerage) its something i expected. What i didnt expect was how many. This year seems worse than others.

for the past 2 weeks ive probably avg just under about 1 a day. Victor snap traps are the gold standard in my house. Reliable, reusable, dependable....

The wife loads them, i unload them that's our deal. Bated with peanut butter. Catches get fed to the outside barn cats who love them. (i wonder if they actually catch any on there own)

anyway After unloading 2 traps this morning figured i throw a post up and see what other peeps are dealing with. (perhaps im not the only one)

 

[MicroPilot]

The biggest thing that helped for me was to go around the house exterior and fill up every nook and cranny with expanding foam that could even remotely let a mouse gain entry.

 

[dooleysm]

I battled them for a couple years with mechanical and glue traps. It was a losing cause. They never got into any of our food, but they would happily eat their buddies that were caught in the traps. It was pretty gruesome. I think one week I caught 15 of them.

Last year I decided to kick it up and ordered a batch of indoor/outdoor/kidproof/petproof bait stations and some powerful poison. I put them near all the exterior doors and in the garage and barn. I haven't seen any signs of any mice in the house since then. I've found a few dead on the floor of the barn. I'm guessing there's some dead ones somewhere in the house, but I haven't seen or smelt them, so I'm happy.

 

[schmism]

i live in a $16K single wide trailer while we work on building the "real" house. its everything you expect a 16K house to be. i have little hope of keeping the mice out of it

 

[dmccarty]

The mice invaded our house when I kept moving firewood to the house on pallets. The mice where living in the firewood stack.

We had to us various traps to wipe them out. We no longer move firewood to the house by the stack.

However the little $%^&*( critters were getting into our "barn". After cleaning up the place a couple of times I gave up and started putting out poison. I don't like to us the poison but it does seem to work. I keep it in the barn which is the back of a box truck. Its locked up and the kids and pets can't get in. I put the poison in places the kids and dog can't get too even if they got into the "barn."

Good luck with the mice. I think buying the bait boxes that secure the poison is your best bet. Just put the bait boxes all around the trailer.

Later,
Dan

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evenin Steve,
Yep its that time of year again ! I hate the little monsters but it is gettin pretty cold out and they are seekin some warmth and food if they can find it ! I supply the food but its not the kind they will be eatin for long ! I saw one skitter along the back side of the garage the other day, and I will be darned if they start building nests in the torque tubes of the Farmalls !

 

[Tractorbeam]

Cats.

Now, how to get rid of them when the mice are gone...

 

[EastTexFrank]

As someone else said, "It's that time of year". Although, we do get influxes during the summer when my neighbor and I both mow our pastures at the same time. I've never found a way to keep the little buggers out and I don't know if you can. I saw one run straight up a 10 foot brick wall. Man, was I impressed. I use bait out in the shop but can't use it in the house or around the place because of the dogs. Inside I use glue traps, spring traps and just about every other better mousetrap there is. My record is four in one glue rat trap, proving that bigger is always better.

Good luck and happy hunting!!!!!

 

[Bedlam]

ZHere is a previous link that might be of help to people.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/kubota-owning-operating/128939-mousecapades-tale-warning.html

 

[irvingj]

Good link-- I was looking for that a week ago; thanks, Bedlam. My daughter told me about the dryer sheets idea-- "Bounce" was the brand she mentioned. They sure do smell nice --if you like perfume, that is.... (Found I had to take the opened box and put it into a zip-lock bag to avoid perfuming the whole garage!)

Anyway, I started up the tractor one day and saw a critter scurry out & away from it; later discovered a mess of seeds on the intake manifold around the injectors. Air intake tube & cleaner were clear, fortunately. Cleaned it all up, checked a day or 2 later, and the little bugger was back (at least the #%$#$% seeds were)!

Then, on daughter's advice, stuffed a couple of dryer sheets into the area and haven't seen any evidence since; been almost a week now.

Our previous cat was great at keeping things under control, but she died this fall after 15 years. Pretty sad. We now have 2 new kittens, but they're still in the training stage. I check every day, and so far so good. Hope the dryer sheets continue to work!