Need to get rid of mice!!! no D-Con please

[prairie hill]

We live in a house that is 1/2 mobile home and the mice get in through pipe inlets, I assume, that we cannot reach to plug. (Never have had a problem in a stick-built house, as long as we had a cat, so I'm convinced after many years it really is all the elusive "holes" in trailers.) We have cats now, but they can't get to the mice! They catch mice outside, but just prowl, or sit and sniff at places inside the house where they can smell them, but CANNOT reach the varmints. SIL is a vet and has treated many pets for DCon poisoning (usually unsuccessfully) after they pick up a dead or dying mouse, and I just don't want to take the chance.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[insanity]

Try caulking in all the holes around the water pipes.That fixed ours!
Might also try a Tin Cat.Its a metal capture cage sold by most feed stores.It will hold up to 12 mice at a time i think it is.Ive heard they work really well.

[Cabin Fever]

Make yourself a homemade mouse trap as follows:

1. Drill two 1" holes near the top of a 5-gallon pail.

2. Remove the label and both ends out of a metal soup can.

3. Place a 1" wood dowel rod thru the soup can and thru the holes you drilled in the 5-gallon pail.

4. Fill the pail 1/2 full of water

5. Smear peanut butter on the center of the soup can.

6. Place a board or stick from the floor to the edge of the 5-gallon pail.

Here's what happens: The mouse will walk up the wood ramp you made to the top edge of the bucket. He will then venture out on to the dowel rod to get the peanut butter. When he steps on to the soup can, the can will spin and dump the mouse into the water filled bucket. The mouse will drown. When you wake up in the morning, the bucket will be full of dead mice.

[cath]

We've had great luck with "a better mousetrap", purchased at a local hardware store. It's a single spring-loaded plastic trap that is easy to set and very easy to release the dead mousie.

When mice are in the house we set 5-6 of them near the area where there is evidence of mice. We use peanut butter as the bait and when the mousie goes for the bait, "snap" which breaks their neck (I hate the methods that slowly kill the mice like poison, drowning, or those terrible sticky tapes that let them starve to death). In the morning we toss the dead mousies outside for the hawks to feast on. We caught 5 mice in one night just last week!

Good luck!

[prairie hill]

YAY - all I had to do was ask, I guess!

Any additional ideas still welcome, friends, in case I need backup plans, but THANKS all, for the suggestions already offered. Surely one of these plans will help! I am READY for something effective!!!

Cabin Fever, your plan smacks of a bit of sadistic fun . (Surely there are no PETA folks on a homestading forum... it's just not practical!)

Thanks again, all!

[arabian knight]

I just put a mess of traps around. Put a little peanut butter on them and bingo I have caught many mice that way. I live right next to a field and in the fall during hay harvest the mice are chased out of the field and looking for a warm place to make home. SO I am good at keeping the population down. If I see just one at least 5 traps are set just to take out that one because there is way more then just one... And I catch them one at a time day after day till ALL GONE...

[Hammer4]

Push the end of the trap with the peanut butter up against the baseboard under the cabinets or wherever you put them Mice travel along the crack between the floor and the wall.

Get some expanding foam and fill any holes you see. Mice can crawl in a 1/4 inch hole I think it is.

[agmantoo]

Not only do you need to kill the mice you currently have but you need to prevent other mice from finding their way in. Mice have a bladder problem that works to their benefit. As mice move around their bladders leak and they leave a urine trail that can be detected and followed many months later when other mice chance by. This is how mice are able to move around without getting lost. I have never found but on thing that will correct this situation. Lye such as sold under the label Red Devil when scattered on the trail will prevent future mice from using the trail. It would not be a good idea to sprinkle the lye where pets can get in it. In crawl spaces near the perimeter of the underpinning is a good place to scatter the lye. I just buy the pint size container and using a drill bit I make a large "salt shaker" out of the lid and use that to apply the lye.

[free-2-b-me]

I too use the vector plastic traps with peanut butter - works great . I live in a mobile home so these are the obvious olaces you want to check for where they are coming in : under or behind the kitchen stove - the hole where either the electric or gas comes in - dryer vents - around the drain pipes under the bathroom and kithchen sinks - where the water pipes come up into the house .
I bought steelwool - the kind that is used to refinish furniture and stuffed it around any pipes and such and then I sprayed insulating foam . Worked great . ( go slow with that spray foam or you will have a mess)
I also found that mice don't like Gold Bond Medicated powder so I buy the store brand of that and sprinkle it where I am suspect of their entry .
Mice dislike mint - some people buy pepermint oil and soak cotton balls and put them at suspected points of entry .

[Maura]

I've also read that mice hate mint. Get some peppermint oil and spray it around the perimeter. You might also look into planting a strong mint around your place. Mint takes over, but you can keep it mowed.

[MaryNY]

I have read about this, but haven't tried it - but, it does sound like it might work. Supposedly if you put out dry rice where the little critters can get at it, and they eat their fill of it, they then get thirsty, drink water, the rice swells up in their innards, and "poof!" -- no more mouse. If you're looking for something really "organic", it might work! Good luck!

MaryNY

[Oggie]

It sounds to me like you need to get some snakes.

[elliemaeg]

I don't know why but at this time every year we get mice. The only effective means(I despise DCon) I have found is the glue traps. We have been noticing a movement in the kitchen just briefly and realized last night it was time for glue traps. Well, we were watching TV last night when this thing comes right through the middle of the livingroom. We chased it back to the kichen and caught it in a glue trap. It was a RAT, so big only its front legs and head got in the trap. Were we ever thankful for that glue trap. He got put glue trap and all in a milk carton and out for the trash.
I will be sitting them throughout basement and house. I cannot stand mice,especially dead ones if you get my drift.
Cabin Fever I intend to try you method also.

[Oilpatch197]

Originally Posted by Oggie

It sounds to me like you need to get some snakes.

would toy snakes work?

[Oggie]

Originally Posted by Oilpatch197

would toy snakes work?

Only if you are plagued by toy mice.

[moldy]

My exterminator told me to put out Coke in a shallow dish and to replace it often. Seems mice can't belch or pass gas, so they drink it and explode internally. Don't know if that's HOW it works, but it does seem to work.