A Mouse in the House = How Many?

[Haven]

Our house was mouse-free until this year and it seems they have exploded. Partly due to a bag of bird seed left next to the house for a few months, cold weather, and DH insisting on overfilling the dog dish each night and leaving it sit.

I started hearing them squeak in the wall, saw them boldly run across the floor and sit and look at us, and we have been catching about 3 per night on glue traps for a few weeks.

They got into my baking cupboard and threw a party tearing into everything. My house is kept super clean, but it seems a couple food sources allowed them to have a breeding frenzy.

What in the world is going on? How many mice would you expect to be lurking in the walls for every 1 mouse you see or catch? Has anyone succesfully gotten rid of mice by removing their food source and using traps?

[Explorer]

I would say five times the ones you see or catch. I have had them twice in the last ten or so years and the only way I have gotten rid of them is poison blocks. They do breed fast!

[lisa's garden]

I don't know about how many in the walls for every 1 you see, but we had a mouse problem here this fall. It started in the barn when their population exploded from eating spilled chicken feed. Then they moved into the house. I bought a live trap that holds up to 6 or 7 little ones at a time...and then I drown them in a bucket.

I went out and bought a bunch of plastic food containers to keep them from snacking on my pantry items.

I don't like to use the poison because we have a cat and a dog...I worry about them getting a hold of a poisoned mouse and eating it.

[Coloneldad5]

I had a bit of a problem in my last home. I used the electric traps that zaps them and kills them. It worked pretty good, but unfortunately I wasn't around enough to keep up on them and the kids didn't. Ultimately I ended up going for some poison in the garage and that seemed to knock them down significantly. As I'm allergic to cats as are several in the family that is not an option.

[gobug]

a few quick thoughts

Eliminate their access to your food, destroy their habitat (even in the walls) and close their doors into your home: use metal containers with lids, use a copper sock to close the gap between the siding and the foundation (if that is what you have), fix all doors so less than 1/4in gap exists, don't forget under porches, decks and in the crawl space. Don't leave dry pet (birds, dogs, cats, goats, etc) food out overnight.

Glue boards are ok, but not enough for the situation you describe. You need a lot of devices spread everywhere, including the attic. The electric things may work, but no better than snaps and glue boards. They are way too expensive to use many. Mice are little robots that run the same path a hundred times a night. No secret device will break their patterns. Put your devices in their pathways. Rearrange your furniture to mess with their little minds.

Cats help, but they are not enough to quickly solve your problem.

Use many snap traps (many) and glue boards placed at 8 ft minimum; hence, a 12x16 room = min 8 devices. A box of 100 snaps is a lot cheaper than buying from the big box. Call a local exterminator and ask to buy the traps in bulk. Peanut butter is the best bait, but a cotton ball tied to the trigger will get Minnie. (bonus capture)

Put block baits under kitchen cabinets - behind the kick plate where pets/kids cant get it and in holes where electricity or plumbing go. Close those holes with steel wool. Don't forget to remove the drawers - put a block behind/under those drawer cabinets.

If you are persistent, you can get rid of the problem in the house, and keep it out forever. Cats, traps, poisons, are just indicators that there are mice everywhere. They do not eliminate the mice population, they just create a temporary relief.

good luck
gary

[Haven]

Wow, thanks for all the info.

The house is all masonry and brick so it should be fairly easy to find where they are getting in.

My dog found some babies in an air intake vent near the floor and now I see mouse poop coming down from the exhaust fan in the bathroom near there...please dont tell me they are running through the furnace system pooping and peeing in there. No idea how they got up into that bathroom ceiling vent.

[Alice In TX/MO]

They can get in the 'weep holes' that are near the base of your brick walls that allow the walls to breathe. DO NOT BLOCK THOSE completely. But, you can put pieces of steel wool in them to keep the mice from using them as access.

Yes, they have been in the furnace system. Sorry.

"Just One Bite" is a good poison.

Keep going with the traps.

Clean up around the outside of the house to reduce habitat.

Mice can have five to ten litters per year. Two to ten in a litter. The numbers get REALLY amazing quite quickly.

[olivehill]

The only thing that really worked for us is a cat.

A few years ago our house cat passed away. We didn't replace him right away and slowly, over the course of the years, the mice started to make their way in. We're surrounded by fields and every year in the fall when it gets cold they come to the house to one extent or another but with a cat and some strategically placed traps they were never an ongoing problem. We'd catch a few each fall and that was that. Well, once the cat was gone nothing seemed to work. We used traps, poison (which only proved we have super mice or something as they were unaffected by it), those electric plug in things that emit a high pitched sound to ward them off, etc, etc. I kept every possible food source closed up tight, blocked all avenues I could find of them coming in, etc. They just kept coming. The population never exploded but there were always a few. Finally we decided to try another cat. And I'm not kidding you within a week of him being here -- and just a kitten at that stage -- they were all gone. Haven't heard one, seen one, or found a pellet of poop since. Well, that's not entirely true; I found one in my daughter's room the other day. Dead, laying in the middle of the carpet and covered in slobber. I suspect the Schnauzer brought that one in from outside already dead though. My daughter said she'd seen her with one on the deck and told her to drop it, but then couldn't remember if she's made sure the dog actually DID drop it or not. *sigh*

The cat is working for us though. His presence seems to be keeping them away.

[edcopp]

645 +/- 12%

[mtman]

you have to nip it in the bud they dont have bladder control ,so everywhere they walk they drip pee thats how the other mice follow yes pee on your counter, food , etc.

[fishhead]

Kestrels locate field mice by following the pee trails in the grass. They pee as they walk and Kestrels can see it.

[OkieDavid]

Ed- I think that you figured in the conversion factor for your zone but forgot to multiply in the number of mice seen.

I'm thinking the conversion factor is your agricultural zone x 150 x number of mice seen


hehehehehehe

[olivehill]

Originally Posted by fishhead

Kestrels locate field mice by following the pee trails in the grass. They pee as they walk and Kestrels can see it.

Rather glad I'm not a Kestrel.

[julieq]

I always thought it was gross finding mouse droppings, but I never thought about the pee thing! Not sure I want to think about that even now...

So glad we have six indoor and six outdoor cats and NO MICE!

[edcopp]

Originally Posted by OkieDavid

Ed- I think that you figured in the conversion factor for your zone but forgot to multiply in the number of mice seen.

I'm thinking the conversion factor is your agricultural zone x 150 x number of mice seen


hehehehehehe

Some mice are heard but not seen, they wear "Camo".