Mice...help!

vegascowgirl · #1 05/03/05, 01:23 PM

I am going crazy here! Our mobile home has only been on our land since late november....and I have mice. I keep the place as clean as humanly possible. Granted you couldn't do surgery there, but for a home it is very clean. All our food is stored well, and grains, etc are stored in airtight containers, so we are not sure what is attracting them. I can't find where they are getting in at....and they just keep coming it seems.
Has anybody ever had such a problem?

Windy in Kansas · #2 05/03/05, 01:32 PM

Go to your cupboard and get out your peppermint extract. Go to your furnace/ac and douse the filter with the entire contents of the bottle. Turn on the fan for a few hours.

Go to town for more extract and scatter it around or underneath your trailer if possible. Also replace the bottle in the cupboard.

I read a simlar tip a couple of years ago and have not had a mouse problem since. Even my car that I park for awhile at my farm has a nice pleasant peppermint smell, but no mousy smell.

If you can't stand peppermint----

bare · #3 05/03/05, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Windy in Kansas

If you can't stand peppermint----

Or can't afford it, buy a couple boxes of mothballs and scatter them under your mobile home. Works wonders and helps keep other critters out as well.

agmantoo · #4 05/03/05, 04:39 PM

Mice have almost nonexistent bladders and thus they "leak" as they travel. This leak is a trail that the mice can use to navigate to and from. The leak trail can last many months. When a replacement mouse comes along and gets a whiff of the trail it will take the same path and ultimately end in your home whether there is food or not. You have to eliminate this scent trail. I am unsure about the peppermint but I do know something that works and I do not want to hear from a PETA supporter. We are talking vermin here that needs to be rid of. Get at the supermarket a couple of large containers of Red Devil lye (an ingredient in soap making). Drill one of the lids to make a large "salt shaker" from the container. Liberally sprinkle this under the mobile home in a full 360 degree coverage of the entire perimeter. In a few days repeat the sprinkling. This will end you mouse problem. Keep the kids and dog from under the home.

vegascowgirl · #5 05/05/05, 10:14 AM

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and information. Have moth balls, but no mint extract...will try to pick some up my next trip into town. So far I've caught at the very least, one mouse a day. Think I'll look around under the house and try to find where they are getting in from down there when I put the the moth balls out.
Thanks again.

bgak47 · #6 05/05/05, 10:46 AM

D-con & stickey traps. Put the poison where your pets & kids can't get to it, & put the stickey traps where the mice are pooping.The traditional spring traps seem like a cheaper way of catching them,but in my experience,they dont work very well. D-CON. It works.

babetteq · #7 05/05/05, 10:53 AM

Get a jack russel terrier.

babs

nodak3 · #8 05/05/05, 11:17 AM

You need a couple of barn cats. Not fancy porch sitters expecting all their dinner from a gourmet can, but tough barn cats that live outside. Let them stop the problem before the mice get inside.

mamajohnson · #9 05/05/05, 12:10 PM

try "just one bite" I find it at the feed store.
Best stuff.
this and amdroe ant killer are the only chemicals I use. But-I use them in a heartbeat!
lol!

jillianjiggs · #10 05/05/05, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by babetteq

Get a jack russel terrier.

babs

DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!!

Seriously though...you'll NEVER have a rodent problem if you have a JRT.

GrannyG · #11 05/05/05, 09:21 PM

I hate those meces to pieces !! Just can't get the upper hand on them here, too. I found an electric mouse trap, says it runs on batteries, fries them babies when they step on a little metal plate inside the trap, sure sounds good to me but they are expensive. The cats are lazy, they are falling down on the job.

vegascowgirl · #12 05/06/05, 10:17 AM

Has anybody tried those little "things" that plug into an electric recepticle and supposedly gives off a noise or vibration that mice, bugs, etc. don't like? I've seen them in catalogs, and it just doesn't seem like they would work....or that they would also drive my animals nuts as well. Just wondering.

Emily Nouvertne · #13 05/06/05, 10:26 AM

My father had a problem in his greenhouse with mice eating his seeds. I told him about those electronic noise emitting rodent eliminators. He ran to his nearest hardware store and bought one. He said he has never had another mouse in his greenhouse. He has also experimented with the cheaper models that he bought at Big Lots and says they seem to work equally as well as the more expensive one. I'd say, so long as you don't have any pet rodents (I think it is also bad for rabbits) within the electric circuitry of your home it would be worth a try.

Pony · #14 05/06/05, 07:23 PM

We bought some very cool traps at Farm and Fleet. One of them is a metal box: mice go in, they don't come out. The beauty of this one, since we are more often away from the farm than on it, is that we don't have to be there to re-set it. It holds up to a dozen mice.

The other traps are black and yellow plastic. Don't recall the name, but they only trip when the mouse is going for the bait, then WHAMMO!

Mom also put Rubbermaid containers in the drawers to line them. (Had to do this with the towels, etc., too: they were using it for nesting material.) Mice can't get at anything. Also have metal cabinets to store food stuffs that the mice love, and put things like bird seed and dog food into picnic coolers and large Rubbermaid.

Oh, we also found mice in the fibreglass insulation IN THE STOVE!! The little blighters were nesting there!! UGH!

If we were able to be there more, we'd have cats, but can't figure out how to have them in the house without some sort of human supervision.

Pony!