Mouse in My House !

[greenthumbomaha]

I live in a two story home , and for some time I have been hearing scratching on the ceiling. I thought it was a squirrel that somehow found an opening in the roof and came to visit and leave at will. I have trees around the house.

I just returned from a trip to snuggle with a new baby ahead of the blizzard. In the evening I decided to prep for some delayed seed starting work in the former dining room. Well I was not expecting to see a small dark grey creature scurry between bags of potting soil with everything seeds require on the floor and shelves. The floor heat vent looks gross and is the likely entry point. Luckily no damage to my seed bank, yet. Sticky traps in place.

I have empty cookie tins on the way for prized seeds storage protection so that is a work in progress. Now I need to secure the growing area. Other than keep vigil at night, how can I protect seed starting trays from an invasion?

I have a metal Costco shelf at the front window where it is too cold to start seeds, and I had spider mites on the seedlings in that area last year which caused havoc in my garden, especially on tomatoes. I planned to rotate away from that area this year which may not happen now. My plastic shelves with the heat mats and lights are near where the intruder was exploring. What rodent deterrents have you found effective in a home setting, and is there something I can rig up something to surround 10/20 trays to keep they safe from this unwanted guest?

Eeeeeek !
- Lisa

[Labradors]

Mouse traps!

When we returned home last winter, stashes of dried macaroni were found in the fork section of the drawer, on my side of the bed, and in a box in the closet. When I opened the dishwasher door there was a tinkling sound as macaroni fell out of the bottom of the door and onto the floor. They ate 3 bags of chips and some packets of dehdyrated cheese sauce mix that were in the basement and obviously made themselves quite at home during our absence! Thank goodness they didn't eat my seeds!!!!!!

During a previous winter they made a nest in my potting soil and may have contaminated it with their "manure". I may have blamed the water softener for being too salty that year......

You will need to catch them before they eat all your emerging seeds. Good luck!

Linda

[MissS]

I would place some sort of mesh over your entry point, the heat vent and then set traps. If you don't like to kill you could place some cabbage in a paper grocery bag and then turn it on it's side and place it somewhere near so that you can hear the pitter patter of little feet on the paper bag. When you hear that just go and tip the bag upright and carry the critter out the door. They love cabbage and the smell travels far to attract them.

Be sure to set traps on your lowest level too. That is where they will migrate to.

[Lemonboy]

Your best option is probably traps. IMHO the snap traps are most cost effective. The glue traps aren't as humane and they don't always work. The varmit will occasionally drag the trap off or pull free. And even if you treat the reusable traps as single use the cost is about the same.

Poisons don't always give you anything to discard because the tiny corpse can end up in the wall or someplace else inaccessible and turn into a large, lingering odor. If you do decide to go with poison I'd suggest a 50/50 blend of plaster and flour.

You best protection for the flats is to keep them up off the floor and make them inaccessible. YouTube has some videos to give you an idea of how high the rodents can jump. Depending on how much effort you want to put into deterring them you might want to fence the flats in with metal screen. But the mice have nothing better to do with their time and can be persistent. I once lost two large flats of pepper seeds when a mouse showed uo. He went from cell to cell and cleaned out every seed that had been planted. Avoid that if you can. It's not fun.

[GoDawgs]

Snap traps baited with peanut butter. Stuff steel wool into any openings around where pipes come through floors or walls (kitchen sinks, dish washers etc) because they won't chew through that to make openings larger.

[rxkeith]

mouse traps is what i use. there are different types available depending on your squeamish level.
i live in the country where there are plenty of mice. most stay outside. the ones that go into the chicken coop at night
have been staying healthy eating organic chicken feed. no reason to come in the house for them.
if you saw one mouse, expect there to be more. i keep traps set until i stop catching mice.
peanut butter usually works unless its too soft, and can be licked off without the trap snapping. in that case i wedge a
piece of raisin or dried cranberry in bait area, and add a dab of peanut butter.


keith

[greenthumbomaha]

I would place some sort of mesh over your entry point, the heat vent and then set traps. If you don't like to kill you could place some cabbage in a paper grocery bag and then turn it on it's side and place it somewhere near so that you can hear the pitter patter of little feet on the paper bag. When you hear that just go and tip the bag upright and carry the critter out the door. They love cabbage and the smell travels far to attract them.

Be sure to set traps on your lowest level too. That is where they will migrate to.

Wish I had read the replies sooner! It's not my first encounter either, teenagers left food unattended in the basement years ago. It's the return vent on the wall that looks rank, and I'm sure this is a pathway. I forgot about the steel wool method, and the stores must be insane with a winter storm warning hanging around for a few days.

I'm probably not brave or quick enough to snatch a mouse in a bag and risk it jumping out onto me. I've had some close encounters with one jumping off an end table onto the couch where I was sitting, or leaping off the kitchen counter when I picked something up. Sticky traps are my preferred method of revenge in living spaces. I've actually witnessed a mouse walking over one in the basement on a nice even concrete floor. I have two right up against the wall in the seed room now and we'll see how it does on a plush carpet floor.

I should brave the elements and get a chicken wire cage from the backyard and and scrunch it up against the return vent.
Please tell me how high a mouse can jump. I don't want to look!
- Lisa

[GoDawgs]

Any mice that show up in the house are usually because one of the cats brought his "toy" inside and let it get away. You can always tell when there's one loose because one of the cats will be slowly walking around a room, listening, staring at a piece of furniture or looking behind a bookcase. Sooner or later they find and reclaim their prize.

[Uncle_Feist]

A single kernel of corn glued to the bait pan of a trap is deadly and long-lasting.

[Uncle_Feist]

photo host

[Uncle_Feist]

[Lemonboy]

Please tell me how high a mouse can jump. I don't want to look!
- Lisa

Mice can jump three feet easily, but probably not more than four. They can climb power cords and use chairs, boxes, or whatever as "steps" too. If your seed room is also a storage room you'll want to clear as much of the floor as you can. Especially since if they can get into boxes they can set up housekeeping and damage the contents.

If someone tells you a cat will improve the situation a barn cat might help, but a house cat can create new problems. Keeping them out is easier than dealing with them inside whether they're mice or cats.

[Sue_CT]

Until you get the mouse, put any valuable to you seed packets in plastic, glass or metal containers with tight lids. Tupperware, lock-n-lock, or best yet a glass container with a screw on metal lid like canning jars. At least it will protect them from little thieves in the meantime. Just make sure you use a sturdy plastic container not something thin or flimsy that they might chew through.

[Tormato]

With the yearly smorgasbord spread out for them at this time of year, I put out traps before any might show up. I put them along walls, in corners, where hopefully my bare feet simply can't step.

Last year, in March, was the first mouse in several decades. It went straight for the brown rice, in the original thin plastic bag. Since brown rice has the shortest shelf life of pantry foods that I store, and I only buy 1 or 2 pounds at a time, I don't put it in hard containers.

The spring door tube traps basically don't work.

[karstopography]

I’ve yet to see a mouse or evidence of mice in our house. Maybe it’s the semi-feral cats or abundant owls that hang around the house that account for our lack of mice.

Glue boards are generally partially effective against mice and can offer a catch and release option if the mice are discovered on the board still alive. Putting some vegetable oil around the entrapped areas of the mouse will loosen the glue in not too much time and free the mouse, just in case someone would rather not directly kill a mouse struggling on a glue board.

The downside of the glue boards is that they capture everything that finds its way onto them, fingers, toes, pantry items, lizards, scorpions, snakes, etc. Any of Mechanical traps, glue boards, and the like in many cases the surviving mice, the rule is that there will be survivors, will learn to be trap shy and avoid the traps and then teach subsequent generations a culture of trap avoidance, not that the traps won’t pick off a few newcomers, the careless and such.

Hard it is to build out a mouse as they need such tiny clearances to squeeze into a structure and can climb well. It can be worth the effort though looking into sealing areas of entry and steel wool can serve well to seal up irregular shaped entry points that might be otherwise hard to seal.

People avoid using poison bait for many reasons, but it can be used safely with precautions taken for pets and non target species and can be the most complete cure, not that mice cannot become bait shy also. Mice killed by most of the poisons found in rodenticides don’t tend to produce much of a detectable or obnoxious odor even if they die in a wall, rats dying in walls are often a much different story. Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) is a potent rodenticide and is found in some of the formulations, but tends to work much better on rats than mice. Bromethalin is found in some of the brands, but is particularly toxic for cats.

Clutter is the friend of mice, spareness and order the enemy. Mice need food, shelter(nest building materials) and water and working towards eliminating access to any of the three makes a big difference. Motion detector game cameras can help determine where the mice are coming from. They have infrared cameras built in that can work just fine in total or near total darkness.

[Paulf]

We live in a rural area where mice and catching them is a way of life. I run a trap line every day or at least a couple times a week. The main trap sets are under the kitchen sink, in an attic space and in the unheated garage. The trap I have gone to is pictured below and the bait of choice is peanut butter. The holding cup for bait makes the critters dig for it and the traps respond well. The traps are easy to remove the dead animals and easy to reset without too much handling. As the winter goes on the numbers of mice decreases a lot.Only one this week.

[AZGardener]

I get mice on occasion in my greenhouse. I use tomcat traps, they work well, and easy to press the button to dispose of the carcass. I place them in areas they use to travel and/or where they've been feeding on my veggies/fruit.

https://www.amazon.com/Tomcat-Press-Mou ... 30&sr=1-13

(TJs amazon link)

[zeuspaul]

I set six snap traps under the hood of my car. I have not yet received any unwanted kill. Just mice and rats. I prefer the metal snap traps because they last longer. I don't use any bait because I don't want them to act as an attractant.

Closer to the house I use a live animal rat trap baited with peanut butter. Here I catch mainly mice and an occasional rat. It is live animal so I am not concerned about catching other critters. Once I caught a snail!

I also use blood thinner bait in a place out of reach of other critters. I have one of my security cameras watching this so I am pretty sure nothing else gets the bait.

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traps.jpg

[Sue_CT]

I use have a heart traps with peanut butter. Zeus, thanks for posting pictures of the ones you use without the bodies. If you say they work, I will believe you, even if you don't show a dead body in it.

[zeuspaul]

I use three heart traps down in the garden to trap squirrels. I don't use them with any bait. I just place them where I think the squirrels will run. Bait draws ants and then I have to deal with the ants or relocate the traps. The squirrels are curious and enter the traps to see what is inside.