There's supposedly an old Japanese proverb that says, "When mice come indoors, it is time to inspect your winter clothes." (I presume that means, "The weather's getting cold and you'll need the clothes soon" and not necessarily, "The mice may be nesting in your winter clothes")
I heard evidence of a mouse (I hope it was a mouse, at any rate) under the kitchen sink last night. I live in an older (1946) house and it's not exactly air tight to the outside. So I periodically get critters coming in. The spiders I am generally fine with, the mice, not so much.
So I pushed heavy things against the swinging cabinet doors (no idea if a mouse could push them open and stroll out into the kitchen, but I was unwilling to risk it) and this morning, I ran out for supplies.
I got some snap traps but have never had good luck with them. These are the newer kind that you are less likely to break a finger with, but claim to be "guaranteed" to kill mice.
But, as I have an outlet with an extra plug under the sink, I also decided to invest in a set of those little sonic dealies that supposedly repel rodents. (I've heard they don't work, but whatever. They were less than $20 and if they work they will totally be worth it.) They do note on the package that the sound doesn't penetrate walls, but as the problem is under the sink and that's also where the plug is, maybe, just maybe, it will work.
They claim they don't "harm" non-rodent pets or humans, but I can definitely hear a low-pitched buzz coming off them. (I guess my low-range hearing isn't as compromised as I thought it was at one point). It will probably become annoying if I try to read in a quiet house.
I hope this works. I will admit to also having bought some poison but I really don't want to use it because (a) it's fairly inhumane, compared to the mouse either being driven away by noise or swiftly killed by having its neck broken, (b) if they die in the walls and it gets warm, they can stink and (c) there are neighborhood cats around, and while I doubt they'd eat carrion (or even catch and eat a mouse, for that matter - though they roam outside, they look well-fed), I don't want to risk poisoning one.
I know I have talked off and on about how I like the "cowgirl" image of women - women who are tough and capable and can take care of stuff - but this is a little more cowgirl than what I'd really want.
(And yes, I've tried to find where they're coming in and seal it up, but I can't find all of the spots or there's one under the house, where I am unwilling to go.)
4 comments:
I swear by a trap (I'm pretty sure it's made by D-Con) that's a snap trap but it's enclosed in a box structure and can be re-used. You never have to touch the, er, carcass; you just dangle it over the trash and push the lever. Do a search on my blog for "mousetrap" and my post on the subject should come up.
I finally had to resort to poison the last time I had a mouse. It was smart enough to figure out how to eat the peanut butter off the snap trap without tripping it. I like the traps where the mouse goes inside and the "door" closes behind him. They're a little expensive for one-time use but I don't know how to open it back up to use it again.
Well fed outdoor cats are more likely to catch and kill mice (and gophers, moles and voles) than hungry cats because they do it as play!
My very well fed outdoor cat catches and toys with mice - I've seen him - but he only brings me the gopher carcasses. I guess he knows how much I hate them when they get into my gardens!
Thank you for not using poisons. I lost one of my Siberian Huskies when he killed a rodent of some sort and ate part of it. It contained enough poison to kill a 65 pound dog.
We've had better luck with sticky traps than with snap traps. They allegedly smell like peanut butter so you don't need any bait but we put a tiny dab of peanut butter in the center of the trap anyway.
The drawback is that you often find a still living mouse stuck to the the thing but in that case we just give it to our cats and they take care of it for us.
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