Varmint Cong

[SS]

bound to happen... first time in 4 years... mouse in the house.

SS is preparing for battle. all suggestions welcome.

i'm thinking sticky traps but it seems inhumane. but i also hate killing things.

but as One Up can attest, throwing my wife into the equation raises the urgency level, um, somewhat.

so yeah.

SS v. mouse.

go.

[Ronnie B]

Just call the exterminator. If there is one there are 20.

[tballa55]

sticky trap sounds messed up because its going to be a slow death for the mouse or he'll still be alive and jump out of the glue and attack you when you go to throw it out.

I vote for the sticky trap lol

[Mk]

mice >>>>>> bats

[Ronnie B]

sticky trap sounds messed up because its going to be a slow death for the mouse or he'll still be alive and jump out of the glue and attack you when you go to throw it out.

I vote for the sticky trap lol

Sticky traps work. They ain't getting out of sticky traps

[Sim]

Mice are known to chew off their own legs to try and escape a sticky trap, so consider the mess before you go that route. Moreover, if you lay them out, lay them flat against the wall and put some peanut butter at the end; then put a tube in front of them b/c mice like to run along walls and through tubes. They'll go into the tube and onto the trap to get to the food.

As a preventive measure, buy steel wool at Home Depot and plug any areas where they may be coming in; they can't get around it. They can legitimately enter your house through a hole the size of a nickel and you'd be surprised at how many spots you may have.

Moreover, don't buy the poison b/c as soon as the mice eat it, they immediately go searching for water and the minute they find it and drink, they die. You don't want them dying in your house and being hidden/rotting away.

Best advice: Get a deep bucket and put it underneath a counter/shelf. Take a couple toilet paper rolls and lay them over the counter's edge; dab the end of them with peanut butter. If they are up on the counter, they will walk to the edge to eat and when they do, they will topple off the counter and into the bucket.

If they are just on the ground, you can use the same idea with a plank of some sort leading up. Put some cheese/peanut butter up there and you'll likely wake up to them in the bucket.

Put a cover on the bucket and drive them far away from your house. If you drop them outside, they will find a way back in.

Old school snap traps work too. A little more humane than sticky traps and at least they'll be dead when you find them.

GLTA.

[mcm]

i've caught 3-4 mice with the sticky trap. the first one i caught was still alive. i tried to separate him from the trap but the stuff is just too damn sticky. i ended up just putting it in the trash with the alive mice still in it and putting it outside. it was in the winter so he probably froze to death.

[Giggles]

Sim has some good ideas. Definitely don't do poison.

Sticky traps do tend to suck. The resourceful older mice usually pull a 127 Hours-style escape and the only the baby cute mice get stuck and found the next morning. And then of course you have to bash them with a hammer. Are you ready to mash cute baby mice with hammers? No? Then don't get sticky traps.

Also the Rule of Parsimony in this situation is to get a cat. As long as it's not a lazy POS cat, then you won't have a mouse problem.

[Ronnie B]

Well the sticky mats have worked for me in the past.

[Ronnie B]

These work but you run the risk of getting your finger snapped off.

[K-G]

Get one of the little electrocution chambers. Worked great for me and just battery powered and reuseable.

One of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kaEL2MfwBw

[Sim]

^ Chess.

Didn't even know about those.

[lugnutz]

They sell humane traps with plastic doors that drop when they take the bait, but then you have to deal with a live mouse that if you let go will almost certainly be back. RB is right see 1 and there are a bunch more.

[Ronnie B]

Get one of the little electrocution chambers. Worked great for me and just battery powered and reuseable.

One of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kaEL2MfwBw

Hahaha @ 2 AA batteries are good for roughly 50 kills!

[rearadmiral]

Is this the PETA thread or did you all see "Stuart Little" too many times?

Um, they're fucking pests. Why would you catch-and-release them like they're small mouth bass when they're only going to come back to feed on your crumbs again?

humane treatment = back for seconds