Uninvited guest
We. have. a. mouse. Not a pet, but a wild one... running loose somewhere in the house. Our intrepid fox terrier, Campbell, sniffed him out in our kitchen last night. We came very close to capturing him (and I'm sure had video cameras been rolling, we would have some award-winning footage), but in the end, he vanished and we were left holding the brooms. Hubs is convinced the little creature is here due to sloppy housekeeping and has declared a day of cleansing for our home. The kids are overjoyed (not) that they get to spend their Saturday cleaning. We'll also be making a run to Home Depot for traps. This is so not fun.
All hail Campbell... doing what he was bred for, ferreting out rodents. Just wish the darn thing wasn't in my house! I have visions of mayhem a la Mouse Hunt ensuing.
5 comments:
Keep in mind that mice don't usually walk in through the front door.
You have a hole or holes somewhere, and a mouse only needs an amazingly small one - smaller than you'd think from looking at a mouse.
We've been through this. You need to go all around the place, inside and out, looking for entrance points. I found that utility contractors are disgustingly careless: where our cable wire came in, they drilled a hole big enough for a mouse to drive a mouse-truck through, and just left it like that. When the oil company put in a new oil tank, they did the same thing - a one inch gap on one side of the pipe! Telephone wires, of course - same thing.
We also found large gaps around the foundation of an attached garage that we turned into living space - not even an attempt to seal it up, but hidden from view by the heating radiators and the carpet.
Also, every wall where heating or water pipes go through had large holes - which means if mice managed to get into the walls somewhere else, they could come into the house at these points!
We HAD PROFESSIONALS do pest control - they missed 90% of this! You have to find this stuff yourself.
Please get a humane cage trap. I had LOTS of mice a few years ago, the ordinary traps are hellish for all concerned I would never use them again and one only catches one at a time. Once a robin was in the rat trap... (Are you actually going to pry out the bloody warm squashed or maimed, not dead, suffereing mousekin?)
The cage type is better then you can let them go in a field or park.
I put one in the kitchen, 2 hours later there were 40! mice crammed inside! Then another evening mabe 4/5. Easy just took them somwhere and let them out, everyone was happy. It works.....bonne chance
Uh, who has 40!!! mice in their kitchen? My sister once made the mistake of renting a place that was infested, and I don't think she had that many. Without malice, I have to say it's not a good idea to take your advice on pest control/prevention. Yikes!
Campbell, poor dog, being called that. Do you know what the Campbells did at Glencoe?
Ok, that wasn't too helpful. I do think you should get a humane mousetrap, ideally one where the mice can slightly see each other as they are attracted to other mice. We used to catch them 4 at a time this way.
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