fpb | (no subject)

Of all the things I hate about running your own house, mouse infestations are what I hate the most. Not the mice themselves, but the means you have to use to get rid of them. I had hoped two years ago to have seen an end to it, but recently I had evidence of more visitations. A certain amount of poison feed seemed to have dealt with that. But a few days ago I heard the distinctive rustle, and today I saw with my own eyes one of the culprits in the kitchen, which is of course the last place where you want to see a mouse. Unfortunately, the way I had available to deal with the problem - left over from two years back - is the cruellest of all the traps: the glue trap. There is nothing pleasant about having to take away a tiny, desperately squealing creature, stuck in a devil's brew and mad with terror. Mice, when helpless, are very appealing. But people like me are in no position to excuse them; if the place is not made unwelcome to mice, not only is your health and food at risk, but you are in danger of opening it to rats - which is plain ruination. And yet... if I could have seen a way to keep the pathetic robber in a cage without inviting any of his mates or finding out too late that it was pregnant (at which they are very efficient), I likely enough would have kept it.

Threaded | Flat

Borrow a cat for a few days? If it doesn't catch them, it'll scare them away.

sigh...we have rats. They are a real pain to get rid of.

You may not be able to care for a cat, but they can be effective mousers when well fed.

Also, a cat is a good tripwire. When he comes up from the basement with a prize, it's time to set out traps.

They are evil little devils.

My whole office was once infested by construction nearby. I could claim the critters insulted my dignity, but I was crying too much to really care. It was a hellish few months. I would have quit, but at least at work I could surround myself with a vitual moat of traps.

I hate all rodents - rats, mice, squirrels, anything that is small and furry and moves too fast for its size. But rats are the worst. There are some in Chinatown, near the chicken-sellers, that are as big as dogs, and howl like a deamon-cat.

Use whatever you have. They only look cute when they're trapped. They are cannibals with fierce, hungry red eyes and sharp teeth that chew through your electrical wiring.

I didn't think the sticky traps were available any more. I recall, some twenty years ago, getting a tin of some evil yellow substance from a friend who worked for rent-o-kill. We spread the stuff onto a sheet of cardboard about 1m x 1m which was then placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. Then put chocolate in the centre of the sheet. The mice must have literally thrown themselves at it. We guessed that they must have been climbing onto the kitchen table and leaping towards the chocolate. Perhaps we were invaded by a family of mice with a particularly sweet tooth, but chocolate as bait was the key to catching them.

Ah, fpb! I know it is hard, but you are right. You just can't live with vermin. Also, think what they would do to your books.

Maybe a dog? I know this sounds weird but it might work. Some small breeds are hunters, like dachshunds. My dachshund likes to hunt all kinds of vermin - roaches, mice, and even lizards. Though there's also the trouble of having to housetrain him.

I saw a mouse once. I put a stuffed kitten on the floor in the middle of the apartment. Bizarrely, it worked!