Mouse Hunt
I'm sitting at the computer at the end of a 95-degree muggy day being eaten alive by mosquitos but having too much fun reading everybody's blogs to quit. This is such a peaceful time of day--no interruptions, freedom to complete a thought. It's worth staying up late and feeling a little tired the next day to enjoy that luxury!
The mouse hunt continues. I'm definitely feeling violated by the presence of furry quadripeds in our new home. For about a week we saw evidence of mice in our kitchen without having actually seen one. Several people had informed us they'd seen rats in the house, but we hoped they were just exaggerating. I hated not knowing the enemy we were up against. Well, that was taken care of Saturday night. Evan and I were on the main floor working on stuff when all of a sudden Jed let out a blood-curdling scream. Thinking he had hurt himself, we raced up the stairs, only to find out he was screaming in terror--he had seen a mouse at the foot of the stairs. I crept back down the stairs (putting my shoes on as I went) and, sure enough, there he was, crawling up a small pipe right by the front door. He wasn't quite a rat, but neither was he one of the cute little 3-inch mice you get at the petstore. Perhaps it was a mouse cross-bred with a rat that was living well off the fat of the land.
Everywhere we look we find more spots the mice can be coming in. We're up against a smart enemy. We put one of the old-fashioned mouse traps in his favorite cupboard, only to find he stole the treat and jumped back to safety in the nick of time, because the trap is there and it's sprung, but there's no treat and no mouse. However, we did catch one in the glue trap in the mudroom. Ha-ha, victory! Maybe we won't need to call the exterminator after all. Anyone have any bright ideas for catching the little varmints?
posted by Jill @ 10:30 PM
10 Comments:
Ah, the joys of living in old houses, eh, Jill? Do you have a good mouser cat yet? No! That is a really valuable thing--I'm not kidding! Our cat, Max, has caught many rodents for us. He also kindly leaves them in the girls room, behind clutter, to show his love of the princesses of his life. We had some rodents stinking up our laundry room with their waste. I bought D-con rat/mouse poison, and they thought it was candy. It seemed to work. I had to move the heavy washer and drier twice to clean out their nasty droppings before they were killed. Those were dark days, I tell you!
We do have two cats but so far they've proved useless in the mouse department. The other night Evan and I were in the kitchen and heard a mouse behind the stove. The two cats were there with us and acted very interested, but I guess they're too well fed to feel the need to catch dinner. I appreciate your telling me about the poison you used. We'll have to give that a try. Evan moved the stove the other day to see what kind of hole was behind it (there was a HUGE one, big enough to accommodate several mice) and there were droppings everywhere. That would explain the vile smell every time I turned on the oven!
Stop feeding those cats!!! For real. God made them to hunt, let nature takes it course...
That glue trap doesn't sound very humane. Ugh. Maybe you should let Lindsay's cats come over and join the hunt. I think cats have to be trained in hunting skills from kittenhood, though. Once they become dependent on bought food, there's just not the same drive, beyond the sport of the chase.
Our cat doesn't actually eat the mice, but he does enjoy playing with and killing them!
Diane R. put peanut butter on the trap and then stuck something on top so it wouldn't be so easy to remove. She caught 10 squirrels in an animal friendly trap that way- perhaps it would work on the old fashioned kind also. Just a thought.
Do you have the old wooden/metal traps or the newer plastic version? I would recommend the newer version as they proved quite effective in our case. We also used peanut butter as bait. Good luck! Cover everything with cheesecloth like Anne didn't! Ewwwww!!
I hear that smashing their heads with cabinet doors will do the trick.
-- SJ
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Hahahahahahahahahaha...
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