Wow..what an encounter I had this morning!

[PCIntern]

I awakened at about 6:30 and went downstairs, the first thing of course was to check the mouse trap which I had set two nights ago. Weirdly, the trap was GONE...I look about 5 feet from where it had been and lo and behold, there's a mouse in the trap, being held by its right front paw/extremity. When he/she saw me, he/she started running in circles, b/c the trap was holding it down. Finally, having gotten tired, there was just a plaintive stare. So what did I do?

It looked so sad.

So I went and got a shovel from the fireplace and a pair of needle-nose pliers. I shoveled up the mouse and trap, took it outside way away from the house and held the trap down while I opened the trap with the needle-nose. The mouse ran quickly...TOWARDS THE HOUSE! I gave a shout, probably awakening the neighbors, "Get away from the house, you moron!!" The mouse actually veered away and left the property.

Lucky for it that I'm a humanist at this age. Really, those eyes were so helpless and sad that I just couldn't kill it outright. I'm very proud of me.

[ogneopasno]

1. Heh. I've had that happen several times.

I kill them, though.

[PCIntern]

2. All these years, it's never happened to me...

at least 500 mice. Weird.

[ogneopasno]

3. Once one fell into an uncovered heating vent. THAT was a pain in the ass.

But I got him eventually.

[PCIntern]

4. Once had a dead squirrel in a fan duct

leading from my apartment to the outside. Came home to the persistent, vague odor and a million flies one day. Yich.

[TheCowsCameHome]

12. Once had a lame duck in the White House

Oh wait, that's another topic.

[JustAnotherGen]

36. n/t

:rofl:

[mandyky]

40. Touche!!

Had a LOL moment and everyone in the lab looked at me funny.

[MuseRider]

18. Eww me too.

We came home from vacation and there was that awful smell of something dead. It seemed to be coming from the kitchen so I turned on the vent over the stove, heard a horrible noise and about a million flies came out with a few tufts of red fur. Nasty. Poor thing must have been stuck in there for a while before it died.

I never kill anything so at that particular house, built especially...poorly... for critters to get in (shivers), I spent 18 years catching them kindly and releasing them. I am certain it was a game by the time we moved.

[MH1]

33. "at least 500 mice"?

what, you're allergic to cats?

One good cat, no more mice. Well, maybe an occasional "present". :)

[mnhtnbb]

5. I got up one morning to find Mouse (on of our 20 lb cats) had a

scared and shaking chipmunk between his paws on the deck outside the kitchen. I opened the door
and hollered at Mouse who took his eyes off his prize. The chipmunk scampered away.

Another morning I got up when it was still dark and opened the sliding glass door to the kitchen
from the deck to let Mouse and Simba in. After I'd made coffee, I noticed a dark mound under the kitchen table. One of them had brought me a dead chipmunk.

Moral of the story--if you don't want to repeat this morning's encounter, hire a cat! (That's how we originally adopted Mouse and Simba. We had mice in the kitchen. Mice moved out after the cats came
to live at our house.)

[PCIntern]

7. Grew up in a house with 6 cats and 2 dogs...

enough was enough...

[mnhtnbb]

8. I hear you. Two cats is my limit. We lost our beloved Tanya dog

last summer (Mouse thought she was his mother)and I doubt we'll replace her.

[notesdev]

13. The well-known 'two-cat limit'

after which you start to acquire titles like "the guy with all the cats"

[mnhtnbb]

27. Mouse and Simba were acquired from "a little old lady with all the cats".

She'd put an ad for free kittens in the newspaper, and when I went to her house there were cats everywhere!
I suspect the local health department had told her she couldn't keep anymore. Our kitty boys were born
to two different litters, five days apart, but had been raised together. Now, 13 years later, they sleep side by side, groom each other, play with each other, and look for the other one when one has gone off to sleep in a hiding place.

[tsuki]

14. I had a Boston Terrier and a mouse. I awoke one morning,

staggered to the kitchen to make coffee and encountered Penny, sitting straight, ears perky with the mouse before her. I interpreted the look on her smug face as "Look, I won." Eek, I hate mice. Husband removed the prize.

[mnhtnbb]

28. Good morning!

:rofl:

[Captain Hilts]

6. Good for you. I couldn't do it either. nt

[radfringe]

9. alternative to traps

we put down chocolate ex-lax in cellar and attic - where our pets are not allowed

ex-lax gives the rodents the runs, makes them sick and they flee the house - they don't come back because they remember the house as a 'bad food place'

instead of ex-lax, try real hot peppers, cut them up into small bits. Again - don't put it around where your pets can get it.

does same thing as the ex-lax - makes them sick, they flee and don't come back to the "bad food place"

[CTyankee]

17. um, do the mice "excrete" inside thehouse once they have ingested the ex lax?

Idon't think I'd like cleaning up mouse shit in my basement. Just sayin...

[eilen]

19. Guaranteed, if you have mice in your basement

you have mouseshit too.

[CTyankee]

23. of course, I was just thinking about "the runs" as opposed to little pellets.

A little disquieting, but perhaps I exaggerate...

[panader0]

10. We have two very good mouse catching cats

No mice in the house, but when they're outside hunting they always bring their kills back and put them on the front porch as trophies. There are some big pack rats around here here too. Birds and rabbits too. Nothing like opening the door and seeing a rabbit head, ears intact, body gone, on the door mat.

[TheCowsCameHome]

11. I know the feeling

Those cute little eyes and all. When you see one there's a dozen more waiting nearby.

But after some nested in the a/c vent system in one of the family cars to the tune of a $900 repair job (their urine ruins everything touches) I lost some of that compassion.

Now I use Bounce dryer sheets anywhere (storage areas, collector cars, etc.) that I really don't want them hanging around, but they are still clever little devils at that............

Better yet, I'll send mine down to you if you're interested.

[Kahuna]

15. ...

:applause:

Try those electronic pest/mice repellers. If you find a good one it will work wonders. I know.

[PCIntern]

16. Good Idea...THANKS! n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

22. Another suggestion

Buy Rat-Away from Dr. T (www.repell.com), available at hardware stores or online. This isn't for use inside the house, but you can put it around the outside of the house and mice won't cross the line to get in--they hate the stuff because of the smell. This is also great for placing around vehicles you may have parked--lots of folks have problems with mice and chipmunks getting into engines and chewing on wires. Putting a sock with about 1/4 cup of Rat Away in the engine compartment keeps them away. (I used to be a licensed pest control operator, and I know this stuff works.)

[radfringe]

20. which ones work?

lots of them of the market... so which one?

[Sydnie]

38. That's a good question

With a house that is over 200 years old, I would love to know the answer to that as well. I have an old house in the woods and have these little critters all the time. I would love to stop them at the walls!

[Kahuna]

43. Sears Hardware sells one by Sunbeam for about $10. It's okay..

But it's not the best I've ever used. When they first came out in the 80s I lived in an apartment that was literally infested with mice. The landlady bought a few of the originals advertised on TV and it took care of the problem within a couple of weeks. You plug it in and it remits a frequency that the mice can't tolerate and they simply leave. I've never used one as effective since then. What I have found is that the kind you can get at the hardware stores do work for about a year. Then it's like the mice become immune to the frequency of sound it emits. At that time, you just by a new one. Their technically called, ultrasonic rodent or pest repellers.

It's best to put one on each floor of the building.

on edit: I just checked ebay. They have them too. Of course they have them. They have EVERYTHING. :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. A suggestion

You can purchase live traps at any hardware store. They can be placed against the wall where mice run. You put bait inside (I prefer professional mouse bait attractant because it doesn't dry up or go bad). The mice go in the trap but can't get out. Get the traps with the clear lid so you can see if you have caught one. Then you simply take it outside, open the lid, and let the critter go. You don't have to worry about it having broken a leg in a spring trap. And the live trap is reusable. Models can hold anywhere from 6-10 mice.

[Maestro]

24. I would have done the same.

Those mouse traps are much more humane than the sticky kind, but sometimes if the trap just gets a leg or foot, I let them go. Heck, my cat brings up voles that eat our garden plants, but I still can't "dispatch" them. I just take pictures of them and then let them go in a pasture behind my house.



and here is a big roof rat that came to my back door one summer evening. I ran it off too instead of killing it.

[Azlady]

25. Another, perhaps silly way to trap a mouse

We had a mouse a couple of years ago. You are going to think I am nuts, but what we did is take an almost empty big potatoe chip bag, put peanut butter at the bottom of the inside part of the bag, along with left over potatoe chips. Sure enough, about an hour after the lights were out, the mouse found its way into the potatoe chip bag.... I quietly tip toed over, quickly closed the top of the bag, walked it away from the house & let it go! Had another mouse this summer, did it again and it worked! Just out of a little peanut butter, little creature safe & sound, house safe & sound....

I know silly, but it worked!

[renate]

39. that's a wonderful idea!

It also sounds like a great way to find escaped pet hamsters or gerbils. Thanks for the tip!

[Azlady]

53. You are very welcome :-)

[ecstatic]

26. I think I would faint if I ever saw a mouse

in my place. I would have to leave the premises and call in the national guard.

[ThomWV]

29. Sometimes you get 'em good and sometimes you get 'em not so good.

I just dump them straight into the fire, dead or not.

[Joe the Revelator]

34. Thats kind of sick

[Tesha]

51. You know, you stating that doesn't surprise me one damned bit. (NT)

[L0oniX]

30. I would have given it to some kids if they promised to let it go in a school class room.

Been there ...done that.

:evilgrin:

[ensho]

31. one of my cats brought in a baby rat. had it in a corner torturing it

by hitting it with his paw with the poor baby making a 'don't hurt me I'm a baby' cry.

couldn't stand it and I let it get away.

[OCAtheist]

47. My dog did the same thing with a baby field mouse

She chased it around a lamp post, trying to corner it against a wall. The squeaks were awful and I managed to hold her off long enough to let the little guy get away. There are enough predators in this area, the mouse didn't need my dog tormenting it.

[redqueen]

32. Aw.

Lucky mouse. :)

[Joe the Revelator]

35. I'm the same way...in College...

I convinced my roomates I was doing everything I could to trap a mouse that had gotten into our apartments. In reality, after volunteering to go after the mouse, I put some traps in places I didn't think a mouse would run. We lived like that for a month or so, with the mouse hanging out in the kitchen until one one night when my girlfriend was staying over. She went in the kitchen, turned on the light and saw the mouse running along the sink. She told me if I wanted her to continue staying the night, the apartment had to be mouse free. The mouse was dead within 24 hours.

That is the last one I'll ever kill though. There are to many humane traps to continue snapping necks.

[jackpan1260]

37. What is so hard about a have a heart trap?

Catch it and put it in woods that aren't near your house.

[orleans]

50. i used one of those traps a number of years ago

it was wonderful.

when i saw the little mouse in it i was so thrilled that i hadn't hurt it. she was beautiful. i called her our little christmas mouse (it was just before xmas when we caught her). and we took her out to a lovely park and set her free by a huge evergreen. i prefer to think she survived the winter and any larger animals/birds that might have been around.

i bought a little mouse xmas ornament for the tree. i take it out every year in memory of her.

[lumberjack_jeff]

41. Okay. This is a great story. I had the same thing happen to me. Different ending though.

A mouse got caught in my aluminum recycling bucket.

I took the bucket about 50' from the house, inverted it and the mouse ran out. The mouse got about 6 or 8 feet from me when.. *Whump!* Suddenly there was a gray lump in the grass where the mouse had been. The gray lump turned its head 180 looked at me. It was a pygmy owl, which promptly flew away with his prize.

He was probably wondering how I got to the top of the food chain. Kinda sucked for the mouse though. "I'm free! Oh no! Back to the bucket!"

[PCIntern]

42. Just outstanding!

You must have been amazed...

[lumberjack_jeff]

44. When I came back in, the wife was wondering what was so funny. n/t

[Vinca]

45. You need to buy a little catch and release trap.

I used the standard mouse trap 1 time. The poor little creature I trapped was caught about midsection and he was still very much alive. I didn't know what to do. Finally I took him out to the woods behind the house and opened the trap. He dragged himself out, legs seemingly paralyzed. I was beside myself for what I had done to the little animal. Finally, I made the decision that if he was still there and unable to navigate by a certain time, I'd force myself to clobber him with a rock and put him out of his misery. When I went back he was nowhere to be found so I've always hoped the paralysis was temporary (as opposed to him being an easy snack for the local owls). In any case, I immediately went out and bought a metal trap that's like a giant roach motel. Once the mice check in, they can't check out. You can take them for a ride in the car and release them near the homes of people you don't like. It's almost enjoyable.

[PCIntern]

48. I'll certainly consider it..thanks!

[uppityperson]

46. Had an interesting cat once, cornered a rat under outside stairs, was there for hours with another

cat. They sat and stared and stared and stared. Couple hrs later the neighbor cat went home and the rat tried to get away. I looked out and saw it hopping really slowly across the yard, with my cat walking right behind it. My cat would periodically stop and sit down when the rat paused. The rat then ran back to the cat and tried to hide under it's stomach. Cat would stand up, rat would hop on.

They did this for 30 ft or so. Finally I got an empty cage and went out to put the rat in it. It hid under the cat again, so I easily picked the exhausted thing up by its tail and put it in the cage. I covered the cage and let it rest for a while, then took it to a nearby public pond/wooded area and let it go.

My cat was all "cool, a friend, wtf?"

Now I catch and kill them when I can because they get into chicken food, chicken coop, cold storage, etc where I live now. I tell them they need to move somewhere else, but some stay.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

49. Awwwwwww. I have caught mice here (untrapped) and escorted them out.

When I think about one time in particular I feel bad about it. I sent out a cute field mouse and it was late fall. Meanwhile our pet hamster was cozy and comfy in his nice snug cage.

I escort buggies out all the time and although I used to think that I had to kill hornets and yellow jackets, it seems that I've developed a knack for showing the door unharmed. The most devastating incident I had in regard to insects was with a praying mantis. I found one in my kitchen, safely caught it and when I let it go outside, it flew for a few seconds, landed on the lawn and was promptly picked up by a bird. I sent the poor thing to its death. :-(

[Fla Dem]

52. Used humane traps to catch family of field mice that were nesting in my house.

Caught them all over a period of days. Would put the traps with mice in it, in a box, get in my car and drive to a field with no homes near and release them. All in the same spot, so hopefully they could reunite and be a family again.