Anyone else plagued with mice this year?

[Frogtop]

Originally Posted by yetiman

They got in my boat this past winter and I discovered a nest. Then they were getting in my shop and creating a huge mess. I poured kerosene down the holes I could spot. Have seen several dead ones around.....We have 2 dogs back there so I don't expect a snake would come take care of this problem for us but about ready to hire one....

Rent-A-Snake? Snakes-R-US? You have a ready access to snakes? I have a large tobacco barn on my hunt property and it has ready access to mice. I have an incapacitated 4 wheeler now due to mice. I have been given a recipe for mouse treatment that is a mixture of hydraulic cement and corn meal at about a 1:1 ratio. Put this in trays or al foil in travel areas. The advantage to this is it's cheaper than commercial mouse bait/rat bait and is effective.

[Frogtop]

Originally Posted by cycloneman

Terry

You will allways have a problem because I hear they leave a residue of some sort that will attract others. I had some under the hood of my car. My white SS. Lucky i caught them early but I was angry. That is when i had the car in New Orleans. Some years later I moved to Covington. A few years later I had more in the exact same place. I used bait to kill them.
Anyway a guy from a pest control place told me they will be attracted to the same place because of a smell or oil they leave behind.

It's the mouse urine. They urinate and defecate frequently as they move about and this is the indicator to other mice. It is also the means by which they contaminate food and food sources. If you have access to a black light you can see the dried urine as it readily flouresceses. This is the way that food and drug inspectors check for infestations.

[gdmoody]

Your comment about the mice building a nest in the blower motor sure hit home. A few weeks ago, I got around to changing the cabin air filter in my 2007 Civic. It had been chewed up and a pretty good sized rats nest was in the blower fan blades. There is no telling how log the nest had been there cause I haven't changed that filter for at least two years and probably more like four years. I guarantee that I will check it every couple of months now!!

[ampaterry]

Originally Posted by Frogtop

Rent-A-Snake? Snakes-R-US? You have a ready access to snakes? I have a large tobacco barn on my hunt property and it has ready access to mice. I have an incapacitated 4 wheeler now due to mice. I have been given a recipe for mouse treatment that is a mixture of hydraulic cement and corn meal at about a 1:1 ratio. Put this in trays or al foil in travel areas. The advantage to this is it's cheaper than commercial mouse bait/rat bait and is effective.

I have not used it, but I have a friend that used the cement trick.
His recipe was simply Portland Cement and flour, 1:1.
It worked for him.
The mouse eats the flour, ignoring the cement he is ingesting at the same time. The cement is activated by the liquids in his stomach, and becomes wet concrete. Somewhere in his digestive tract, it sets up and he is done for. The HUGE advantage of this over poisons is that it is a ONE TIME kill; any other creature eating a mouse killed by this method will not be harmed. You kill the mice, and protect the cat.
Kinda humorous, in a sick sort of way, but he told me he found one mouse, very dead, all hunched up like he was in the middle of defication. Protruding from his rectum was about a quarter inch of a tubular shaped piece of hard concrete.
Terminal constipation.

[ampaterry]

OK, this morning there were no mice in the under-the-hood traps.

One cat litter-box was due to be cleaned, so I sprinkled it around the outside back of the car-port.

Today, I am building one of the five gallon bucket-and-can traps, and will put it between the two vehicles.

ONE problem; we have lots of raccoons, possums and squirrels here, and they will probably mess with it -
By only using 3" of water, though, I will not be hurting any of them.

If I start catching mice in the bucket, I will make two more and set them out, then stop putting the traps under the hoods of the vehicles, as I keep thinking what a mess it would be if I forget them and start the engine -

Thank you, guys!

And no, I will NOT try to burn them - LOL!!!

[ampaterry]

I made the bucket trap yesterday, and set it out by the car.

This morning, I learned that the trap works, but is not suitable for my situation.

There was a drowned mouse in the water, but the soda can was completely destroyed; crumpled up and holes bitten through it.

We have a lot of pussum here, and some raccoons as well, so short of building a cage around the trap to only allow mice in, it has no advantage over a regular mousetrap in my area.

[ampaterry]

Update -
I put the 5 gallon trap in a small wire cage.
Some critter reached through the bars, scooted the can to the side, then ate the PB off the soda can.

I bought a large dog kennel type cage and set the bucket in the center of it.
Some critter STILL reached the bucket, scooted it to the side, and ate the PB off.

I build a wooden frame to prevent the bucket from being scooted, and set it again.
The next morning, the buckets (by now I had two in there) had been upset, and the PB eaten off the can.

I reduced back to a single trap, took bailing wire and wired it to all four sides of the cage to make SURE it stayed in the center.

It was undisturbed for a week, and no more mice in the traps under the hoods of the vehicles.
Yesterday, I removed the traps under the hoods, and smeared a little frest PB on the can.
This morning, I had two mice floating in the water.

We have the fox with babies in the back yard eating mice -
Two days ago, my wife found a four foot rat snake living in the well house - and they eat mice.
Between that and this trap beside the vehicles, I do believe this problem is whipped.

THANK YOU, GUYS for the suggestions and help with this!

[ampaterry]

One little tip on making this trap.

Soda cans cannot be drilled in the center of the top due to the location of the tab.
And they are VERY soft and subject to damage.

Buy one of the Venom Energy drinks.
They are quite tasty, and they are made of VERY heave aluminum, NOTHING like a Coke can. Also, they have a screw-on lid which can be drilled in the exact center!
The only drawback is that I am now hooked on Venom's Mango flavor!

[Frogtop]

Originally Posted by ampaterry

Update -
I put the 5 gallon trap in a small wire cage.
Some critter reached through the bars, scooted the can to the side, then ate the PB off the soda can.

Sounds like you have been dealing with a 'coon. I am taking my ATV in for service today because mice nested in it and evidently modified the wiring such that it won't start. It's a 2010, all electronic and I have no idea how to find a broken wire or a short. I put out about 2lbs of the corn meal hydraulic cement mixture in the barn so let's see how my mouse control project will turn out.

[MSGT-R]

Originally Posted by gdmoody

Your comment about the mice building a nest in the blower motor sure hit home. A few weeks ago, I got around to changing the cabin air filter in my 2007 Civic. It had been chewed up and a pretty good sized rats nest was in the blower fan blades. There is no telling how log the nest had been there cause I haven't changed that filter for at least two years and probably more like four years. I guarantee that I will check it every couple of months now!!

Cut a square of expanded metal mesh and screw it across the opening. Your mice can't get in there anymore.. I do that to motorcycle intakes, or they build nests in the airbox.

My big problem was ground squirrels until the two lots next door got houses built on them (lots of dirt dug out). One year we trapped 30 ground squirrels and took them for a ride to the other side of the freeway! They had discovered that ornamental citrus bushes were yummy and almost denuded the three of ours completely!

[ampaterry]

Originally Posted by Frogtop

Sounds like you have been dealing with a 'coon. I am taking my ATV in for service today because mice nested in it and evidently modified the wiring such that it won't start. It's a 2010, all electronic and I have no idea how to find a broken wire or a short. I put out about 2lbs of the corn meal hydraulic cement mixture in the barn so let's see how my mouse control project will turn out.

I think you are right about a coon - we have several around here.

Worst damage I had was to our motorcycle a few years ago.
$600 worth from darned mice chewing up wiring.
The bike is FULL of openings big enough for a mouse, so no way to block them. I parked it with a ring of mousetraps around it, and that did the trick -

[howlnmad]

No real major issues here. Got woke up a few weeks ago to the piano playing. We figured it was either the ghost in the house or a mouse. Since Margarette has never played the piano before, we just set some D-Con bait boxes. The bait is gone and no more signs of mice or sounds of music at night.

[Frogtop]

Originally Posted by howlnmad

No real major issues here. Got woke up a few weeks ago to the piano playing. We figured it was either the ghost in the house or a mouse. Since Margarette has never played the piano before, we just set some D-Con bait boxes. The bait is gone and no more signs of mice or sounds of music at night.

You killed a piano playing mouse? What were you thinking? I guess that's one act Americas Got Talent will just have to miss.

[whymememe]

When I lived away from the city, It was not uncommon to open a desk drawer and find a 4-8 inch rat there. He would scurry over the back side of the draw. In my attempt to catch him I would find that there were 2 or 5 more in there. They chewed wires in my car also. It was like a horror movie. I put spray foam around all the pipe openings, put a wire mesh screen in the dryer vent hose, put out some DE-CON, got a couple of cats. The rats ended up dying under the house, after the smell of the decomposition went away they were done.

The mouse is a force to be reakoned with. I was at Wendy's drive thru once and I noticed a medium sized rat jump down from underneath the van in front of me. I quess he smelled food. The Van Moved forward, the rat stay on the ground but stayed near the van. The van driver recieved his food at the window and started to driver away, the rat almost got left behind. He had to run and struggle but he managed to get back onto the undercarriage. It was like his own little motor home. The van driver was none the wiser.

[BlackEagle]

I had squirrels in my attic. I was afraid they would chew up the wiring and start a fire so I set a live trap and sat down at my desk to do some work. Within 15 minutes I heard the trap go off! I put the squirrel and trap in the back of the car, covered with a blanket and drove to the park a couple of miles away and released it. Reset the trap; in all I caught 5 squirrels. I know squirrels are smart, so I took a different route to the park each time so they wouldn't find their way back to the house.

[whymememe]

I did catch some with the glue trap, I with spare you the details of how they were dispatched.

[geds]

Terry - I thought about you when we were at the lake cabin last week. We've gone to an old cabin (built in the 30s) and no way to mouse or critter proof for over 30 years. We always have to spend a couple of hours de-mousing and cleaning before unloading the car. This year the mice were the worst we've ever seen! I got one next from between the matresses in one BR and another out of the bottom drawer in the oven. There was so much mouse poo in the drawer, I could not clean it and had to throw away some of the pans stored in it. The kicker was when my daughter pre-heated the oven to cook birthday brownies, we could hear the squeeking of mice while smelling the crematorium! They had built another next inside the insulation of the oven!

The wife and daughter said to get them out of the house and find someplace else to stay or they were going back home! I found a nice, new house for rent just down the road and moved us that night. We had a wonderful stay the rest of the week and everyone agreed we will rent from here on instead of stay in the family cabin!

[vaskeet]

I have multiple bait boxes under my house and in my barns. when they cleared the land next to me I was filling the boxes every other day Randy