We have a little uninvited guest in our house that seems to elude us. He chewed through our whole box of Easy Mac so when we tried to take out the packets, powdered cheese went everywhere! It was one of those wholesale club sizes too! Had to throw the whole thing away.
He also leaves little "presents" for us that totally grosses us out...especially in the bottommost level of our pantry (where the mac and cheese was).

How do we catch the little booger without killing him? I can't stand the thought of a mouse...much less a dead mouse. UGH!

By Bea on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 03:26 pm:

They sell humane traps, but the easiest remedy is a simple mouse trap baited with peanut butter. It gets them every time. Have someone else empty the trap for you.

By Missmudd on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 03:29 pm:

I have to agree w/ bea, and if there is one mouse you probably have more mice. If you use poison they do have a tendancy to go off someplace else to die. I have only found one dead critter due to poison. GL icky!

By Trina~moderator on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 04:15 pm:

This reminds me of the apartment DH and I rented as newlyweds. Tons of mice! They ate a whole box of macaroni and left nothing but mouse droppings! LOL! You can buy sticky boards at Wal-Mart. I agree with Bea about the peanut butter. Works every time. For chipmunks, too. Our first house had mice as well. They got so bad that we had to call Terminix. They put a huge sticky board with peanut butter in the attic and came monthly to remove it. NOT a job I wanted. Eww! They also put baits in the garage that contained food with poison that wasn't toxic to humans or pets. Apparently they take it outside to their nest, feed the whole family and that's the end of them. Morbid, I know, but rodents can be quite troublesome! BTDT.

By Tink on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 04:27 pm:

I think the sticky boards are the best when you don't want a mouse dying somewhere else. We got them when a new subdivision was being put in and DH would put these down at night and remove them the next morning. We ended up with FOUR of them! Eeew! Peanut butter is what we used as a bait but I recently heard that they love Snickers bars, too.

By Colette on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 04:33 pm:

Peanut butter on a regular old trap. Works every time. If you don't want to touch the trap afterwards, just sweep it into a dust pan and throw it out. Do this before it breeds!!

By Marcia on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 04:36 pm:

The problem with the sticky stuff is, they can suffer and squeal for quite some time. Someone put them out once where I worked, and it was horrible. We've used the good old wooden traps at home.

By Ginny~moderator on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 04:43 pm:

If you have one, you have more than one. And whether you use the sticky traps or the bar traps, either way you have a dead mouse.

Bea and others are right - a thin smear of peanut butter is the best bait. And since they are dead either way, I opt for the bar traps. They are cheap enough that when the trap catches a mouse, I put trap and all in the garbage.

But if you have small children who might put their fingers in the trap, or pets, use the sticky traps. You put the traps in the bottoms of the cabinets where the mice are leaving traces - right next to the cabinet wall, as the mouse tends to stay near the wall. In the basement, put them under shelf units.

This time of year mice head inside where it is warm. You and dh should check your house walls, looking for very, very small cracks and holes, and stuff them with steel wool.

As for baits not being toxic to humans or pets, frankly, I don't believe it. If it is toxic to a mouse, in larger quantities it will be toxic to a human. The way the bait you buy at the store works is that mice don't vomit, so once they swallow the poison (warfarin, a blood thinner, usually) they can't get rid of it.

By Andi on Friday, December 17, 2004 - 04:44 pm:

When we had a mouse in the house DH just set up one of those traps with Peanut Butter on it the next day we had a dead mouse and then DH threw it away. I would take care of it ASAP and kill the little critter...you have a baby in the house and the last thing you need is a mouse getting germs on everything.

Good luck!

By Dawnk777 on Saturday, December 18, 2004 - 01:01 pm:

Regular spring trap, peanut butter, dead mouse. Sweep the whole thing away and get rid of it. No way am I touching the dead critter. I had a friend who took the dead mouse out of the trap so she could use the trap again. No Way! Those things are cheap! Ewwww!

We had mice in our garage once. We dispatched them with spring traps and peanut butter.

By Lauram on Saturday, December 18, 2004 - 03:15 pm:

We have been having such a problem this year with mice- lots of them. Lots of droppings and the cat kept bringing them TO OUR BEDROOM! YIKES! (They were still alive). Finally we patched up a ton of places we thought they might be getting in. We also filled a lot of spaces next to all the pipes because it seemed like that's how they were getting upstairs. We also put out poison (I have no mercy for them at this point). Never saw a poisoned mouse, I have to say- but I did see lots of dead ones from the cat (or partially alive or fully alive ones he had). Since we filled all the hoes (with foam) we haven't had any problems. PHEW!

By Mrse on Saturday, December 18, 2004 - 11:29 pm:

Yes we have had mice also, we think it is due to the neihbours compost, they haveTwo of them close to our house brooms length away from our house. We poisen the mice, but you have to put up any dog food you have because they seek it out as that is the antidote to the poisen, that is what the man said at the farm and feed where we bought our poisen.
One time we had mice in our other house and dh was away in camp and my kids and I set traps, they were really young then, and we would scoop up the trap , with the broom and dustpan and throw it out the window, go buy some more, their was about 10 traps laying on the grass out side the front window waiting for dh to come home. He just laughed his head off because we would not touch the traps. yuck!! Good luck with the problem.

By Kaye on Sunday, December 19, 2004 - 12:15 am:

We have used both traps and poison. I always use poison. I put it in the attic and it always works well. I have never had a mouse die in the wall and smell. I guess I have heard the same thing about going for water too. I figure either way they are dead, I don't want to touch it. I would not put poison in my pantry though.