*squeak*

[judecorp]

I just heard that telltale *squeak*. I asked Jen what it was and she said it was a toy. I knew that I'd thrown out the squeaky toy when we moved (it was filthy) and that we didn't have any others, so I told her I thought it was a mouse. And then she saw a mouse run behind a piece of furniture to get away from Fin.

Dear god, what the heck do we do NOW? I don't want any poisons because of the cats and the baby, and I don't think I could handle any snap or glue traps. I could buy some humane traps, but this is the first sign of a mouse AT ALL and I wouldn't even know where to put them because I don't know where the mouse would have come in or is hanging out.

I do NOT need any more stress.

Comments

[photodork.livejournal.com]

cats are the best mouse traps ever.

[snack.livejournal.com]

mothballs. if you can stand the smell - rodents HATE them.

put a couple where you saw mr. squeaker - just make sure the cats don't like them.

[whod81.livejournal.com]

you can tell the mouse by the trail of poop it leaves. look around ...

[cfred.livejournal.com]

One possibility is to dust around the floorboards with a powder (e.g. baby powder) and look for mouse footprints.

Alas, I just took the snap trap approach in my house—one weekend when I went out of town and the dogs were not imperiled. It was successful, because I caught a rat. Thankfully, he seems to be a rogue; I have had no further activity.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Your cats may be enough -- see my comment in Jen's journal :-)

Good luck, and I hope they just go away, like ours apparently did.

[(Anonymous)]

I know it may not seem humane to use snap traps, but do you really want mice in your house? They make covered ones now, so once the trap catches it, all you'll see is the tail haning out, and because of the cover, the cats wont get hurt. Put some peanut butter in the trap, set it, and place it along the baseboards say in your kitchen (best source of food) or somewhere around the cats feeding area. Then you're not dealing with poison, and the clean-up is super easy. You can open the cover and pitch out the rodent, or just throw the whole thing away if you don't have the heart and stomach to look at the little guy! These tips were offered to me by a co-worker who used to work for an exterminator and it worked for me.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

If it comes to trapping, I will invest in some humane traps that catch the mice and then you go release them somewhere else at least 5 miles away from your house. The good thing about those is that you can catch more than one mouse at once (if there are more).

We haven't seen ANY evidence of mice near our food and I made Jen really check the cat feeding area last night - nothing. We moved the cat food dishes up on top of the washing machine (they go up there anyway) to quell any temptations and hopefully just having active cats (by this I mean one active cat) will be enough.

We're having someone come and check our basement to see where it got in.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Except I'm paranoid that they will get sick if they eat the mice!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

We saw the mouse upstairs but we're pretty sure Fin brought him up from the basement. But we haven't seen ANY evidence of mouse activity, so I wouldn't know WHERE to put the mothballs. And aren't they toxic?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

We haven't seen ANY poop. I mean, we have not had any suspicions that we had a mouse!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Hunh, I'd never thought about putting powder down to look for footprints. I guess if the pest control dude can't find a point of entry we can try that in the basement. I'm pretty sure it came in from the basement, because I can't imagine where it would have come in elsewhere.

Yuck, a rat! So gross! Thankfully this was just a little brown field mouse. It was kind of cute, actually - cuter if it had been in someone ELSE'S house. ;)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I hope this was just a freak mouse occurance brought on by the recent cold weather. We had the house totally checked for pests when we bought it, and when we looked at it when the previous owners were still living here, they had food in their pantry which leads me to believe there were no mice. I'm hoping this field mouse snuck in somewhere to try to get warm and then got an unpleasant surprise from the cats - hopefully this will send a message! ;)

But we are going to have someone come and see if they can find an entrance so we can seal it up.

[gimmeapony.livejournal.com]

If you get a mouse person out there, one of the things they can do is identify any access points for mice and put this copper mesh stuff in them (kind of like Chore Boy, but not used in crack pipes). Once they seal up your house, it's just a matter of starving the little fuckers out. Our mouse man told us that pet food is the thing that mice like to eat the most, so we pick up the cat food every night and put it on the counter and sweep up any crumbs.

We flat out refused to have any chemical anything in our condo, although they did spray our basement. They also put sticky traps in our house which I have been tracking down and throwing away because they are the least humane things ever. As much as I hate the idea of killing mice, I'd much rather bust out the oldschool traps than sticky traps. I've tried humane traps before and never caught anything so I don't have a lot of faith in those either. Luckily, I haven't had to resort to any such measures yet.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

The mouse man is here right now, and he had a great deal of Chore Boy. (No crack pipes though - you crack me up!) He showed us where some little mousies were probably making a comfortable home in our insulation, which thankfully is up somewhere that cats cannot get it.

He wanted to put down snap traps (he doesn't do glue THANK GOD) and I said no, but I did agree to let him put these plastic boxes with poison baits in it up in our basement ceiling. He showed me how little poison is in them and how you need a special key to open it and no cats can get it. He also promised he would only put them in the ceiling where people and cats won't touch them. I also made him promise (he must think I'm nuts) that I won't have any cats die from eating poisoned mice. All these promises!

Now WHO KNOWS what will happen but I feel better knowing there is no loose poison, no snap or glue traps, and I /never/ have to see a dead mouse. I told him I was a crazy pregnant woman and the thought of dead mice makes me cry, and he laughed. He does not know how serious I am.

[snack.livejournal.com]

possibly - try cedar oil.

smells better too.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look into that.