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Post by larataylor on Nov 21, 2014 19:34:23 GMT -5
brenda - that one really takes the cake! Blech! NOOOOOO! Did you ever eat peanut butter again?
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Post by lesaulerouge on Nov 22, 2014 2:50:12 GMT -5
Wow, so many vermin stories, not had chance to read them all. But sharing this:
This time around we are using the small sachets of poison paste stuff. Yes it just dries them up, they then stink, but the odd one that we have found has been ok (yeah, gross, but mostly ok) to pick up with the thick work gloves I use for carrying firewood and loading the stoves. I have some red and some blue, so have been alternating them as someone told me that what works for mice won't work for rats, we don't have rats, but those lerots are big things.
I put them along walls / skirting boards, but just on the ground. Dh says they can sometimes get a bit sticky, so I have got them on top of old margarine tub lids, and they are working a treat, the things are happy enough taking them and the floors underneath seem ok (tbh they seem to be dry enough anyway).
We had a box in the stable and dh didn't seal it once he had put some down. A few days later and the entire lot had been eaten, sachets left, from inside the box, so they obviously like it
We tried some blue wheat type poison a few years ago. It disappeared in huge quantities so we kept refilling. Then we found that they weren't actually eating it. It took years to get rid of the last of it - from the blanket box in amongst the clean sheets, in ds's Lego, in dd's doll clothes, cot, pram etc, in the under bed drawers of children's bedding and towels, just everywhere.
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Post by cyn on Nov 22, 2014 9:22:40 GMT -5
Lesau, that's why I prefer the snap traps: they die, and you *know* they're dead. They're perfectly fine to dump outside, because they're not toxic and filled with poison. The pellets *do* end up everywhere! I've found stashes of birdseed mixed with the pellets (probably from the neighbour's shed) and it scares me to thing of pets getting at it, when the mice don't eat it. Even before they die (with certain poisons) and they're searching for water: I've found them dead like this close to my pond. YUCK! I don't want my dogs or cat eating/playing with a poisoned mouse.
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Post by lesaulerouge on Nov 22, 2014 9:27:58 GMT -5
I got fed up of snap traps, they are just so temperamental. Then there is the gross ick factor, the leaking, the mess, etc.
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Post by cyn on Nov 22, 2014 9:38:57 GMT -5
Yup, they can be gross! But even grosser, we sometimes leave them on our stovetop - since this is where the little buggers are searching for food, and pooping - grab 'em when we can, *snap* snapsnapsnap. One night DH caught 6 in a freaking row! That was bad. We had a dozen killed all told, in a 24 hr period. Ewww, when you think how many are actually here, to catch that many.
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Post by larataylor on Nov 22, 2014 10:35:05 GMT -5
You folks are making me feel very lucky … I haven't seen a mouse in this house since we moved here, although it was infested before. DBIL has reported one, but that's all. The inlaws had so many … what's keeping them out now? Did someone plug up the holes? Or does the presence of four cats make them run back out the way they came in?
We also have quite a few outdoor cats roaming around here, and there's been a resurgence in red fox population. Maybe there just aren't as many mice in the neighborhood as previously.
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Post by lesaulerouge on Nov 22, 2014 10:38:49 GMT -5
You know, just cos you haven't seen one doesn't mean they aren't there ! I haven't seen seen one, nor any evidence of one, in a few weeks, yet they are still taking all the poison I am leaving out...
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Post by cyn on Nov 22, 2014 11:04:37 GMT -5
I almost never see them, and if it wasn't for the tiny poop left on the stove then I wouldn't even think about them. The trap's coming back, since this is the time of year they're heading in. My cat kills the odd one, but not enough.
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Post by larataylor on Nov 22, 2014 11:27:02 GMT -5
Okay, then … I won't be complacent, especially with the cold weather starting. I think my "living space" is pretty safe with the four cats, no clutter, and clean kitchen. Except for DD's room - she tends to keep the cats out, and she leaves food around.
The teen den in the addition needs to be completely cleaned for the winter. The kids seemed pretty determined to squalor up their space there. Currently, mice and rats have easy access - cats and foxes do not.
The basement previously had piles of hoarded stuff just sitting unmolested … perfect playground / nesting ground for mice. So I'm cleaning that up, and they will have nowhere (or almost nowhere) to hide, and I'm making activity areas down there so they will be put off by frequent human presence as well. The cats are not supposed to go down there, but they often do anyway. So I'm reluctant to use mousetraps and/or poison just to see if they catch anything.
In the cabin, having people there regularly made a *huge* difference. The inlaws always had problems with mice when they spent every weekend there. When they stopped going, though … it got WAY worse. It turned into a big mouse condo. More recently, we had someone living there with a dog, and the mice stayed out. Now we have a resident without a dog, which is much better than nothing. I REALLY don't want to feel responsible for decluttering and cleaning that place, and I'm happy to have someone there.
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Post by lesaulerouge on Nov 22, 2014 11:35:45 GMT -5
My spare bedroom doesn't have a lot of food in it you know, and no clutter, nor does my bathroom, yet in they come...
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Post by larataylor on Nov 22, 2014 12:00:27 GMT -5
lesaulerouge - I wonder if they're exploring, or looking for warmth. (You probably know better than I do). I'm not saying that uncluttered cleanliness repels them *completely* … just keeps them from building a condo and reproducing themselves right in your home! And I don't think killing the ones that get in will stop exploratory missions, either. If they're out there, your house would have to be totally mouse-tight to keep them out. If I didn't have pets, I would set up something to attract and kill the ones that got in. We did this with the ants, which are really impossible to keep out.
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Post by lesaulerouge on Nov 22, 2014 12:37:16 GMT -5
Gah, ants, that's another fun one...
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Post by wind on Nov 22, 2014 12:45:50 GMT -5
Just a couple of days ago I found evidence of a mouse/mice in my bedroom closet. The only thing we have on the floor in there is guitar cases, but apparently I'd put my box of 5 bags of 500 tea light candles per bag on the floor last year at some point and forgotten it. And yep...they ate/harvested the cardboard, a lot of wax, and even scavenged a lot of the aluminum from the candle casings! No mouse poop, tho. I guess they are or were living in the crawl space under the house (and that side of the house is sort of sinking, so there's a 2 in gap between the wall and the floor. Guess I need to get steel wool to shove in there, in the closet at least?)
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Post by wind on Nov 22, 2014 12:49:07 GMT -5
I'm like a ninja with killing ants. Boric acid, in a variety of concentrations, mixed with a variety of food stuff, like plain sugar water, pancake syrup, and peanut butter, mixed with teeny tiny slivers of tortilla for the workers to take back to the queen and poison her butt. Always kill the scouts and leave the corpse there for his friends to find!
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Post by Ally on Nov 22, 2014 13:51:01 GMT -5
A few years ago I found a dead mouse under a hamper. I found a dried out a gerbil in an over stuffed closet that hadn't been cleaned out in years. The gerbil had chewed it's way out of a cage at one point a couple of years before, and we weren't able to find it. I think it got into some mouse poison. Many years ago, a black snake was living in our house, we rarely saw it and it was a champion at hiding/escaping. One day DD found its shed skin in her closet, which freaked her out. I had a hard time getting her to clean her room after that because she was always afraid that there would be a snake under/behind something.
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