MICE, MICE EVERYWHERE!!!

[Jeannie]

[Faster horses]

We have gone to the plastic traps that someone mentioned earlier. They are a much improved version than the old wooden traps.
We had gotten rid of the mice around here pretty good, but have been working on the basement and have caught a few since then.

I was vacuuming the rug once and there was some funny stuff on the rug. I looked up at the ceiling (we have ceiling tile) and the mice had eaten through the tile and were looking down at me through the hole. ICK!!!

There was a war on around here for awhile, I guarantee you!

Why is it mice don't bother men like they do women? I detest the buggers. And once I have seen one, then I think I see a lot more. When I start seeing 'em, I make HIM as miserable as I can, so he will get serious about getting rid of the mice.

We had several barn cats that were excellent hunters and one by one they died last winter. Don't know what happened to them. All we have left is our OLD house cat. He is a good hunter, believe it or not. He is 12 years old and a neutered Tom with huge, huge fangs. He is a MOUSE KILLER and he and I are buddies. (I'm really not much for a cat in the house, but this one has earned his place!!)

[Soapweed]

When I worked on Frome's hunting camp in 1971, sleeping accomodations at base camp on Turpin Meadow consisted of an old school bus with bunk beds. The caretaker of the camp was about 80 years old, and his name was Jim Romero. He was a good ol' feller, and his pedigree was 3/4 Swede and 1/4 Mexican. He lived in that bus with the bunkbeds, and there was a cook stove in there, too.

When I'd get to base camp with a pack string, my first duty after tending to the horses and mules, was to haul the elk meat into Jackson to the locker plant. I'd go to the KOA campground and pay for the use of their shower first, and would end up eating supper in town, then back to base camp to spend the night. I'd get bedded down in that bus, and it was much chillier in there than it was sleeping on the ground. The cold air would come up from underneath. About the time I'd drift off to sleep, ol' Jim would feel nature's call, and he'd pee in a Butternut coffee can. This would sound like an alarm clock going off, and wide awake I'd get. Sleep would once again overtake me, and Jim would have to get up and go again.

This arrangement was tried the first couple nights I spent at base camp. The next time I arrived with a pack string, I decided to sleep in the feed tent. It was a wooden-floored arrangement with wooden walls up about two feet. A canvas wall tent made up the rest of the feed tent. It was certainly warmer than the school bus, but mice ran rampant and danced noisily throughout the night. On one occasion, I was sleeping soundly when a mouse decided my hair would be a good warm bed. That brought me to full attention in a hurry. After that, the tarp was over my head for the remainder of the nights, with just a tiny hole to breathe through.

Jim would cook me breakfast on the mornings I was there. The menu never varied, and it darned sure filled a feller up. It was always fried eggs, hamburger, and Old Home white bread. Pretty good stuff.

Oh to be young and adventurous again.

[Les]

years ago when the wife and I lived in a mobile home we had a small mouse problem.I trapped 75 of em in less then two months. I bought one of them sonic things and set it up and about a week later went to check on it and the mice had a nest built all around it ,it was covered up completly.So I dont think they work.I too find peanut butter works the best in traps.Ranch wife a mouse in your under wear is not bad I once had one scratching on my arm in the middle of the night as i slept.Didnt get much sleep the rest of that night.

[nr]

Our worst expensive mouse story was finding a nest in our car engine made out of the car wires' insulation.

We now have a kitty in training, we hope a good mouser, and "Rancher" said he'll take care of our mole problem. (the kitty, not Rancher lol)

[Soapweed]

Les: "a mouse in your under wear is not bad I once had one scratching on my arm in the middle of the night as i slept.Didnt get much sleep the rest of that night."

Now, I had to go back and read the posts again. It didn't say "underwear", it said "underwear drawer" (there is a difference ). Had it said "underwear drawers" you would have had a point, Les. Just teasin'.

[Lulu]

WalMart sells those plastic traps under the name of TomKatt....and they work great and you don't end up smashing yer fingers like with the old ones. They will even catch what we call " wharf rats"----mongo rats!

I've got the barn full of them and between the traps and the Blue Heeler dogs I'm 99% vermin free @ the barns and etc.

[Bward]

We bought a brand new mobile Home when we married and lived for 10 years in mouse free bliss, then the smells started to appear... here and there and everywhere. Finally figured out that mice were getting into the insulation under the floor and had the run of the whole place. The smell got so bad I wanted to torch it down....
In desperation I found someone who would foam the underside of the floor and in doing so remove the space the vermin loved to call home and cemetary.
I removed the "bag" under the trailer and all the ( stinky) pink insulation finding a couple hundred carcasses, and skeletons, in various forms of decomposition. I let the underside of the floor air out for a few weeks. Then we had to move the water pipes closer to the floor boards so that they would be covered in the foam when it was placed. That meant drilling holes through every 2 by 10 and threading the water hose from one end to the other. Then the guy came and foamed and sealed the floor with 3 inches of the stuff. ( It is great stuff by the way.... eliminated all wind drafts)

We were good and sweet smelling for 10 years.... by the way I never have had a mouse in the house.
Anyway after 10 years a smell came back. I assumed a mouse had some how got in the furnace ducts becasue the smell was the strongest at the furnace, and everytime the furnace ran the smell would go through the entire house. We hired a furnace cleaner and he brought his big truck and sucked out all the ducts only getting a bit of dust and a few moths. No mouse. He even had a camera that could go down the ducts and into the furnace part and search all the nooks and crannies.... no mouse. The smell was so retched we shut off the furnace and sealed it with thick big garbage bags and duct tape. This was in the middle of winter and we carried on using our fireplace and 3 space heaters for the next several months.

Spring came then summer and it was time to go searching under the floor again. After searching on my back with flashlight and a wire to test for secret openings in the foam I finally after several days found a small burrow hole. I dug through the foam but when i reached around to the heat duct discovered an opening that ran both ways of the duct and realized I would have to remove way to much material to find the carcass that was obviously sitting on the bare heat duct. I sealed up the opening with a can of foam and some wire mesh.

The smell finally went away as the mouse finally dried out.

We realize that mouse patrol is an on going concern and that we need to remain vigilant. We now have severel dozen mouse baits under the trailer to hopefully poison them before they make their way into the insulation and we also use moth balls as repellent. I had spent a fortune on some mouse repellent and it turned out to be napthlene... we drop the moth balls around the perimeter of the inside of the skirting... it does help. Mice hate that smell.

We catch mice around the farm daily ( vermin trap line) using those good plastic traps baited with peanut butter) and our 16 year old outside cat keeps hunting them vigorously. We had two 12 year old siamese in the house and I beleive that just the smell of a cat is a helpful deterent.

That is true about cats hunting.... the better fed the better the hunter. Good luck to all of you.

[Aaron]

Mice and shrews are nothing. Try dealing with red squirrels! Little buggers get into the house through the old portion of the house which has a rock foundation, and go nuts. The worst thing you can do is close up the access hole because they freak out and start tunneling everywhere to find a way out. We found one that had travelled underneath from the basement in the old portion and into the crawl space in the new portion and was scratching the solid styrofoam from around a vent, trying to get out. When we finally heard the scatching, we opened up the vent and found the little guy looking straight at us, completely exhausted.

Two cats handle most of the mice and like to kill the shrews for fun, even though they won't eat them. The male stays around the house and handles the individuals that make it within 100 feet of it, and the female looks after the families that nest in the 1/4 mile that surrounds us.

[Denny]

[Shelly]

[Bward]