We hate doing in mice, but we have to defend our stuff in the garage.
Jane ordered some flatpack anti-mouse stuff that should have arrived by now.
We think it is now mouseproofing the underside of our porch.
The absolute kicker? We think we know what it may be.
by CJ | Nov 7, 2015 | Journal | 15 comments
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Or be like DH who set traps for them and then took them over to the cemetery a couple of short blocks away and let them loose over there.
Well, shucks! Is it the sticky glue traps, or some other anti-mouse thing?
As a cultural sidelight, this morning’s storytime was about mice and other small animals. We made small paper mice out of paper cones and the wire twisties you get off of loaves of bread. At least they don’t go around at night nibbling on things they ought not.
I really dislike the glue traps…to me, those are unnecessarily cruel, as the puir beastie starves to death. Better the snap trap that kills instantly than the slow death of starvation.
I haven’t seen a mouse in my house since I left the farm 3-1/2 years ago. Either the girls have kept them away, or else the mice have decided that coming into this house is certain death.
I prefer, also, the quick demise.
The quick de-mice? Ouch….
I don’t have cats, nothing much against them but I’m more of a dog guy. In the house I use the metal traps. (Though they do not always kill instantly–had one trapped by the hind end that dragged the trap about 7′ across the carpet before expiring! It was one of those pheromone impregnated traps.) I use “Cinch” traps for gophers, ‘”Out-o-sight” traps for moles. I think “uncontrolled killing”, i.e. poisons, is quite undesireable. Although I do use it in a little-used detatched, well enclosed, garage, strychnine poisoned grain must be carefully used. It contains a protective emetic for other creatures, but that is ineffective in the mouse/rat carcases. Fortunately for cats, they aren’t interested in dead mice. Other critters aren’t so choosy.
Donc sous les échelles étaient un beau lieu sans souris….
bien sur que oui!
Honi soit qui mouse y pense–“Evil to him who thinks evil of mice,” motto of the Order of the Garbage.
[ob-cat:] Pre-pubescent, I conceived the notion of having mice with my cats. My pet mice were not secured well–one get through amazingly tight bars–and my cat retrieved the offender; proudly brought him into the family room in his mouth, tail rotating like a propeller; and released him on command, or harsh words, anyway. My mom’s cat would bring dead birds; mine would bring live mice, butterflies, and calmly released them on command–not without wistful, hunting glances if they looked interesting in their escape.
I don’t know if he taught a lesson in confident and quiet competence, but when my mother was stressed over divorce, I learned one from him. Bless him.
Au-dessous le souris, le sou se reste sans sortir.
— Let’s see. You have a crevice leading under the porch and a potential rodent issue.
— Upon reflection, the solution should’ve been obvious. You need a flatcat.
My browser’s spellchecker has never read Heinlein and wants to change that to “flatcar.” Though sice the original problem was in the garage, I suppose a flatcar makes as much sense.
Though flatcats got a bad reputation for eating what was in the hold, there isn’t a clear statement that the flatcats were not aeating flatmice, and therefore omnivorous in addition to the quadro-triticale. Er, I mean, the wheat. Or whatever was in that hold. … Do flatcats eat tribbles, or the other way around?
Hmm, clearly overthinking this.
Say, was all that grain intended for pancakes? Or… Will it waffle? 😉
I was gonna say, real clever like, I have heard of a church mouse and a dormouse but not a porch mouse. But to be sure I googled church mouse….who knew?
Well, if the mice nibble it in situ it will still be doing its job, and it sounds as if nothing else would be able to get at it there. Maybe best just to leave it there.
Our new-to-us house had quite the murine infestation, thanks in large part to the incompetence of the yahoos who originally constructed the place. There were some gaps in the siding even on the second floor, and mice clambered up the outside of the house to get in. Persistent little critters! Unfortunately, they would also chew on the insulation covering electrical wires, make nests and highways in the fiberglass insulation (many, many generations had done so), chew on some of the plumbing lines, etc., all of which make them very unwelcome co-inhabitors, even without their trails of urine and droppings. 1/4-inch wire mesh with sharp edges and expandable foam insulation in all openings seems to have eliminated their access points to the house (no mice since mid-July). Our long-suffering contractor found many, many mouse carcasses (100+) in the walls during the repairs.
The garage has plenty of entry points, so we have no expectation of keeping mice away from that space.
The New York Times recently posted an article which included info on using fragrance to dispel mice. I plan to try those non-toxic and non-lethal products in the garage and in my car. Sort of the opposite to the Feliway/Comfort Zone diffusers we use for our cats. Wish me luck, eh?
Here’s the link to the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/realestate/of-mice-and-apartment-sales.html
The best mouser we ever had was one of our fox terriers. She caught more than all the traps combined, in the years we had ‘visitors’. She’d bring the little dead things to the living room and leave them by the front door.
True love. 🙂