Possible Rodent Issue

Cherokeekid88

Cherokeekid88

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2007
Location
High Point, NC
wife heard scratching noises the other night and found some pellets under our sink and adjoining cabinets. With a baby on the way, I want to get this taken care of. Wife doesn’t want to set traps that kill anything and I know we can buy humans traps, but was thinking of calling Terminix or alike to come out and really treat our home. For anyone who has used them, is it worth it? Do you pay monthly, semi monthly?, one time deal?
Any advice on this would be great. Even some home remedies, if they work.

Thanks in advance!
 
Forget the exterminator, they’re just gonna kill the mice like you should. Get some 39 cent traps, smear peanut butter on them, leave them under the sink. Toss in the outside trash can in the morning.

You should find where they are coming in. Under the sink...Critters could be coming in a square hole in drywall where a round pipe passes thru. Stuff some steel wool around any openings like that. Worked for me with the gas line to our dryer.
 
Nature's mouse trap helping me move some dirt at my shop last Friday .
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Cherokeekid88 said:
wife heard scratching noises the other night and found some pellets under our sink and adjoining cabinets. With a baby on the way, I want to get this taken care of. Wife doesn’t want to set traps that kill anything and I know we can buy humans traps, but was thinking of calling Terminix...
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Quoted for hilarious typo.

This kind of thing is generally frowned upon these days:D
 
Get a cat. Don't feed it often. Rodents will vanish.
 
So she doesn't want to kill the mouse? What do you do with it, take it in the neighbor's yard and release it? Or catch it in a sticky trap where it dies slowly?

Regular mouse trap with peanut butter is best. Set two that way mouse #2 doesn't get more than one free meal after his buddy gets squashed.
 
We had a similar issue here. Set both glue and snaps. Closely located. One or the other will catch them. We even found one glued on its back where it was trying to go over some other stuff in the cabinet to get around the traps after it saw a compadre or two get stuck or snapped. They are smart critters. There's also the 5 gallon bucket trap.
 
Get one of these. Sharpen the teeth a little. Mine has a name, "Demoralizer". It took a long time to replace my old victor wooden trap, "Violater".

Super easy to set, no more risking accidental tripping.

If you are feeding deer around your house with corn, your mice situation will stay a problem.


tomcatmousetrap5.jpg
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
wife heard scratching noises the other night and found some pellets under our sink and adjoining cabinets. With a baby on the way, I want to get this taken care of. Wife doesn’t want to set traps that kill anything and I know we can buy humans traps, but was thinking of calling Terminix or alike to come out and really treat our home. For anyone who has used them, is it worth it? Do you pay monthly, semi monthly?, one time deal?
Any advice on this would be great. Even some home remedies, if they work.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I've got the Terminix pest and termite programs and to be honest, I don't think the pest program does much, if anything, for mice. A few years back we had a few mice in the house. Same deal as you experienced - heard the scratching and found the telltale pellets. My wife didn't want the old school mouse traps so we bought some of those traps that are like a little plastic house so you don't see the dead mouse laying there. She was fine with that. Truth be told, I think my wife's fondness for birds brought the mice in. Her idea of bird seed storage was less than ideal. I got some mega duty 5 gallon buckets to store the damn bird seed, and I make sure to clean up any residual seed or scraps in the garage after she fills the bird feeders. The combination of the traps and the improved seed storage has stopped those little bastards. Well, that and the black snakes that roam through every now and then.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Quoted for hilarious typo.

This kind of thing is generally frowned upon these days:D
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HAHA! damn auto correct!
She loves animals and doesn't want to kill them or have to deal with cleaning it up, but I think setting some up where you don't have to touch them but still kills them is going to be the way to go. My wife is also a bird person and we have a big bag of bird seed just sitting in the garage... that ends today.
 
In for more ideas. I'm fighting a current rat infestation, though they are all outdoors at the moment. I've gotten 2 with the good old victor traps so far, no scores with the bucket trap yet.
 
I've got Snips, you can borrow her for a week or two. She is the best rat/mouse dog I've seen. We had rats in the shed at our old house in statesville. We went hunting one day and she killed 8 that day. The biggest was 14" nose to tail IIRC. Got pictures somewhere. I loaned her out to the neighbors and she got the mouse in his house too. She's killed several at our current house too.
07895e6c85e0d3c32e7d5841040ca98b.jpg

I need to dig up the rat pictures.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
HAHA! damn auto correct!
She loves animals and doesn't want to kill them or have to deal with cleaning it up, but I think setting some up where you don't have to touch them but still kills them is going to be the way to go. My wife is also a bird person and we have a big bag of bird seed just sitting in the garage... that ends today.
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Then you best bet is probably the little box-style traps as mentioned. There are couple types, the smaller ones are just the size of their body and snap the neck, but the tail still sticks out so you can tell its in there. Maybe a problem is she needs to not see any part of the animal.
There are also bigger ones that are more like a cage so you can't see the animal at all.

These are also the safest around kids b/c they are all-enclosed and its hard to accidentally catch small fingers etc. But they are pricy and may not work for tiny mice.

I'll stand by what I said about getting a cat. It's more expensive in the long run though. Oh, and hm, may not be compatible with a wife who loves birds lol
 
Yeah, I mean I am not looking to spend a fortune on these things but def want them gone. What about outside? use the same kind of traps? I just worry about birds and stuff to peaking around in there, since we have ALOT of birds that visit our house.
 
Get an outdoor cat. That is what we have. There are no mice around my house.
 
I talked to her at lunch today and I think she is over the not killing em thing.. I think she just doesn't want to see them dead. So we are going to go tonight and try and find some that kill them but you don't have to touch or anything and just throw away or empty.

Noticed that the D Con traps that close once they get inside, that they don't actually kill them, they just trap them and throw them away? So basically they starve to death? I thought it snapped their neck or something.

Might buy some poison to throw in there with the bait.
 
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I hate the bastards that built my house....they'll cut a 2" hole in the subfloor to put two 1/2" pex lines through...thus, plenty of room for mice to get in under my shower tubs, bathroom cabinets, and kitchen cabinets. I set traps, killed all the little bastards, and then stuffed all the holes with tin foil. No problems since.

My dad always kept his deer corn IN the shop and couldn't figure out why he was constantly having chewed wires and airboxes full or corn on anything with a motor. If I leave a vehicle in the shop overnight, it gets at least two traps set under it.
 
awheelterd said:
I wonder how many amps it takes to kill a mouse and will a breaker hold long enough to get the job done? It'd be neat to put one of those in an infested "not likely to burn down" shop on a 50 amp breaker and see how many rats you have in the morning.
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Don't use an AFCI circuit ;-)
 
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