[GhostUser]

Help... <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/shocked.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""> I have a mouse in my house that I've been trying to catch. About a month ago I realized that a field mouse got in somehow (a least one always seems to get in once a year). I purchased 'no kill' traps and went through the trouble of putting the little critter in a box after I caught it and took it to a woody place and released it. Well, I notice that I have another a couple weeks ago and have tried to humanely catch it so I can release it like the other. This one is smarter. He's like mighty mouse and I'm having a heck of a time catching him! For obvious reasons, I don't want it running around in the house. The biggest reason I want to catch it quickly is that I don't want it having babies and then having a huge problem on my hands that's out of control.<br><br><br><br>
Anyhow, in the past I've not been so friendly to these little boogers in the way they were rid from the house.. I'd rather not take the approach again of poison, snap or glue traps anymore. It's too cruel and makes me way too sad. But what other options do I have if I can't catch it in the no kill trap? I don't want to become infested. Any ideas?? Please, I'm all ears. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[soilman]

"This one is smarter." Maybe he's the same, now educated as to your tactics, mouse?

 

[soilman]

I don't think it is any more difficult to catch a mouse with a no-kill trap than with a snap-trap. The same baiting techniques apply.

 

[GhostUser]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong then. I think he's messin' with me somehow...I can just picture that mouse hiding somewhere watching me set the traps all the while laughing as he plots his alternative route. Muhahaha!!!<br><br><br><br>
I know they love high fat/high protein stuff so I bait the traps w/peanut butter. He/She/They just aren't going for it. I've spent $40 on traps and haven't caught 'em yet. It's a 2400 square foot house, so I have traps on 4 floors. And me and the neighbors downstairs are not leaving any dog food in the bowls at night time, so I know that they are being 'fed'. We haven't noticed anything else being ate either.

 

[SilverC]

I was going to suggest peanut butter, but since you've tried that....<br><br><br><br>
My mice always used to love cheetos. Not the healthiest for them, I know, but they really loved them. Maybe if you stick some into the peanut butter, it will be irresistable? <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/tongue3.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""><br><br><br><br>
And may I say that I think you are awesome for not using kill traps? I hate those things, so unnecessary and so cruel.

 

[GhostUser]

<div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block"><i>Originally posted by SilverC</i><br><br><b>My mice always used to love cheetos. Not the healthiest for them, I know, but they really loved them. Maybe if you stick some into the peanut butter, it will be irresistable? <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/tongue3.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""><br><br><br><br>
And may I say that I think you are awesome for not using kill traps? I hate those things, so unnecessary and so cruel.</b></div>
</div>
<br><br><br>
Thanks. I'll try the cheetos..I actually have cheese Doritos at home now so I'll give those a whirl. Won't that look yummy...a dollop of PB with a tip of a Dorito square sticking out of it...my, how could any mouse resist???<br><br><br><br>
I can't use the kill traps. My b/f talked me into using them last time we had this problem. I actually said a prayer for them and cried and cried whenever we caught the two that got in. He made fun of me for a while, but just because they are smaller than me doesn't mean that their soul is worth any less. I truely felt like pure crap for days for taking part in the killing. Then I had to put up with the friends making fun of my 'mouse ceremony/service'. It seems like the older I get the more aware I am of the value of life. No, I'm not going through that again.

 

[spud]

English mice love chocolate. I know this because I stored foil wrapped christmas tree decorations in the attic and they ate them. But the traditional bait is cheddar cheese. They also eat bread if it's left out for the birds. They eat seeds in the wild, maybe wild bird seed would interest them.<br><br>
Beware the electric toaster. My neice[lifelong vegetarian] came down one morning in her dads house, turned on the toaster and it blew up - there was a mouse inside after the bread crumbs and it had been electrocuted. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[soilman]

Actually, toasters are unlikely to electrocute you. The mouse probably died of toastation, and probably blew up for the same reasons that pototatoes or chestnuts blow up in an oven, if you don't make holes or scores in their skin to let rapidly expanding (due to heat) water vapor out.

 

[soilman]

I had good results with peanut butter spread on bits of stale bread. They may eat seeds, in nature, but in a trap, i think the smell of peanut butter will attract them more, and from further away. Of course, peanut butter is generally, mostly roasted seeds which have been ground up thorougly, to a paste.

 

[WonderRandy]

we use dried fruit pieces covered in Peanut Butter...<br><br><br><br>
unfortunately, we were forced to take much more drastic measures for the INFESTATION of EVIL RATS we had over the summer.... <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""><br><br><br><br>
I'm a bad pacifist... <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[GhostUser]

Ruthie, your tale reminded me of something that happened Christmas season 2 years ago. Here's an old cut and paste from my gun board; sorry for the Beretta digression . . . . <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/grin.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""><br><br><br><br>
Man, what a holiday season. Mrs. Bank went to an ice show with the kids and her mother last week, and left me alone for the evening (hooRAH). While I was in the den blasting some Alice In Chains into my brain via the headphones, a small chipmunk sized varmint scooted across the floor. I got up and followed it across the room and all of a sudden it took off and leaped up onto the top of the upright piano (from the floor). I thought it was a chipmunk and decided that since it got in, it could get out, so I went upstairs to my guest bedroom/office to mess around on the internet, when it went into the kitchen and was rooting around, knocking over plates, etc. I decided that this thing would have to go or Mrs. Bank would probably pack her bags and go stay at her Mom's until it DID, so I checked the ammo closet, no .22 rat shot in the house. Since I wasn't too crazy about using solids or anything of larger caliber in the house, and since my fat behind clearly wasn't gonna run this thing down, I reluctantly called an exterminator who dealt with these things, and he came over with a truck loaded with all sorts of traps, compressed air tranquilizer guns, etc., and set to work. Turns out I had been invaded by flying squirrels!! Hell, I didn't even know that we HAD flying squirrels in NC, much less the cities; I thought they were like Australian or something. Well, it took $300, 3 trips and some really funny episodes, but this good ole boy finally removed SIX of them from my house over the holidays, and sealed off the chimney and attic vents (their access points).<br><br><br><br>
Anyway, while he was scouring my house in search of the varmints, he noticed a lot of gun stuff, and started discussing firearms and guitars, and I quickly learned that he considered himself an expert at both. He claimed that he was in the Marines and was sent to Panama to "liberate" it from Noriega. Anyway, he told me that he had just been issued a brand new M9 Beretta before deployment, and, while slipping around a corner of a building, came face to face with a Panamanian armed with a SMG. He claimed that he raised his pistol and shot this guy in the forehead at point blank range, whereupon the slide separated from the frame and promptly struck him in the forehead, leaving a scar which he had me examine. After hearing a few more examples of this guy's exploits I concluded that he had concocted some tales based on stuff he had read in gun rags, though he no doubt possessed a small scar, perhaps from his wife's frying pan.<br><br><br><br>
This is the first guy who I have personally spoken to who actually claimed to have experienced first-hand the infamous slide separation which some say was a problem with the earliest M9s. This guy also climbed up into the chimney via the fireplace and was reaching around with thick gloves on when a flying squirrel ran down his outstretched arm, across his shoulder, and down the neck of his tee shirt onto his back, trapped against his skin by the shirt. He came out of my fireplace howling and ran out the front door into the yard, where he was pulling off his shirt in a panic before it fell out and went scrambling up a tree. He had a cut on his neck that was bleeding, and I said sheesh man, you need to go get a shot or something, but he said no, flying squirrels don't carry rabies, and he was up on his tetanus shots, so all was well. Talk about an American hero . . . . Bank, glad to not be a Beretta slide-stopping, flying squirrel exterminator.

 

[spud]

This is turning into a horror movie script thread...

 

[GhostUser]

Hey, sorry about that; I perhaps shouldn't have posted that on this board . . .<br><br><br><br>
Michael, you think this is out of line? Delete it of course if you do . . . .<br><br><br><br>
No offense, folks, and Merry Christmas <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/grin.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[spud]

No offense taken by me, this is the real world we're living in even up here in cyber space. Though I have absolutely no idea what a flying squirrel is.<br><br>
weirdly I got some junk mail today advertising humane traps - it said to use as bait wild bird seed soaked in cod liver oil [how humane is that but that's what it said]<br><br><br><br>
Merry xmas everyone, it's 10.50pm christmas eve here.......

 

[LadyFaile]

how bout lettuce?<br><br>
i remember in girl guides one year at summer camp our cabin had mice. the troop leader was making dinner and dropped a piece of lettuce and went to pick it up and it was gone. then we could hear "munch munch munch" sounds behind the cupboards. it was kinda funny.<br><br><br><br>
pizza hut where i worked had mice, they used snap and glue traps <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""> and the restaurant next door was using poison, which is illegal in restaurants. one day a mouse was sitting in the middle of the dining room, it wouldn't move except to flop over on it's side and try to get back up again. it seemed to be in pain, we figured out it came from next door and was poisoned. i would've taken it and released it on my way home, but since it was dying we just placed it outside in a box and let it go peacefully. a couple of the guys there wanted to kill it by stepping on it or something but i couldn't stand the thought of it and made them leave it alone.<br><br>
i saw so many mice get trapped there, the glue ones are the worst. at least the snap ones killed them pretty much instantly in most cases. glue just sticks them there til they starve to death <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[GhostUser]

I know..it's horrible. Somehow the mouse has been frequenting my bottom dresser drawer. I put a mouse house in there that would catch it so I could let it go but he hasn't taken the bait yet. I have peanuts stuck in a small mound of peanut butter with a little bit of cheese dorito in the middle. Finicky Mouse!

 

[Skylark]

You could always make friends with it like Sara Crew did in the book "The Little Princess". For a time, her best friend was a rat she named Melchisidek.

 

[RedWolf90]

This reminds me of the movie "The Mousetrap" <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/smiley.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[GhostUser]

I've been thinking of 'borrowing' my friends cat. She loves to catch mice. That wouldn't be considered cruel I don't believe, would it? Because, I've never be able to catch the first mouse, and I have a gut feeling that I now have mice (ugh). Gonna have to figure out something before I have to start charging them rent.

 

[spud]

Borrow the cat. The cat smell might make the mice move house before the cat catches them. Unless you find where they are coming inside you'll always have them. Anyway cat's are nice company.