Eeek! Mice!

[Psyber]

When we had a farm we found conventional spring traps were of limited use. Once they've been triggered that's it. We had some large mesh traps you could spread food in with a cone shaped entrance coming down from the top - they could get in and not get out. Sometimes had 8 in one trap in the morning! But then you still have to kill the little b.....s.

Of course if you live near someone with chooks who is causing the problem you could wrap them in a ventilated shoebox and put nice, but ventilated, wrapping paper over it, and........

[JAS]

All good advice, people. From where do I get peppermint oil - at a reasonable price?

Punky, if you receive a PM from me in a week or two, it will only be because the mice have beaten me

I know Punky is probably curling his lip at the thought but I believe it's quite a traditional method and no, I'm not one of the 'knit your own sandals' brigade.

Obtaining the oil might be a task for Mrs Pseudo. I suggest trying any shop that sells aromatherapy stuff.

Regards
JAS

[Brad]

Have you guys seen the glue traps before? Very effective in catching mice!

[Pseudo]

Have you guys seen the glue traps before? Very effective in catching mice!

If I could find any I'd use them. The glue trap has a distinct advantage which is that it holds the little blighters still, yet exposed from above, so you can whack them with a shovel. I suspect their absence from the shelves of the hardware shops is due to the voices of the namby-pamby tree-hugger brigade, who think that glue traps are cruel to the itsy bitsy meeces.

We have now caught 10 of the buggers since last Monday. 8 of these were disposed, one was released by Mrs Pseudo before I could dissuade her, and the other one got away.

Warning - the following text describes my ongoing campaign against Mus Musculus and is not for the squeamish

By far the most successful trap has been this simple plastic tube thingy... It's got a square cross section, and is bent in the middle. One end has a door which is propped open. Bait is placed in the other end (peanut butter does the trick). The mouse walks in the open end, and climbs up the bend to get to the bait. This causes the whole trap to rock forwards and the door falls shut behind, trapping the mouse within. I acquired this trap on Friday and have since caught 4 mice with it. Much more reliable than spring traps which don't go off.

The only problem with the above trap is that it doesn't kill the mouse. If you don't want to take it for a drive and release it, then you're stuck. I disposed of the first mouse caught with this by tipping it into a coffee jar, screwing the lid on and letting it suffocate. That went smoothly, the mouse was alive but docile when I poured it out. I tried the same trick with the next mouse I caught. This time as I tipped the trap, the mouse sprang out and bolted. Unlucky for him, he went straight for the most obvious piece of cover: an old item of clothing I had been using as a rag, and had left lying on the patio. Enraged, I siezed a nearby broom and walloped the rag six times - at which point the head of the broom broke and flew off. Gingerly I lifted the rag, to find a haemmorhaging rodent, quite dead. Hah - thought you could beat me, you smart aleck mouse...

Obviously opening the trap with a live mouse in place was not a good idea. I resolved to drown the next one before I opened the trap. Went out the back and filled a bucket with water, placed it on the table. Then went and got the trap, mouse intact. As I placed the trap on the table I bumped the door open. Oh shit, I thought. Just give it a little nudge to close it softly... so I nudged it, but not far enough. A little mousey head appeared at the door, and before I could ram the trap closed, the little blighter was off and into the overgrowth. Chalk one up for the mouse.

The next time the trap caught a mouse it was simply dumped into the bucket of water without ceremony and a brick placed on top to hold it down. Several hours later the water was emptied, the trap opened, and a waterlogged mouse corpse disposed of.

Mrs. Pseudo has caught or killed 4 of the critters by her own hand. Three of them were caught by letting the mouse run into one of the daughter's boots. One such mouse was tipped out in the garden. After I persuaded her that this was Not A Good Idea, she tipped the next two out into the aforementioned Coffee Jar of Mouse Suffocation (tm).

I had spent all Saturday morning cleaning mouse crap out of the veranda and plugging up the holes where the mice had been getting in. I finished up at 1:30 and left for the football at 2:00. As soon as I parked the car my phone rang; it was Mrs Pseudo, with shaky voice, telling me that she'd spotted a mouse climbing up her curtains. Enraged, she'd grabbed the nearest blunt object and clobbered it dead. Mental note: never mess with the curtains of a hormonal female...

I set down a number of those "no see no touch" traps you can buy in the supermarket. Thus far only one of them has caught a mouse.

The only other mouse caught was done by one of these snap-traps which you don't bait, but leave in the path of where the mice run. I had never had success with these traps before but decided to give them a go. Within a minute or two of setting down the first one, a mouse wandered through it's jaws, and I had the satisfaction of watching them clamp down upon it. The mouse did not die but did its best to wriggle out. I couldn't whack it with a shovel (the mouse was protected within) so I simply placed an upturned bucket over the top and waited until morning. The mouse expired overnight, but not before doing its best to chew out of the trap. Little flecks of black and yellow plastic surrounded it on the floor.

I have been placing down various forms of poison, and the little buggers have been devouring it by the boxful. Those which do not feel my wrath first hand will no doubt be dying slow, agonising deaths as their little bodies haemmorhage from the inside. Warfarin and bromadione, I salute you!

Sunday arvo I took the war to the mice. Until this point the battle had been fought on my turf. Now I began a massive defoliation campaign to destroy the mices' habitat. Whipper snipper in hand, all overgrowth along the front fence was removed. Donnong leather gloves, all the overgrown weeds and grass along the side of the house were removed by hand in great clumps.

I did also visit the neighbour, who keeps chooks along the other side of the fence. She whitened when I told her how many mice I'd caught. I asked her to clean out her chook run. She countered that her chooks ate the mice!? Reckons they'd simply peck the heads off any mice they saw. Psycho chicken, qu'est-ce que c'est? She did admit to having had a big bag of chook feed in her shed, which she hadn't entered for some time...

So she opened the door to her shed. Instantly I was assailed by an odour which I have not sampled since I did some work on a piggery: the unmistakable smell of stale animal waste. The floor was a mess. An old mattress she had in storage has had large holes eaten out of it. A boxful of scrap paper has been partially shredded, no doubt by mice looking for nesting material. The bag of chook feed is no more but empty husks scattered over the floor, mixed in with copious mouse droppings. A family of possums had moved in and was glowering at us from the roof beams. And yes, she saw a mouse.

Meanwhile, the fight continues. Haven't seen a mouse in the verandah since I plugged up the entry holes. Last night, for the first time since I got it, the "ol' faithful" trap did not capture a mouse. The war continues, but is within measureable distance of its end...

[smithy]

I use these Pseudo - http://www.redboxhardware.com.au/index.aspx?page=products&catid=7&scid=124&gid=1268

Best mouse trap I've ever used.
They are available in home hardware stores for about $5 a pair.

[am Bays]

Psuedo, ROTFLMAO

Had complaints from a colleague two doors up becasue I was laughing so much....

[Brad]

Glue traps work well when the mice start eating each other! Then you use them to catch even more Mice!

[Punk Rooster]

can we lock this topic pls

I will point out Pseudo that we could've fixed this for you, without you spending all your spare time waging war on them!

[am Bays]

can we lock this topic pls

I will point out Pseudo that we could've fixed this for you, without you spending all your spare time waging war on them!

What, and deny the rest of us the next p!ss funny installment in the Psuedos war on Meeces

[Pseudo]

I just got an SMS from 'er indoors. Ol' faithful has just claimed it's fifth victim. Looks like I have a bucket to fill when I get home...

Sorry Punky, but I do rather enjoy the thrill of the hunt. The battle of minds. Invader versus defender. Man versus mouse.

If you like I'll give your number to the neighbour. If she calls you then I insist that you bring your flamethrower...

[smac]

Keep the stories coming pseudo, classic stuff there!

I recall a mouse catching adventure from my teenage years when my parents had just finished building a new home.

The wall furnace had yet to be installed, but a hole was left at the top of the wall frame where the furnace was to be. After running from one side of the wall to the other, Dad worked out that the mouse had fallen down this cavity and was running back and forth trying to find a way out.

Up in the roof space we ventured to investigate. Sure enough, there it was running back and forth. The tools procured for the eradication job was a broom handle with a bbq fork strapped to the end. Dad proceeded to stick the fork into the mouse – got him third shot from memory, pretty good aim I thought at the time.

The ‘trophy’ was passed back to me then to my brother in the garage via the manhole. The mouse wriggled (we thought it dead) and this caused my brother to 5hit himself and drop the weapon. The mouse ran away.

Next morning, a trap laid in the garage (had been there a month or so) had a mouse stuck in it – well and truly dead.

Upon investigation, the mouse had to holes in its back – the bbq fork! Not a great day for that rodent.

[silicone skyline]

Coming off of a farm, i've seen them all.
The most effective trap i ever saw was a well positioned wine bottle over a bucket of water, a dob of cheese in the end.
The mice would attempt to get the cheese, but the bottle proved too slippery at the neck.
Mouse slips off neck of bottle, into water and hold me jack hold me down into the depths they go ...
Lubing up the bottle end with an oil (or lube) also works wonders. In many contexts.
The best mousetrap we ever had and we still do on the farm is a decent cat.
Dad isn't a cat lover and named it "Mange".
Mange still lives today.
We bought the farm in Sep 1997, the cat in oct 97, havent seen a mouse at the house and surrounding area since maybe March 1998.
The cat also became adept at catching rabbits.
Would eat them on my bedroom floor if it snuck in.
Left the paws and poo sack behind.
Not saying buy a cat, because there's alot of them out there, just hire one or something and return it after a week or so.
No mouse will dare venture around.
Might even deal with the chooks too ...

[mighty_tiger_79]

Of Mice and Men

[JAS]

By chance I spoke to my great uncle at the weekend...he's a retired pest controller. His advice was block all possible entry points if possible...continue with the traps...try to eliminate what it is that's attracting them ie the chook feed etc. He did say that in his opinion poison is fine for rats and large rodents but pretty much useless for mice...apparently they become immune very very quickly.

Don't shoot the messanger, just passing on the suggestions of an old pestman Must admit I too am enjoying the saga...my movie title suggestion is 'The Mouse That Roared'...anyone got other suggestions ?

Regards
JAS

[Dogwatcher]

I went on a crazy mouse hunt when I was a kid in Munno Para.

I was hangin out with these guys, who were fairly interesting. One's in jail still for stabbing someone to death, one's dead, not sure about the other. Also, looking back on it, I'm pretty certain that a red light in the front window of their house indicated something about their mother.

Anyways, this one day we crossed the train line and went into a nearby paddock. One of the boys removed his back pack and out came a rabbit trap. We spent the day chasing mice and catching them, while the oldest brother fed them to the trap. By the end of the session he had about 30 mice in the trap.

[Psyber]

Years ago we had an old mini van. Meece somehow got into its simplistic heater assembly from underneath and would enter the car if you opened the manual flap inside. So I took it for a long drive with the internal flap closed and the heat full on - I was going somewere anyway. Thay apparently bailed out at the first opportunity once it got hot enough. But new ones kept turning up periodically until I got rid of the van.

[Booney]

Gold Psuedo.

J.K has nothing on this sordid tail*

[gadj1976]

We got our house sprayed for termites recently and the chemicals they've used keep spiders, insects and mice away.

I'll be dead in 10 weeks time cos of the inhalents, but they do a good job with the mice.

[Dutchy]

Looks like I have a bucket to fill when I get home...

I trust that is recycled grey water Pseudo...otherwise your breaking the water restriction laws!!!!

[Pseudo]

I trust that is recycled grey water Pseudo...otherwise your breaking the water restriction laws!!!!

Well it's grey water after the mouse has drowned in it, right?

This evening's developments:

I got home to find "old faithful" snapped shut. I picked it up and dumped it in the bucket of water. Held it under 'til it filled with water, then left it. Had just enough time to eat dinner and listen to Mrs Pseudo brag about how she found a mousehole behind the oven and plugged it up, then I had to clear out for an evening class.

Got home to find the missus sitting in front of the telly with the sound turned down. "There's another bloody mouse got in, it's sitting behind the telly cabinet". She's half pissed off at the mouse, and half pissed off at the fact that it means her earlier plugging job didn't work. I figured I'd better set up old faithful again.

So I go out to the bucket, fish around gingerly in the water, hold the trap up and knock the lid off with a broom handle (the same broom that I broke while smiting an earlier rodent, see previous story). No mouse comes out. "Great", I think, "It's stuck to the sides". I dip the trap in the water and swirl it around. No mouse comes out. I look into the trap. Empty.

That's right, I'd just drowned an empty trap.

I am beginning to think that this battle of myself versus mouse is actually a pretty even match, mentally speaking...

So I head back in. The missus goes to the kitchen, and I go to look behind the telly cabinet. At that moment the mouse pokes his head around. We both recoil in surprise. I back up, and the mouse appears again. He strolls slowly away from the cabinet, walks wholly around the perimeter of the "no see no touch" trap I have left lying on the floor, with no indication of wanting to actually enter it (the bastard), and heads slowly to the corner of the room. There is clearly something wrong with this mouse. Maybe it has a gut full of warfarin, for it is moving at quarter speed, and is showing little interest in its surroundings. I warn the missus who is in the kitchen, and she turns to wait for it to come around the corner. The mouse idly appears from under the sofa, walks under a bookcase (slowly, slowly), then strolls out the front and starts idly heading towards me. I could have stomped on it, but instead I stepped out of the way, and the rodent casually sauntered right past me and into the spare room. Yep, this mouse was in la-la land.

The missus locates the mouse in the corner of the spare room, then has me fetch her favourite mouse removal tool: one of the daughter's boots. She places this on the floor, watching, and after a minute or two announces that the mouse has crawled inside. She picks it up and heads for the Coffee Jar of Mouse Suffocation (tm), but I have another idea: why not let it loose in the bucket of water and let it drown? We go out back, and Mrs. Pseudo holds the boot over the bucket and inverts it. She shakes it. No mouse falls out. "He's in the toe", she exclaims, and shakes the boot harder. Eventually she looks in the boot. Empty.

No, this contest is not evenly matched. The mice are miles in front of us.

So we head back into the spare room, and the mouse is still sitting there, oblivious to all its surroundings. This time 'er indoors really does capture the mouse, which is taken out the back and dumped ingloriously into the bucket.

We looked within, and saw the mouse swimming slowly clockwise around the perimeter of the bucket. All very anticlimactic. No thrashing around, no gasping for last breath, just slowly, slowly, clockwise paddling. The missus went indoors, and 5 minutes later I was still there, watching the mouse.

I thought it cruel to let the bugger paddle all night until it ran out of energy. So I grabbed an old mop. This mop was of the squeegee variety: composed of a rectangular sponge which the user could squeeze dry by pushing the handle forwards so the sponge folds along the middle. Holding this over the mouse, I clamped on it with the sponge and held it under the water for a few minutes. Unsurprisingly, this dispatched the little fella to mousey heaven, and I dispatched his sodden corpse into a plastic bag and then into the trash.

"Old faithful" is getting reset tonight...