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Mouse in the house


RickB
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what to do with a mouse  

48 members have voted

  1. 1. what to do with a mouse

    • set mouse traps
      23
    • shoot it
      11
    • get a few cats
      17


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Put down a plate of rat poison, or set one of those metal traps baited with something sticky like margarine or cooking fat. Cats are unreliable, not all come with the mouse hunting gene pre-installed.

 

Shooting it works too, if you're a good shot. We had a minister who did that once with a 12 bore, he wasn't, he missed the mouse and made the mousehole in the manse skirting board in to a rabbit hole.

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Humane traps will make you feel a whole lot better........the sort of trap that captures the mouse alive inside a clear plastic box so you can then release it miles from home.

 

Our reaction to mice and rats is strange........wanting to kill any wild ones that have invaded "our" space but at the same time being happy for people to keep them as pets.

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The poisoned grain stuff has worked for us on occasion, a little bowl of it left in the loft/eaves seems to work every time. The bait needs to be somewhere the mice are comfortable eating it i think. Animals are lazy and wary, but ie a young dog will jump up to the worktop when enticed by a sunday roast, but wouldn't bother with a dry biscuit. Mice are the same, if they like it enough they'll go for it (chocolate), but if it's merely "okay" (grain) it needs to be somewhere accessible and safe.

 

On the humane front,here's an Olde Worlde version for you: Take a medium sized bowl, brush some oil/butter/margarine around the inside of it. Next get some oatmeal and pour it in, the roll the bowl around in your hands to make the oatmeal coat the bowl by sticking to the oil, if you see what i mean. Next place the upturned bowl on a plate in the desired location, then lift up an edge of it and balance it on the edge of an upright coin (tricky). Now, when the mouse enters the upturned bowl to get to the oatmeal, he will lean against the side of the bowl to sniff/eat around it and knock the bowl off the coin. Caught!

I suppose you could try the same with chocolate spread, but that would be a waste. :wink:

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"Shooting it works too, if you're a good shot. We had a minister who did that once with a 12 bore, he wasn't, he missed the mouse and made the mousehole in the manse skirting board in to a rabbit hole."

 

Ah yes, good old Rev Fisher. To be strictly true, it wasn't a 12 bore but a 410 shotgun that he used. Still not adviseable indoors!

 

Although we have no signs of mice at the moment, the field mice always make their way indoors at this time of year & I set one trap on Saturday in anticipation. I put lard on the trap - no success so far.

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Caught one yesterday in a trap that is supposed to kill, but it just trapped it. Ended up having to drown it in a bucket, but didn't feel too guilty as it has crapped all over my printer, eaten my camera case corner and nibbled the scroll wheel of my mouse - a relative surely!?

 

Dont poison them. They go off to die in the most inconvenient of places and smell really bad as they decompose

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The 410 is certainly the weapon of choice for shooting mice within the confines of the house. They are light and fast, and can easily be hidden from unsuspecting mice as you stalk them in the kitchen! 8O

 

I believe that well over 100 people in the Ness used "mouse control" as the legal basis for shotgun ownership in the good old days! :wink:

 

Obviously many contemporaries on this board! :D

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"Shooting it works too, if you're a good shot. We had a minister who did that once with a 12 bore, he wasn't, he missed the mouse and made the mousehole in the manse skirting board in to a rabbit hole."

 

Ah yes, good old Rev Fisher. To be strictly true, it wasn't a 12 bore but a 410 shotgun that he used. Still not adviseable indoors!

 

Although we have no signs of mice at the moment, the field mice always make their way indoors at this time of year & I set one trap on Saturday in anticipation. I put lard on the trap - no success so far.

 

I am educated! The tale was relayed to me at the time by an old grand uncle, whom Mrs Fisher did occasional housework for. He just described it as a shotgun, but I doubt he appreciated there were more than one type, he was an old Navy man, so bigger guns were more his field of expertise.

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I cannot stand mice in the house, always a problem in Edinburgh flats. The plastic traps are next to useless, but the metal "spring loaded" bad boys are better.

Obviously keeping food out the way, and the place clean is a good start too. Are mice a big problem in Shetland?

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They love peanut butter too

Yeah I wis going to say, that's what we used to put in our traps!

 

Then we got a cat "Flippy" and never seen a mouse in the house again! (The year before we got him wir neighbour caught 40 mice in her garage and after we got Flippy she only caught two the next year - coincidence? I think not!)

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