How to get rid of mice?

[kasper]

Just get some rats,they will take care of your mouse prob.........cheers

[GNJC]

Mouse-hounds.

[rthibeau]

lay in wait for them with a .22 cal rifle......might take days or weeks, but eventually you will get them all

[FordPrefect]

Well here is a method I seen used by hunters, where I use to hunt, they would leave a 5 gallon buckets, put a little corn in it, and leave it sit in the shack, after they winterize it, once the mice get in buckets, they can't get out, it's that simple, they usually use many such buckets at strategic location around the hunting shack. Good luck.

[iron woodrow]

nice python geoff!!! if it has any young, i could do with a mouse detterent!!

[Trip]

put out a pan of Coke-a-cola!!!! they can't burp, so they will just....uhhhhh...... explode from the inside out.

[etech669]

nice python geoff!!! if it has any young, i could do with a mouse detterent!!

G'day woody, just found this post, yeh this guys OK so is his buddy the tree snake, it's the 4' brown that's in there that I don't like, stroppy little bugger it is, might be time for a ground level clean up and an eviction. :angry:

[Adirondacker]

Lots of good advice, so will throw my 2 cents in, for mice peanutbutter or honey and a trap, works good for me, don't like poison as the mice crawl off and die, one little mouse can make a big stink. Mice crap is nasty and should be cleaned up carefully. Red squirrel a different story they can burn your house down as noted by a post above about chewing wires. 22 rifle does the trick, takes a pretty good cat to catch one, we have a rat terrier, jack russell cross that gets one once in a while as does the cat . We had a run on chipmonks this summer, they can climb and chew also, but are easier to catch than red squirrels.
Adirondacker

[hildenmw]

My slack tub does a nice job. Insulation in my gas forge seems to be good bait.

[Tommy Traylor]

D Con. And don't worry if they crawl under a machine to die. They only stink for 3 days.

[BillsSS]

As winter is fast approaching this is a great topic. I used to dislike cats immensly. However I finally got tired of constantly removing the nests and fecal matter from my machinery so I asked a friend for some of his farm kittens. Best move I EVER made. I have zero squirrels, mice, rats, voles, moles, rabbits or anything else smaller than a cat. They follow me around like dogs. Sometimes they can be a pain like when they jump on the bench and get between me and what I'm working on and footprints on the vehicle. Overall they are great and wouldn't trade them for the world. They stay outside and I have had zero issue with mice and their associated damage since, nor do I have to empty traps or smell dead mice that got in the walls from poison.

[Woody]

You might want to read up on the Hanta Virus carried by rats and mice before you have a lot of them around. Make sure you wash down any areas contaminated with urine or feces with a good strong bleach solution. Hanta Virus is extremely contageous and some strains are extremely lethal. It has been found in every state in the union. Several years ago they tested people in Baltimore who were on dialysis for kidney failure and all tested positive for the hanta virus. They can also harbor the fleas that carry bubonic plague. Yes there is plague in the U.S. I think there was a case or two in Colorado this year. Here in South Dakota we have Bubonic Plague wiping out many large prairie dog colonies.

[eseemann]

When I had mice in when I was living in a farm house I put down traps but got little results until I bated them with keebler pecan sandies cookies and I was getting 2 and 3 at a time. 

[terrynewsmith]

mice HATE THE SMELL OF MINT i tsp of mint oil in a gallon of water few drops of dawn dish soap

shake well spray as needed smells good to ...soda pop in a pan they cant burp ...flour and portland cement with water nearby mint is easyer

 

[Judson Yaggy]

I had a weasel move into my shop in the depths of this most recent winter.  He ate every mouse, rat (we live near a big dairy farm) and red squirrel he could find and then moved on.  It was such a good hunter that I'm only now, 3 months later, starting to see mouse sign again.  I wish he'd come back but my wife worried about her chicken eggs!

[Quarry Dog]

It's been a good long time since I've had a rat problem, but here in southern California it seems like one of the biggest rodent problems is gophers.  I know of 2 really good ways to eliminate entire colonies of the ugly little buggers:

• The first involves covering up any of their holes that you can find and running a tube from your car exhaust into their tunnels.  When you see a puff of dust from an uncovered hole, cover it.  Run the vehicle for at least half an hour.  This is not as effective as the next method, and they return in a couple of months, due to the exhaust being heavier and some areas being well ventilated enough to prevent them from asphyxiating.
• Even more effective is to take an oxy-actylene/propane torch, strike it up, and tune for a perfect flame.  Extinguish the flame by smothering QUICKLY in a thick piece of leather.  Once smothered, insert the torch into a hole and let it run for at least 15 minutes.  Pour a gasoline trail into the tunnel and light it.  You will hear a thump and see little puffs of smoke radiating across your yard, indicating where their airholes used to be.  This will "eliminate" any animals in this tunnel system, as they have inhaled the EXPLOSIVE mixture, and it may also visibly cave in shallower tunnels, as I'm sure it does for portions of the deeper tunnels.  This is effective for about 6 months, only because eventually neighboring colonies will figure out that this tunnel system is uninhabited.  Hopefully snakes move in instead.

• If you're dead set on coexisting with them, or if you just want to be ready for when they eventually come back, you can take preventive measures when you plant something, use the aviary wire with the half inch openings to make a basket around any plants that stand at least 3 inches above ground (they come out at night sometimes and they will crawl over smaller barriers).  Make sure that the bottom of the basket is solid, unless the basket will go more than two feet below the ground (the deepest they're supposed be able to dig is 18 inches).  They may try to chew through the basket, but as soon as they climb through, they will get nicked, and they will bleed to death, as their blood does not seem to clot.  I would advise not evening attempting this with a full lawn.  As a matter of fact, in southern California, I would suggest a layer of weed barrier followed by 3 inches of pea gravel.  Virtually no maintenance, no watering (lawns are expensive around here), and nothing to attract the gophers.

   

Hope this helps someone.

 

Use of an oxy-actylene/propane torch is NOT recommended as you are putting an explosive gas into a container, the tunnel.  It may also travel into a foundation of a building or the building itself. When ignited you may destroy things you had not intended to destroy.

[neg]

Since my shop is located in a heavily wooded area, I keep the D-con bait packets out year around. The bait packets pretty well keep the mouse population under control for me.

When we first moved into out house, we had a problem with rats. We grabbed some baseball bats, killed a few, and even my cat got a couple. Then we used the D-con bait traps and they never came back. Those things seem to work pretty well.

[FRODO,]

hungry cat.   i got 2  wild ones     you want em?   

[knots]

Implemented a new method yesterday. I call it direct action extermination. One ran in front of me and I stepped on it . Natural selection in action.

[steevo99]

Shop Vac!

[LawnJockey]

A method we started using recently is mix dry 2 cups Quaker Oats oat meal and 1 cup plaster of Paris powder.  It plugs them up real good and you don't have to worry about poisoning the cat.

 

Another method my daughter discovered at our place in New Mexico is to leave a 5 gallon bucket out half filled with water.  The pack rats go crazy over it and we catch 8-10 per night.

[Glenn]

We try to discourage rodents by putting a black snake down the hole. The snake smells food, The rodents wake up with no way to get out except meet the snake face to face. The rodents usually abandon the tunnels in great haste once the snake has arrived, not to return for a while.

[notownkid]

I prefer D Con in the shops and barn as long as no cats are around.  If you go the trap route HOme Cheapo has some white plastic ones with wicked teeth, real easy to set, great peanut butter holder and can use over and over, never have found an empty sprung trap, we use them in the house instead of D Con to keep dead mice from stinking up the place.  We have a cat in the house and he shows great interest when we dump the dead mice out of the trap.  He caught one once and took it up on the couch and dropped in my wife's lap, that living room looked like it had exploded.  Either way get it in there early to catch them on their first trips in. 

 

Neighbors, real nice folks but tree huggers and animal lovers had a red squirrel problem they discovered when they were trying to sell their house.  They had eaten their way in through the soffit into the attic and insulation.  Messed so much it stained through the sheetrock ceiling.  It started out as a live trapping deal and taking them down the mountain and letting them loose.  I swear they beat those people home every trip.  After a $10,000 repair and cleaning bill hit them it became a "get them I don't care what you do."  Lost 2 buyers because of the repair work going on and took them 5 months extra to sell it.     

[SReynolds]

I use Bacon. Pretty simple to lure in TWO at a time.

[Jakesshop]

I had major problems with mice getting my RV and also tried the water bucket with and ramp up to it. Worked pretty good and the raccoons would clean it out for me most of the time. Mice were still getting in my RV when someone told to put fresh dryer sheets (like Bounce) in all the drawers, closets, behind the couches, in all compartments, behind anything you can reach. They hate the smell or something and I've had no mice in there as long as I put the sheets out. Refresh them once a year and it stays good. One word of caution, dryer sheets are very flammable! I would keep them away from ANY sources of ignition.

I like this method for we travel with our pets and using D-Con is to risky for them.