Recently, we've been having a bit of a Mousy problem at our house. It started with my sister spotting a mouse in the kitchen. My Mum is deathly afraid of anything she classes as pests (cockroaches, snakes, lizards, mice, me) and has been petrified ever since.
Dad invested in a small mousetrap which did bugger all until we decided to haul in the big guns, and invest in the bigger, the more expensive trap.
Then we caught Mouse #1. We've naturally been sealing everything in the pantry and we always wash every piece of crockery and cutlery thoroughly before we eat from it, in case micey paws have been scampering across it.
Soon later, though, someone said they saw Mouse #2, and my Dad set a trap, and again we caught the second mouse.
It wasn't till a while later someone thought they saw Mouse #3, and just the other night, we caught him. Fat bastard, too, I think we've been feeding him too well.
Mum has been growing more and more upset, but we assured her that should be the end of it, till we were eating dinner last night and my brother said, "Hey, I saw a mouse!"
No my brother is known for his practical jokes, but I turned to look anyhow and I saw a mouse too, making a dash for the pantry, cheeky thing! And just when we'd caught his mousy mate the day before!
So we're after Mouse #4 now, and my mother got all mad and wanted to buy some new pest control gadget but Dad wouldn't let her. It's called Pestrol but it claims to drive pests out from their hiding places. It doesn't say anything about killing them.
"What happens if we drive them out and they get driven into tyour bedroom, will you like that?" he asked. "At least we know they fall for the mousetrap!" ... even if it is slow!
Unfortuantely, the mousetrap is a slow way of killing them, and we can't figure out how they get inor whether they're breding or they are sitting around in a mousy colony somewhere laughing their heads off. I hope their heads are rolling off, it might work for us.
I asked my Dad what Number Mouse he thought would be the last, what his lucky number was. "Lucky Number 5" he said. I'm glad his lucky number wasn't 7, 198 289 or something.
Anyone got some better ideas of how to get rid of mice. I don't have anything against mice per se - just against mice in the kitchen (or indeed anywhere in the house).
Dad doesn't want to use poison in case it poisons the humans as well - they're in our pantry among food and food equipment.
Any other ideas, folk?
(By the way we are using mousetraps with cheese. It's a boring cliche but it seems mice fall for boring cliches just as much as we humans do.)
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4 comments:
Make sure all containers and foods are properly sealed/closed, sprinkle poison along the back of pantry shelves. the mice eat it and go away somewhere else to die. Try to find where they're getting in and block up the holes with steel wool. They can't chew through it.
My Dad has this idea he doesn't want them to die 'somewhere else'. It's why he on't install the Pestrol gadget that 'drives mice out of the hiding place". He says he doesn't want to find a dead composting mouse body 6 months later somewhere peculiar.
Or probably doesn't want to put on his shoe and go "Ewwwww dead mouse!"
However if they eat poison perhaps they can't stagger too far :)
The steel wool tip is genius. Thanks. Is it true mice can't chew through it or they try to chew through it, end up swallowing steel and cark it?
You need more than one mousetrap! Parallelise the capture!
We are up to Mouse #5! Recently captured! We haven't seen any ice since.
Hopefully that was Lucky 5 and no more.
But we have steel wool at hand anyhow.
If only we could figure out where they are coming from but we haven't. Apparently even though the mice are fairly big they are very flexible creatures and can push through small crannies so we dont' have to look for a big mouse-sized place, we could be looking for a fairly small crack or hole.
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