mice in the cupboards

they can get in any opening......

Scott in Eastern Iowa

>.....their small skull can fit thru.

3/16 is a pretty tight squeeze, 3/4" is certainly do-able.

Scott

Re: mice in the cupboards

Carol from AZ

>Since they have invited themselves in, serve'em dinner.

De-Con. Supersized!

Re: mice in the cupboards

JL

>I'm not denying you may have mice. The little critters are persistent and can get into very small openings. Have you seen shredding of material or nesting? Traps and bait sometimes work.

Other things to think about - any evidence of roaches? Their droppings can be quite large. It took us a while (gutter cleaning, baiting the attic, baiting the electrical boxes and outside spraying), but we finally beat them down. Just a thought.

Re: mice in the cupboards

Lee Brubaker

>Off to the hardware get a mouse trap, then bait it with peanut butter......gets them every time.

Lee

Re: mice in the cupboards

carl

>That will work,but make sure you press in the peanut butter so they have to work at it to get it,otherwise they steal the bait and don`t trip it and get away.Got 5 at my cabin last week think i got em all.I`ll know in couple of weeks when i go back up.While i was building my wife kept hounding me make sure you don`t leave any opening in the floor so they don`t get in,did just that,they got in though the roof,go figure. Carl

Re: mice in the cupboards

mike mcnerney

>I caught the guy within a half hour of setting the trap, while we were reading in the adjacent room. I was just wondering if anyone had ever seen any actual experiements on the subject. Y ears ago I saw something on the telly, it may of been 60 mins, about rats in Boston, I believe. They had a film of a rat slowly getting through a wire screen somewhere between 1/4" & 3/8". Scarry eh?

mike mcnerney in ottawa

Re: mice in the cupboards

Barry Irby

>You caught ONE of them. If you see or catch one you likely have more. They send the dumb hungary one out first as a scout. Its very Darwinian. You are killing off the dumb slow ones. They are getting faster and smarter. Guard your cat.

I have actually seen them go through the louvers in heating vents that appeared to be about 3/8" apart. I think they can flatten their skulls slightly, but that may just be the soft flesh surrounding it.

I temporarily removed my kitchen cabinets to change the kitchen floor and discovered they had enlarged the hole for an electric cable. I was thinking I would stuff it with steel wool befre reinstalling the cabinets when I noticed they had chewed all the insulation off the wires. I guess vinyl was easier to chew than pine. I had three bare conductors looking at me. Fortunately, they did not bother with the insualtion between the wires, but it could have been really exciting if I had jambed in the steel wool without looking. Replacing the wire turned out to be harder than any other part of the project. (Can anyone say "flexible metal sheath") Incidentally, the hole was about the size of a nickle, but not as big as a quarter.

Re: mice in the cupboards

Ric Taylor

>I've had them ignore peanut butter regularly, but they really go for bacon. You have to wear rubber gloves and jam the freshly-cooked bacon on to the trigger while it is still hot and flexible. Then, as it cools and stiffens, it is locked on to the trigger. When the mouse tugs on the bacon, the trap snaps.

Carl is right, they will often just lick the peanut butter off of the trigger without springing the trap.

Make sure that the bait isn't any larger than the trigger, so that they have to extend their body into the danger area.

Also, I have read several places that mouse and rat traps are much more effective if you never touch them, because the critters can smell whatever you touch and the human scent will sometimes keep them away from thr traps. Again, I use rubber gloves and never actually touch the trap. I've had much better success since I began using these hints.

Ric

Re: mice in the cupboards

Bill Grumbine (Kutztown PA)

>Mike, we live in an old stone house, and like Barry says, there is no such thing as "one" mouse. There are always more where that one came from. We added a new indoor cat this year and the mouse problem has been abated somewhat, but last year we had an entire mouse city in the house! I caught seven mice in one night - in one trap! They were literally waiting in line to get in it. At one point I heard the trap spring closed, got out of bed to perform the "burial at sea" ritual for the unfortunate mouse, reset the trap, and returned to the bathroom to wash my hands. As I was drying them off, I heard the trap snap again! SWMBO informed me that yes, there was another victim waiting for disposal.

We found that the best combination was the plastic squeeze traps and peanut butter on the bottom of the release lever. Even that didn't work sometimes, but in the vast majority of cases it was one shot, one kill. :-)

Bill

Re: mice in the cupboards

Dan Donaldson

>You can take a small piece of cloth and fasten it to the trigger then saturate it with peanut butter. They have to chew on the fabric to get the peanut butter and that sets off the trap.

Re: mice in the cupboards

Ric Taylor

>That's a good idea if they go for the peanut butter, but often they ignore it. They like bacon much better.

Re: mice in the cupboards

Lee Ohmart

>A mouse trap that works for multiple times without resetting is a 5 gallon bucket. Rig a wire over the top with a toilet paper roll positioned in the middle. Place a dap of peanut butter or bacon in the center of the roll and fill the bucket about 1/3 full of water. The little buggers walk out over the wire and when they get onto the roll they fall in the water. We have used this in our camps that are infested with mice and found up to 10 mice in one bucket. BTW, use caution when cleaning up mouse turds and nests. They can carry a nasty desease caused by the hanta virus. If you breath in dust from the stuff you're cleaning up, the resulting disease can be deadly.

Re: mice in the cupboards

John Ross

>I have always heard that a mouse can easily get through a hole the size of a dime and often smaller diameters. I have had great success using the peanut butter with the standard old snap traps. My daughter and I set out a "trap line" every winter, and seem to catch them pretty regularly. My best is thirteen in three days. I avoid the poisons, because they can crawl off and die in wall voids and stink up the place terrible. Happy hunting!

Rodents

Robert Hutchins

>Don't know about the minimim dimensions for mouse-proofing - don't know if there are any 'cause they WILL chew. But I witnessed a rabbit go through a 2x2 mesh chain link fence where the fence fabric was under a lot of tension. It was a full-sized, wild, eastern cottontail. My dachshund jumped it and gave chase. The rabbit ran into an area where he couldn't avoid fencing as two fence lines formed a 'V', and another dog had any other path blocked. The rabbit never even slowed down and went through the fence with the dog only about 2 or 3 feet behind. HL witnessed the event; so I can talk about it. My dachsie is still PO'd.

Did you ever hear about ole James Earl who got chased out of a boat by a 'killer' rabbit. Happened down in Georgia, or so I hear. Far as I know, nobody else witnessed that event; so I put it off to jug talk. But, who knows?

But, cats make the best mouse traps. 

Ken Garlock Collin County Texas

>

without springing the trap.....

SanMan

>....use chunky PB and cram it in under it too.

I get em in the basemment in the fall and human scent doesnt deter them at all.

If they're hungry they will eat it.

My toughest foe so far has been a rat. I hope I never have to go thru that "war" again, but lets just say that they are no match for a antifreeze drink. Ordinarily I wouldnt use it to kill, but this rat was extremely persistant and had to be eradicated. Careful planning was used and thwe mixture was kept away from pets and kids .....it was a must.

SM

Re: mice in the cupboards

Ted Wong

>How is your countertop attached? A lot of times there is a gap between the countertop and the top of the carcase.

Re: mice in the cupboards

mike mcnerney

>no the cabinet itself has a solid top not those typical stringers

mm in ottawa