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Whats the best way to get rid of mice?

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Jun 12, 2008
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Redguard wrote: I've decided to resurrect this thread rather than start a new one.

The problem that we're having is that we're hearing really LOUD scratching behind the walls but have yet to actually see any mice. Haven't located any mouse droppings either.

We've had mouse trouble in the past. I'd see one scurry across the kitchen floor and hide behind the fridge/stove. I set glue traps and used the Great Stuff foam to fill any gaps/holes that were in the walls caused by piping or gas-line installations. I've caught the mice with the glue traps and since doing the foam, haven't seen one since.

So now, it's just the scratching. It's often in the middle of the night while we're sleeping (which is ruining our sleep because it sounds like it's right behind the bedroom wall).

What's weird is that we never heard scratching back when we were actually "seeing" the mice. If I went and cut behind the wall, I would likely have no real idea of what I'm doing.

We back on to a conservation area, so we experience a bunch of little critters all over. I suspect that my garage may be the entry point but have no way of knowing for sure.

I've got my finger on the dial right now to call a local exterminator that has received good reviews on Yelp... but I just want to check here first before pulling the trigger. Looking to see if anyone can offer any recommendations on exterminators.
You need to figure out where they are getting in.

If you have a brick home they could be getting in through the brick weep holes. If so you'll need to install weep hole covers on the weep holes.
http://tamlynstore.com/RWHC.aspx
http://ridofmice.net/

If you are hearing scratching you should probably call a professional before the mice do costly damage.

When we had mice, we contacted a company recommended on RFD & were very impressed with them.
http://www.pesticon.com/
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Aug 28, 2007
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Thanks nielboy,

I ended up making the call to a place called Pestend and have an appointment set up for two days from now.

They offer a 6-12 month guarantee depending on the season, so I've got my fingers crossed.
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Jul 19, 2014
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Snow Road Station, O…
Build a bucket mouse trap and live release.
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I had mouse trouble when I bought my house. It's a 100 year old double-brick house. My house is hardwood floor, but at some point, an owner laid carpet over, and that involved removing the quarter-round from the baseboard trim. After ripping back the carpet, there's now a gap in the corners of many rooms where mice have been able to get into the floors or walls. I laid snap traps, but it didn't really work. Only thing that worked were the glue traps. I used a mix of glue traps AND snap traps. I'd put the glue trap down near any opening in the wall (we have baseboard radiators, so those are common openings), and snap traps beside the glue, so if the mouse didn't go into a glue, it would get snapped. I caught two with the glue, and a couple with the snap traps. We had one jump out of a ceiling fan once, it was up in the attic, and found its way into the ceiling fan fixture. We sealed that one up though. This was last year, haven't seen any this year.

For those suggesting the cat, I had a cat for a few months when a buddy was living with me until he bought a house. He had a cat - it was useless. Didn't catch any mice at all!
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amace wrote: I had mouse trouble when I bought my house. It's a 100 year old double-brick house. My house is hardwood floor, but at some point, an owner laid carpet over, and that involved removing the quarter-round from the baseboard trim. After ripping back the carpet, there's now a gap in the corners of many rooms where mice have been able to get into the floors or walls. I laid snap traps, but it didn't really work. Only thing that worked were the glue traps. I used a mix of glue traps AND snap traps. I'd put the glue trap down near any opening in the wall (we have baseboard radiators, so those are common openings), and snap traps beside the glue, so if the mouse didn't go into a glue, it would get snapped. I caught two with the glue, and a couple with the snap traps. We had one jump out of a ceiling fan once, it was up in the attic, and found its way into the ceiling fan fixture. We sealed that one up though. This was last year, haven't seen any this year.

For those suggesting the cat, I had a cat for a few months when a buddy was living with me until he bought a house. He had a cat - it was useless. Didn't catch any mice at all!
Some cats are good mousers, some are not, and some are official royal mousers
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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May 17, 2012
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Stop feeding the cat it will learn pretty quickly to like catching and eating mice.

Barn cats are typically not fed much if at all.
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Redguard wrote: Thanks nielboy,

I ended up making the call to a place called Pestend and have an appointment set up for two days from now.

They offer a 6-12 month guarantee depending on the season, so I've got my fingers crossed.
So the guy came by and identified three spots at the front of my house that were allowing entry into my garage.

One was a crack in the concrete and the other two were breaches in the seal beneath my garage door (looks like they were chewed or weathered away).

I'm figuring that I can purchase new seals for the garage door and install them but I'm gonna have to find someone who knows their way with cement to patch up the crack at the corner of my garage.
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Well I can't believe it but this is this is the first time in my life I have evidence of a mouse or mice in the kitchen and it was this morning. I thought some japonica black rice had spilled on the counter yesterday, cleaned it up but then today saw the same thing and just googled mice droppings and OMG that's what they are. Apparently these can really spread bad diseases like hantavirus so what one is supposed to do is ventilate the area for 30 minutes, fill a bottle with a 9:1 solution of water:bleach, wear a vapour ventilator and disinfect the droppings and everything else in the area as per these instructions for 5 minutes, then clean up with paper towel and dispose in a sealed bag:

http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/Adv ... ection.pdf

This is my Sat morning task and then I am heading to Home Depot to get a bunch of traditional Victor wooden mousetraps: http://www.victorpest.com/victor-metal- ... p-bm154-24

I'd love to know how they got in given I've been in the same house for years and have never had them before.
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eonibm wrote: Well I can't believe it but this is this is the first time in my life I have evidence of a mouse or mice in the kitchen and it was this morning. I thought some japonica black rice had spilled on the counter yesterday, cleaned it up but then today saw the same thing and just googled mice droppings and OMG that's what they are. Apparently these can really spread bad diseases like hantavirus so what one is supposed to do is ventilate the area for 30 minutes, fill a bottle with a 9:1 solution of water:bleach, wear a vapour ventilator and disinfect the droppings and everything else in the area as per these instructions for 5 minutes, then clean up with paper towel and dispose in a sealed bag:

http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/Adv ... ection.pdf

This is my Sat morning task and then I am heading to Home Depot to get a bunch of traditional Victor wooden mousetraps: http://www.victorpest.com/victor-metal- ... p-bm154-24

I'd love to know how they got in given I've been in the same house for years and have never had them before.
No offense but thats massive overkill, you clean up the droppings, use some disinfectant if it will make you feel better and buy some good traps.

The one you linked is a traditional favourite, i have used some very bad ones, and currently use these to good effect (they are not perfect but the few times a mouse got the food without dying i tripped it with a pole, re-baited, reset and caught it the next time)
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Quentin5 wrote: No offense but thats massive overkill, you clean up the droppings, use some disinfectant if it will make you feel better and buy some good traps.

The one you linked is a traditional favourite, i have used some very bad ones, and currently use these to good effect (they are not perfect but the few times a mouse got the food without dying i tripped it with a pole, re-baited, reset and caught it the next time)
It might be overkill but I'd rather the method be so than me. Mice spread Hantavirus and that has a high death rate. I don't mess with anything to do with my health, not to mention that the method I used is easy peasy.
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eonibm wrote: It might be overkill but I'd rather the method be so than me.
LOL!
fair enough
eonibm wrote: Mice spread Hantavirus and that has a high death rate. I don't mess with anything to do with my health, not to mention that the method I used is easy peasy.
Not every mouse has it, they can have it, otherwise i'd probably be dead already, long story
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Well I bought 2 packs of the el cheapo $2.98 for 2 Victor wooden mouse traps (1 Billion Sold!) and there were 3 in my 4 traps this morning. I used some nut butter on 2 of them and 2 little nuts on the other 2. I nut was gone without the trap springing but the other 3 caught mice. 4 more being placed tonight. I understand that you need to set them every day and if there aren't any mice being caught 7 days in a row you have gotten rid of them. I still don't know how they got in but now I am thinking it was when I left the huge back sliding door open.

I know can reuse those traps after taking the mouse off but it was so disgusting I just threw them in a plastic bag trap and all and then in the trash outside and bought some more.
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eonibm wrote: Well I bought 2 packs of the el cheapo $2.98 for 2 Victor wooden mouse traps (1 Billion Sold!) and there were 3 in my 4 traps this morning. I used some nut butter on 2 of them and 2 little nuts on the other 2. I nut was gone without the trap springing but the other 3 caught mice. 4 more being placed tonight. I understand that you need to set them every day and if there aren't any mice being caught 7 days in a row you have gotten rid of them. I still don't know how they got in but now I am thinking it was when I left the huge back sliding door open.

I know can reuse those traps after taking the mouse off but it was so disgusting I just threw them in a plastic bag trap and all and then in the trash outside and bought some more.
So your doing well, and i don't blame you one bit for throwing those traps away.
After you have got them all leave a trap set and check on it occasionally (make it a habit) because chances are if they got in once you will get more, i had none for 5 months then one showed up.
Can you link to the trap you bought?
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Quentin5 wrote: So your doing well, and i don't blame you one bit for throwing those traps away.
After you have got them all leave a trap set and check on it occasionally (make it a habit) because chances are if they got in once you will get more, i had none for 5 months then one showed up.
Can you link to the trap you bought?
These: https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.meta ... 39039.html

I set 4 more tonight and I think I know how they got in. I had drilled a hole to the outside for an electrical outlet and hadn't finished it and there is a tiny space by the electrical wire big enough for a mouse to get in. EDIT: No, that wasn't it. The outlet was actually sealed. Arghh. Not sure how they got in.
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After living in two houses each with a rodent problem I can give some advice.

My first house had a mouse problem that I could never fully be satisfied with. As soon as they got in it was almost impossible to get rid of them (I would later learn why). For mice the sticky traps seemed to work pretty well, sometimes multiple mice on one trap. Snap traps worked as well but I found not as successful.

Fast forward to the next house where instead of mice it was rats. Sticky traps never worked while snap traps worked pretty quickly. The problem was others returned, into the house. Called an exterminator and he pointed to an area near the top of the chimney where it meets the roof and there were several entry points into the attic. For a fee of $500 he covered them all up, searched the outside of the house thoroughly for other entry points and blocked them all (with metal mesh). Then he said all he had to do was kill any remaining rats in the house. He set up rat traps throughout the attic and it worked very well (peanut butter only!). He came with a six month warranty so I called him back twice to deal with further issues. The last time he came by was four months ago and no more rats. However in this house (which I'm moving from shortly), there are rats in the area - there are construction sites nearby, and a forrest.

I hate rodents. The exterminator really did a superb job and if you're in Vancouver I'll give you his contact info. $500 was well worth it, and anyone who has experienced a seemingly never ending rodent problem could appreciate the need to fork over that dough.
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SteveBennett wrote: After living in two houses each with a rodent problem I can give some advice.

My first house had a mouse problem that I could never fully be satisfied with. As soon as they got in it was almost impossible to get rid of them (I would later learn why).
Why? What advice do you have?

From 3 last night I only had 1 tonight after setting 4 and will leave them up for a couple of weeks. I've sealed up the one hole where they could possibly have gotten in.
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is there a kind of mouse trap that most rfd-ers use? not sure which to buy....
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Well, after 2 nights without any then 3 nights ago I found a trap over-turned, blood splattered on the floor and no mouse so I guess it hobbled away and maybe died somewhere in the house/wall or is in the mouse hospital recovering. Arghhh. None since then though.

I use the el cheapo Victor traps. Caught 4 out of 5. I wouldn't waste money on anything more expensive, especially if when you catch a mouse you throw out the trap and mouse together as I do even though they are washable and reusable. Just bought some when I was in Buffalo at HD. There it was $1.98 US for 4 whereas it's 2 for @$2.98 CDN here.
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I've put glue traps in the corners. The Landlord had Orkin come in and set come traps and put some poisonous food.

I cleaned up all droppings but do still see new droppings every so often.

Sometimes just a feet away from the glue trap which are supposedly baited.

There are some very smart mice it seems.

I wonder if it's new mice coming in from outside and not necessarily the old population though.

I have had good success with the conventional traps that you need to set.

I used cheese and threw them out with the dead mice.

I hate setting those things though as it can sometimes get your finger. :)

Used the glue ones for the first time 3 years ago and it worked great.

This time I just caught one.
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Jun 14, 2012
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If you live in an older house it can be really difficult to get rid of them. I set my traps in locations I know they frequent, sometimes you may have to make a highway where they can easily travel in order to lead them into a trap.

Sticky traps tend to work well for mice but snap traps are more humane/reusable and don't dry up like sticky traps do. Poison is better for places like garages where you may want to prevent possible mice from getting inside and also for areas that don't have food accessible to mice.

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