well this is so off-topic but while it wasn’t funny for me I figured someone may get a good laugh at my expense.
So anyhow me and my roommates in the last two weeks have noticed a mice problem- like all our food has been chewed- we’ve seen 'em, etc. Our landlord is doing nothing about it (we think he is out of town) and we our at our wits end- we have set traps- locked up all food in rubbermaid bins, even borrowed a boyfriend’s cat for the weekend to hunt the suckers (he got one.) SO anyway..
last night at about midnight I curled up in bed and was drifting off when I hear “scitter scitter scitter”- and all this rustling and scratching I flip on the light to see a mouse tail disapear behind a small table I have in my room. So I got up and got my roommate and armed with a broom and mop we went to confront the mouse- so we bang around trying to scare him off…
so i go back to bed and my “bed” is actually a futon on a frame very low to the floor (ah grad student living) and i was laying there when right in front of me the mouse went running by on the floor and then went to attack my boyfriend’s much coveted stash of doritos…
me and rommate up again banging around- other roommate pokes head out asking what is up as she goes into kitchen and shrieks when mice scatter in front of her in the kitchen.. at that point we are all freaked and i decide that I am sleeping in the 4th roommate’s bed (so I am at least not right on the floor with mice) because 4th roommate is at boyfriend’s house and no mice have been spotted in her room
so yeah the mice are overrunning us and we don’t know what to do. Its nasty and it sucks- however this morning i woke to find two traps full- so at least that is begining to work… don’t know what else to do- all food is locked up, the place is clean, (we were never very messy) but i am terrified one day i will wake to find a mouse in bed with me… yech… this sucks so badly! I have been getting no sleep because of freaken mice!
-Angela
[ This Message was edited by: atarango on 2002-11-19 08:12 ]
It’s more likely the turn in the weather that’s driving the mice in. I grew up in Quincy and we used to have the same problem about this time of year. The mice are looking for warmth, and they can get in almost anywhere! Keep baiting those traps (peanut butter works wonders)! As loong as you don’t leave a mess, the problem should go away. Then again, if you’ve a nest in the house/apartment/dorm, then you’ll need an exterminator, not the landlord!
Try some of the sonic deterants. We live in a house bordered on one side by a wheatbean field and a corn field on the other side. As soon as the weather starts to get colder and wetter the mice ttry to move in. Tried traps, glue squares, live traps (used to be an ecologist and have friends with handy live traps), chasing the little $^!&$ with a blowgun, you name it. The thing that finally worked was a handy gizmo that you stick in an unused outlet and it sends a pulse through the wiring of the house. We tried the ones that simply emit a “cone” of repellent signal but that just drove them out of one room into another. I was extremely skeptical about it’s effectiveness but we’ve been mouse free for three years now after pluggin in a couple units.
It’s safe, effective, relatively cheap (two units are around 50$) and humane. We also have two small children in the house so they are also childproof, no snapped little fingers! or big fingers!
I have no problem with snap traps, or live traps, but I draw the line at glue traps as inhumane.
Please remember that mice aren’t just eating food in your apartment or building cosy nests, they’re leaving droppings, and hantavirus is carried by rodents, and potentially spread to humans through their waste. It is rare, but not unheard of on the east coast.
If you’ve given the Landlord a couple of days to contact you and you have more than one or two mice - Call the Health Department (City or County). There maybe something in your area, like a bodhran player hiding in the basement, that is drawing them.
Also take pictures of the mice, dead/killed/captured, and label the pictures (for example, “2nd mouse killed by cat”, “3rd mouse killed in trap”). This can be helpfull in working with the health department and/or you landlord.
Of course if the cause is that you have a bodhran player hiding in your basement, you might have a more serious pest control problem.
\
Enjoy Your Music,
Lee Marsh Added Note:
Yes, I’m learning bodhran; BUT, I don’t hide in the basement…
Okay, yes I only play in the basement; BUT that’s because my wife and daughter wont let me play up stairs;
BUT, I’m not HIDING.
[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-11-19 11:24 ]
That brings to mind a experience I once had while on guard duty ( it was done in shifts of 3 hours and I was off and sleeping in a transit bunk) I woke up to see a Rat about the size of a 3 month old fat kitten hanging on the side of the wall of the Quonset hut. It was staring at me, apparently he had been sleeping with me until I was so rude as to disturbed it. I had heard that they would sleep with people, this sort of brought that home.
Another danger with mice is they will chew the wiring in the walls, which can lead to fires. I’m normally the “live and let live” sort, but an infestation by mice is dangerous enough, between the disease and fire risk, that something has to be done.
After all this mechanical, legal, chemical warfare…
No one suggested yet adopting–not borrowing–a cat ? or two if you’re that pleagued; of different genders :roll: if it’s realbad (sorry for going extreme)
It’s warm, it’s clean, it’s friendly…
it’s a blurdy killing machine!
Oh… it’s one of these “no cats, no dogs” pieces of Mickey-mousiana ?
Well, grow up ! get bold ! get daring ! trespass ! be outlaws ! and
GET A CAT!
P.S.: or save to get a shrink
[ This Message was edited by: Zubivka on 2002-11-19 13:03 ]
[quote]
On 2002-11-19 10:35, Redwolf wrote:
I don’t know how well the sonic things work for mice, but I can tell you they work GREAT on spiders, so they’re worth a try. [quote]
Not to try to take this too far off topic, but Redwolf, could you PM or e-mail me with the details of the type that you use. My wife and I have many spiders in our house and getting rid of them has been nearly impossible. I would be very grateful
We had a major rat infestation in our attic last winter. They’d wait till bedtime and tap dance on our ceiling. One had a distinctive thump, and I named him “Bigfoot”. “Aha!”, I cried, “I’ll use a safe, humane, live trap and transport the poor beasties to the countryside!”. Pepperoni pizza worked well as bait. However, when I reached rat number NINE, my sense of humor deteriorated, so I resorted to poison. While effective, that was a tactical error, since certain rooms stunk for about 8 weeks…
If you’re like me, it’s really hard to even look at a mouse’s mangled corpse in a trap. My method was to use gloves, a broom, and a dustpan, and throw out the trap WITH the mouse still in it. Happy to throw away $.75 worth of trap.
Once however, the mouse was still alive, caught by the tail and leg. Somehow I forgot that a little bath in a bucket of water would dispatch him. Instead, a more drastic solution came to me. Scooped into a plastic grocery bag, the mouse never saw my rear tire backing over him.
On 2002-11-19 12:52, dakotamouse wrote:
Mice? And the problem is?
Squeak
Okay, I think we all admit that you’re an exception. You and those sweet little brown and white mice they sell as pets.
But we are talking about the wild, disease ridden, eat and destroy type here. And one or two of those aren’t so bad to deal with, but when they invite themselves to your house in droves… Shudder
Reminds me of one year (when I was a kid) we lived in a house out in the middle of no where. It was surrounded by mile after mile of farmland. Our closest neighbor was a mile away.
Winter hit and every mouse for miles must have converged on our home. Mice in the cupboards, mice building nests under the dressers, mice running across the kitchen floor while you are fixing dinner. We kept them at bay with traps and poison. Lots and lots of traps and poison. As the winter progressed we got fewer and fewer mice.
Then spring came. With the snow gone you could see all the holes the mice had burrowed into the lawn, and the many little paths they made through the old grass beneath the snow… and all the dead mice which had eaten the poison and died outside on the way back to thier little holes. It was disgusting!!!
There had to have been at least several hundred half frozen, half decomposed mouse corpses scattered all over the yard. And that was just the yard, we didn’t even bother with the field boardering the yard. The dead mice were scooped up with shovels and thrown into a fire. Took a while to clean up. Just glad they all didn’t die in the house.
All I can say is goodluck with your mouse problem Angela!
[ This Message was edited by: Sunnywindo on 2002-11-19 16:48 ]
caught one this morning in a glue trap: had to drown him… that was so traumatic
came home to another one in a glue trap- didn’t want to deal with drowning so i sqarely hit him over the head with the broom handle.
i sound like such a mouse killer- you know- and i love animals- that’s the thing but these guys are a menance…
I have bruised several fingers setting conventional traps- they keep snapping on my hands. My ring finger is black and blue- for a second there i thought i broke it…
i hate this- i am so jumpy if i hear any squeaking or skittering about i jump… I just want them to go away…
but thanks for all the suggestions- we are trying to be careful, knowing that mice carry diseases and all that jazz (not something i want to think about)
but it sucks because i no longer want to come home…
Last May I moved out of hopefully the last dorm room I will ever live in.
There were mice. Lots of people hated them but I thought they were kinda neat. Little and furry and stuff. If they’d’ve eaten my books I would have gone on a rampage but they never bothered me so I didn’t bother them.
I think the maintenance crew was putting out poison, though, and one day I walked in to find a dead mouse square in the middle of the floor. That was unpleasant. On the other hand, maybe they regarded my room as a kind of haven to come and die in peace. Maybe I was their benevolent but terrible god and they wanted to send their brother to me in sacrifice. Maybe they thought I would help him but I didn’t make it there on time.
pieces of Mickey-mousiana ?
Okay, I think we all admit that you’re an exception. You and those sweet little brown and white mice they sell as pets. 
