Pest Control: Dale Gribble Was Right

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Pest Control: Dale Gribble Was Right

AFewBricksShy: Jun 19, 2003; of a full load.

I've got mice in my kitchen. It started just a week ago when I notice my bananas had been eaten from the bottom up for about an inch.

So far I've used the spring traps to kill 2 of them, but I know (due to a camera) that there's at least one more.

It looks like they are coming from behind my stove. Other than continuing to try and trap them as well as the poison, is there anything like mothballs or something that might make my home seem to be not a good place to live?

Edit:
Just found this post on the last page (I only looked at the first 2 before posting)

Rexxed posted:

If you see one mouse there's definitely more than one. Ultrasonic does nothing, it's pseudoscience at best and a scam at worst. They might not like the sound but it won't stop them from going for food. Get a container for your dog's food that has a lid that seals and is made of decent plastic, reasonably thick. Also put any dry goods that you have in sealing containers. I've found that they'll chew into instant oatmeal packets, crackers, etc, although they love to dive into the trash can for scraps of whatever from ketchup packets to ham scraps to cantaloupe seeds. Getting a simplehuman can with a lid that closes has stopped that.

The only way to keep them out entirely is to block up their entry points with exclusion product (like a copper wool kind of thing or rodent proof expanding foam, not just regular stuff), but mice can get into tiny gaps you'll have a hard time finding. They'll also gnaw open entries they've been through before if you don't seal them up with something they can't get through. As someone who caught about 50 in a year at one point when it was really bad and I was just starting to work on stopping them, snap traps are the most effective if and only if you can put them in locations where your baby and dog won't go but that is a mouse highway, like the basement or wherever you find mice travel. There'll be greasy streaks along the walls and dropping since the mice use their whiskers to follow walls and poop non stop. They won't really run through an open area unless they're just running away from something. Glue traps can also work but are a little cruel, although having rodents that can carry fleas and diseases around in your house and will chew on your wires definitely outweighs the cruelty factor for some, but I still don't like them. They should also be where your dog or baby can't get to. Mint oils will dissuade mice from entering the immediate area but tend to be only useful if you reapply every couple of days, and only very near where you want to keep them away from. I've used peppermint essential oil on cotton balls and also products like Rodent Sheriff but I think the mint concentration in the latter is a little too weak for the price.

There are a zillion kinds of traps like bucket traps that you can set that might catch them that won't hurt anything else, but you'll need to judge for yourself what you think about a setup like this with a 5 gallon bucket with some water in the bottom (this is the flip n slide). It probably won't be as appealing to a couple of mice that get into your house as a bag of dog food, but if you have a big infestation it could catch a lot of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHwvVPT202Y

I like to watch Mousetrap Monday and see what's out there since there's a huge variety and Shawn Woods collects mouse traps and shows them working:
https://www.youtube.com/c/ShawnWoodsprimitive-archer/videos
His amazon affiliate page has his favorite traps including the flip n slide:
https://smile.amazon.com/shop/historichunter?listId=1D658A5F4DK6L

If those options don't appeal, I'd consider an electronic one that's not going to be set off by your dog but make sure to keep the baby away from it. It's also on Shawn Woods' affiliate page (and he's got a video about it):
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B078H55CVJ?ref=exp_historichunter_dp_vv_d

I've got a pest control company handling some of it now since they also do carpenter ant, termite, and carpenter bee treatments, and after they sealed some entry points there are far fewer mice coming inside these days, but they still do manage to get inside when the weather gets cold and I usually catch a few over the winter. The company also puts down bait in bait boxes that kills the mice. It's a poison that they claim isn't lethal to most other animals that might eat a dead mouse in the tiny dosage they'd get from that (assuming the mouse got a small percentage of its body weight in poison, and the thing eating it is a lot bigger than a mouse). That said I don't know how much it'd take to build up in the local ecosystem or if it would, I mostly trust that the pros aren't nuking all the local fox population since I see them fairly often. I don't love poison, but it does keep their numbers down. There have only been a couple of times that I've been pretty sure one died somewhere inaccessible and while there is a smell, it doesn't linger for more than a week or so, usually. It's part of a multi layer strategy for trying to keep the rodents out and numbers down. The bait boxes are heavy plastic so at least in that case your baby or dog would be unlikely to get inside of one without a real ruckus, but I could see just avoiding the issue entirely.

Ultimately even if you kill the ones inside, they won't stop coming in until you get their entry blocked up but it can be a challenge. Killing the ones that do get in does help stop them from building nests, having babies, being destructive, getting in your food, and potentially causing health issues or house damage.

Are there obvious signs of entry points I should be looking for?

AFewBricksShy fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Jun 24, 2022

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 11:33

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 13:40

AFewBricksShy: Jun 19, 2003; of a full load.

um excuse me posted:

Follow the poop trail, baby. They sure like poopin'. That's how I find where mine gets in

Are they in my walls, or are they coming in from outside?

Also, any tips for the spring traps? The video had them pretty much tap dancing on the victory ones without them tripping, until one managed to finally set one of them off. I still have video of the other one happily helping itself to the peanut butter on the untriggered traps.

I have one of the ones with the metal trigger, and 2 of the ones with the plastic trigger. So far both of the ones I've caught were with one of the plastic ones. This morning I wedged a peanut into the metal one, so hopefully that might end up making it trigger more reliably.

AFewBricksShy fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Jun 24, 2022

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 13:07

AFewBricksShy: Jun 19, 2003; of a full load.

I found via camera where the mice are getting into my kitchen. They are running up the hole that the gas line for my stove comes through in the floor.
So I�m going to get the mouse proof spray foam, but will they just find another way in if they are in the little area above my foundation walls? I don�t have access to that area due to the layout of the floor joists. Is there something I could put down there to make them want to leave the house? Or do I just drop a couple of those poison packs down there and hope it does the trick?

# ¿ Jun 25, 2022 03:09

AFewBricksShy: Jun 19, 2003; of a full load.

Motronic posted:

Steel wool works just fine for this.

Maybe. Bait or trap.

I'm not going to get into a diatribe about baiting vs trapping. I'm all about trapping at my place because I have hawks (and I like them) but sometimes trapping isn't good enough and sorry hawks, I hope you don't pick up one of those poisoned ones.

poo poo. I also have hawks and also foxes. I don�t want to kill anything that�s not in my house. So back to smells. Can I drop moth balls or something into the hole before I close it off to make the mice want to leave?

# ¿ Jun 25, 2022 03:28

AFewBricksShy: Jun 19, 2003; of a full load.

Thanks for all of the help re: the mice.
Friday night my camera saw 2 mice running around, and I caught 2 mice (for a total of 4). I re-baited the traps Friday night and they were still loaded with peanut butter saturday morning, and the camera didn't catch anything else.
Saturday I stuffed the hole with both spray foam and steel wool and re-set the traps. Nothing disturbed Saturday night and nothing disturbed last night, so I think I either A) caught them all or B) caught the dumb ones but the steel wool is keeping the other ones out. I still would like to figure out how they got into the house, but I don't think I'll be able to figure that out without removing my siding.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2022 15:58

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 13:40

AFewBricksShy: Jun 19, 2003; of a full load.

C-Euro posted:

Last night I thought I saw something the approximate size, shape, and color of a mouse dart across my kitchen and go under my stove. I couldn't get a visual on it once it went under the stove, and this morning I have so far not found any evidence of a little mouse party that happened overnight. Is there anything I can do to test whether or not there's actually a mouse now living in my kitchen/house?

I had a mouse problem last year, I ended up loading spring traps on my counter and got about 6 of them.
Look for poop in under-stove drawers, and also if there's a gas line with a gap around it (or a gap for an electrical line), that may be how they are getting in. Also pull the stove out and check for holes under the cabinets, they may be living there as well.

I ended up stuffing the gas line hole with steel wool and then spray foaming that into place, and left the baited traps for a week without any of them tripping after that.
They love peanut butter for what it's worth.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2023 14:44

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