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which_chickI live in a tiny, poorly constructed cabin in the woods. It's about two steps above shack. When the weather changes to cold, I get mice. This is one of the rhythms of the season, along with the skunks under the house (it's on pillars like a mobile home but it is not a mobile home) in February for some sort of gleefully redolent event that I can only presume is the skunk-fuckening.
The mice generally leave me alone in spring, summer, and fall. There is ample food outside and they don't come in my house and make a mess. But when the weather turns seriously cold, at least some mice decide that inside is better than outside and these mice, not to put too fine a point on it, must die.
I do not like having mice in my house because there is a limit to the number of times I would like to clean mouse poop off my counter and stove. That limit is zero times. We are well beyond the limit at this juncture.
The cats, who are largely useless, gave me one mouse early on in the mouse wars. It was partially eaten and they put it on my bed. Thanks, cats. Since then, I've trapped four and I think I have one more to get. The first three trap mice were pretty easy. Set out standard mouse trap, remove dead mouse from trap in the morning. Not my fave, but certainly not a great trial.
Mouse four took the peanut butter (works better than cheese) off the trap like four days straight. Mouse four was apparently very dainty and careful with the trap robbing. He (or she, I guess) wasn't going to get caught like the first three meeses. So, I spent some quality time with a pair of pliers modifying the store-bought snappy trap to make it more sensitive.
There's a wee bit of bent-out metal on the food-panel that holds the latch. When the mouse plays with the food panel, it jostles the food panel enough that the latch springs free and the killer bar snaps forward onto the mouse. Commercially mass-produced traps have a reasonable amount of ability to kill mice, but if you get a very sneaky mouse, they'll just rob the trap over and over without setting it off. This is less than ideal especially if you are dead tired of cleaning mouse poop off your countertops. You can make the mousetrap more sensitive (and more fiddly to set) by removing some of the bend from the bent-out metal so that there's less there for the latch to stick on. It's fiddly work and you're bending shreds of a millimeter, but it can be done.
I got mouse four yesterday morning. I didn't set a trap last night because I thought that mouse four was the final mouse for the year. I was not correct about that, so we will shoot for mouse five tonight.
I don't like playing mice wars. I don't like killing mice or removing squished mice from traps. The whole thing is not my fave. On the other hand, I do not like mouse poop on my countertops and I am getting quite tired of cleaning every surface with bleach twice a day. (I do not want mouse germs. I'm not... afraid of mouse germs, but I also do not want to eat them.)
The mice are *probably* getting into the house where the plumbing enters or leaves the house. There's a hole for the drains and also a hole for the incoming plumbing. Neither is particularly accessible to me unless I crawl around under the house. In the visible, accessible, and occupied part of the house, there's a hole in the wall behind the stove and I need to fill that with a stainless steel wire scrubby and some expanding foam. (Stove backs up onto tub on other side of the wall. There's a hole alongside the tub that I also need to fill up with a wire scrubby and drywall paste. I will make an effort on these home improvement projects this weekend.
The mice generally leave me alone in spring, summer, and fall. There is ample food outside and they don't come in my house and make a mess. But when the weather turns seriously cold, at least some mice decide that inside is better than outside and these mice, not to put too fine a point on it, must die.
I do not like having mice in my house because there is a limit to the number of times I would like to clean mouse poop off my counter and stove. That limit is zero times. We are well beyond the limit at this juncture.
The cats, who are largely useless, gave me one mouse early on in the mouse wars. It was partially eaten and they put it on my bed. Thanks, cats. Since then, I've trapped four and I think I have one more to get. The first three trap mice were pretty easy. Set out standard mouse trap, remove dead mouse from trap in the morning. Not my fave, but certainly not a great trial.
Mouse four took the peanut butter (works better than cheese) off the trap like four days straight. Mouse four was apparently very dainty and careful with the trap robbing. He (or she, I guess) wasn't going to get caught like the first three meeses. So, I spent some quality time with a pair of pliers modifying the store-bought snappy trap to make it more sensitive.
There's a wee bit of bent-out metal on the food-panel that holds the latch. When the mouse plays with the food panel, it jostles the food panel enough that the latch springs free and the killer bar snaps forward onto the mouse. Commercially mass-produced traps have a reasonable amount of ability to kill mice, but if you get a very sneaky mouse, they'll just rob the trap over and over without setting it off. This is less than ideal especially if you are dead tired of cleaning mouse poop off your countertops. You can make the mousetrap more sensitive (and more fiddly to set) by removing some of the bend from the bent-out metal so that there's less there for the latch to stick on. It's fiddly work and you're bending shreds of a millimeter, but it can be done.
I got mouse four yesterday morning. I didn't set a trap last night because I thought that mouse four was the final mouse for the year. I was not correct about that, so we will shoot for mouse five tonight.
I don't like playing mice wars. I don't like killing mice or removing squished mice from traps. The whole thing is not my fave. On the other hand, I do not like mouse poop on my countertops and I am getting quite tired of cleaning every surface with bleach twice a day. (I do not want mouse germs. I'm not... afraid of mouse germs, but I also do not want to eat them.)
The mice are *probably* getting into the house where the plumbing enters or leaves the house. There's a hole for the drains and also a hole for the incoming plumbing. Neither is particularly accessible to me unless I crawl around under the house. In the visible, accessible, and occupied part of the house, there's a hole in the wall behind the stove and I need to fill that with a stainless steel wire scrubby and some expanding foam. (Stove backs up onto tub on other side of the wall. There's a hole alongside the tub that I also need to fill up with a wire scrubby and drywall paste. I will make an effort on these home improvement projects this weekend.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 03:27 pm (UTC)Last place I lived, we developed terrible mouse problems because I had parrots and parrots love nothing better than throwing food *everywhere.* It was a mouse buffet. Drove me absolutely bonkers.
STAY IN THE WOODS, MICE.