Mouse Problems Worse This Year?

[launderess]

Recent trips to local hardware and other shops, plus conversations with neighboors seem to indicate mouse problems are bad this year. Sales persons tell me all manner and sort of baits, traps and even those ultra sonic devices are flying off shelves.

Mind you being in NYC and this is the first few weeks of real cold weather, activity indoors by rodents is bound to increase. Also all the construction and renovations aren't helping matters any either.

Am not sure about our place, but am taking no chances. Used coarse steel wool to plug holes, as one couldn't find copper wire mesh for love or money; and have set some traps to see if one gets any nibbles.

L.

 

[gizmo]

you have a cat deficiency.

Chris.

 

[turboace]

Yes, worse this year

Launderess,

Over here in Jersey it is much worse this year. Fortunalty our house is tight as a drum. I kept track of holes durring construction and would come by with my tubes of caulk and foam to make sure we were going to have a tight house without any problems. But, everyone I know is having problems with mice. It started in August, field mice were coming inside. Just in case anyone doesn't know, field mice are brown and house mice are grey. Anyway, everyone is having problems. Couple people have said this means we are going to have an extremely hard winter.

Andy

 

[gizmo]

you have a cat deficiency.

Chris.

 

[launderess]

Yes, mice and other rodents normally avoid areas with cats, and it is also true cats and some breeds of dogs make excellent mousers/ratters; however it does not always automatically follow that a home infested with vermin will be totally free of the pest by taking in the random cat or dog.

When one had a cat, it did catch one mouse just after we moved in, and never saw another again. However that does not mean the darned things weren't still around, they could have been just very careful to stay out of the cat's way. Heck "Tom" never rid the house of "Jerry", and in real life there are many stories and indeed pictures of cats happily sharing a meal and or bed with a mouse.

If a cat is not taught in kittenhood what to do with mice, instincts will only go so far. Formerly pet cats allowed to go feral will in time learn the job, but that is because they have to feed themselves. However starving an indoor cat of food in the hopes it will turn into a mouser does not work.

Indeed one of the first signs persons have of mice or other rodents is that the vermin get into bags of the pet's food or raid the food bowl for their meals.

Have been reading postings on the Interent about persons with various mice and or rat problems, and a cat though often recommended, does not always solve everyone's problem. Indeed animal shelters and feline breeders in our area will NOT allow one to take a cat or kitten if one states it is for mouse hunting. Why? Sadly because persons once having adopted the pet, can become quite angry if the feline does not do it's "job". Often this can lead to the pet being abandoned and or treated badly.

Living in an urban area, would be very careful about allowing felines or dogs (many people in NYC own various breeds of terriers, including Jack Russells, who go crazy during their walks when they catch the scent of rodents in the streets/garbarge), to deal with much less come into contact with sewer/filth living rodents. Aside from the parasites and diseases, there is a good chance the thing may have ingested poison, (NYC itself and it's residents spend fortunes on the stuff, and use it liberally). Many pets and even wildlife die each year from ingesting poisoned vermin.

 

[phillygrl]

Yep, have mice in the crawlspace this year. Have just bought traps to put down there, baited with peanut butter just like Grandma taught me.

As far as cats and mice, even a very good mouser will only catch the dumb mice. Used to live in a converted summer cottage. A Sears cottage, ordered from the catalog in the 30's in fact. Got deer mice every fall. Our cats were always trained not to go on the kitchen counters. Always there would be one brilliant mouse that figured out if he stayed up on the counters, the cat would not go after him. A Victor mouse trap would take care of the last mouse.

 

[toggleswitch2]

One must stuff their holes and crevices with steel-wool and be wary of plants brought in for the winter! One never knows exaclty who/what is in resdience in the soil/pot.

Wonder if boric acid with sugar kills the "meeces" as well as roaches and related/other insects.

 

[sudsmaster]

My workshop had a roof rat invasion this past summer.

I'd hear this crunching noise in the rafters, saw a rat, and worried that it was eating through the roof.

Turned out there are big gaps between the roof and the wall (it's a sort of breezeway in that area) and the rat was picking almonds off a nearby tree, taking them to the rafters, and crunching on them.

Setting various rat traps, even baited with almonds, honey, peanut butter, didn't work.

So the other day I put in one of those rat-sized glue traps in the "runway" above the wall where I've seen the rat run from one opening to the other.

Of course now the rat will not come back, which is more or less what I wanted anyway.

The house itself is rodent free by virtue of two cats, one of which is a notorious killer of rodents, squirrels, and even one of my parakeets ;-(

 

[sudsmaster]

Interesting mouse/cat trivia

There is actually a mouse parasite that causes the mouse to be more risk-taking/less wary. Mice with the parasite are more likely to be caught and killed by cats. The parasite then uses the cat to complete its life cycle, and the mice pick up the parasite from the cat - either from cat feces or some other route (forget which).

There was some discussion that cat owners are also infected with same parasite, which might make them more sedentary.

I'm not lying!

 

[iheartmaytag]

A few years back we lived in a Mobile Home on a lake. The first year the mice were terrible until the traps working overtime took hold. I once emptied one trap six times in under an hour. After that I made sure to mouse proof the skirting and keep traps and cats around.

The only bad problem we had was in a shed where I could tell the rodent was very large. It wasn't the possum, so it had to be of the Rat variety. I finally placed a very large trap in the shed. This trap would have caught a small bear, I tested it with a dowl rod and it snapped it in half. I was positive I would take care of the offending rodent. The next morning the trap and everything was gone. I'z wuz Scared.

Because I have a small child, and pets I don't like to use poison. Even if the poison itself is not harmful to pets, if the pet were to eat a rodent that has injested the posion it can make them sick. I stick to the mechanical means of disposal.