Mousehunt

[dodger]

Hi All,

I don't if you have seen the film with Lee Evans but i feel a bit like him in the film, last week the wife informed me she had a mouse in the greenhouse after finding droppings on her worktop in there, so i bought a humane mouse trap, also its been burrowing under the tiles on the floor of the greenhouse,

Every day she has leveled the earth on the floor only to find a small heap of it the next day! i have put food in the trap and so i can see the lid from the kitchen window i put a white label on it so as to see it if it shuts! i'm back and forth like a fiddlers elbow but alas no joy yet, its proberly a field mouse but i'm determined to catch the little devil and he or she is determined that i won't!,

The things you do when your retired!

Cheers,

Roger.

[DaveB]

What are you putting in the trap Roger?? Contrary to popular belief, I've found mice much prefer chocolate to cheese!

A couple of pubs ago, we had a problem with mice. They were getting in through the boiler room (outside) and in through where the pipes went into the pub. This led them on a merry trip upstairs.. the ducting ending in our kitchen. I'd been putting saucers full of warfarin under cupboards which was being taken so eventually got one of the humane traps you mention. One night when my mom and dad were staying (mit Jack Russell), the Jack started going a little barmy at one of the cupboards (the one with the trap in). My mom opened the cupboard door and the Jack immediately recognised the trap.. picked it up and started shaking the sh1t out of it. No one dare try and take it off the dog for fear of needing stitches (she was a little cow!) and eventually.. the trap broke in half.. the half with the mouse in falling to the floor. Shook up and more than a little peeved, the mouse scampered out of the trap and did a runner. Back to square one!
Ah.. the chocolate. Not only were they taking the bait out of the saucers, they were also helping themselves to a box of chocolates in our living room We got the little blighters in the end but not before they'd eaten their way through enough warfarin to down an elephant. Said hole in the boiler room was made mouse proof too The mouse we caught in the trap (before the dog crushed it) had gone in for a bit of Dairy Milk

Good luck in your quest

ATB

DaveB

[steelsporran]

I find peanut butter effective, it's easy to apply and stays on. For a pronged bait-holder a baked bean works too.

[Felixx62]

You could always do the same as they have done at "Number 10" and get a cat..

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

I'll vouch for peanut butter too, works very well up this way...

[FlyTexas]

You could always do the same as they have done at "Number 10" and get a cat..

Years ago the former Mrs. FlyTexas and I had issues with mice. Our neighborhood had just built which left a lot of field mice without a home. Our cat caught one of the mice and it became his favorite new toy. He'd set the mouse on the floor and lay next to it just staring at it, waiting for it to run. Any time the mouse would try to escape the cat would just grab it and start the game all over again. He had more fun with that poor mouse.

Brian

[DaveB]

Yes.. they're cruel but very efficient aren't they

ATB

DaveB

[FlyTexas]

You could always do the same as they have done at "Number 10" and get a cat..

Just saw the video of 'Larry' on the BBC. He's a handsome boy who looks like he really means business. That rat doesn't stand a chance.

Brian

[speedbird591]

I used to own a 16th Century stone cottage with walls about a metre thick. As the stones were all different shapes, over the years the field mice had created passages to get to their winter quarters in the loft. We'd know the season was changing when we were woken several times a night by scrabbling noises above our heads. The then Mrs. Speedbird was a vegetarian bunny hugger so a humane trap was the only option - despite my protests that if I released them into the fields they'd probably be back before I was.

One night we got back from the pub a bit squiffy and instead of scrabbling there was a plastic rattling overhead which required instant attention. While I was wobbling up and down the ladder, she dressed a shoe box with an old T shirt, scattered some bird seed in it, decided that she was going to keep it and named it Morris (I see now that I should have given her children ).

When Morris was eventually shaken reluctantly out of his plastic refuge into the overwhelming glare of his new home, he was shivering with fear despite the friendly endearments of his drunken, but loving, step-parents. But when she went to stroke him, he found it all too much and launched himself into a magnificent leap for freedom clear out of the box and under the cushions on the sofa.

Well, we thought this was the funniest thing we'd ever seen in our lives but by the time we'd recovered from our hysterical laughter (and hiccups) there was no sign of Morris anywhere. We concluded that he was probably living happily ever after in the sofa with his family and living off biscuit crumbs. He was the best pet we ever had.

I realise that this is no help to you whatsoever. But then that applies to most advice you'll get off this site!

Ian

[DaveB]

Not long after the Jack Russell incident at the pub (while my folks were still staying) we heard a shout one morning from my mom saying that Remy (my old yellow lab) had caught a mouse. Since when have labradors caught mice! I think it had finally given up or succomed to the chocolate/warfarin diet but there it was.. dead as a dead thing.. with the labrador lying nose-on to it with a sort of 'look what I've got' look on her face She more than likely stood on it during the night and flattened the cr@p out of it

ATB

DaveB