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A SAFE and cheap way to kill mice is to line the rim of an empty drywall compoud bucket with the bucket filled halfway with water.
When the mice climb up onto the rim to eat the peanut butter, they fall into the bucket of water and drown.
MORE IMPORTANTLY:
In addition to focusing on killing the mice, you need to eliminate their food sources.
It's super important to protect your food supply for the health of your family. Doing so will also make the mice leave your property to find food elsewhere.
Obviously, foods in cans and jars are okay. But everything else needs to be stored in glass containers or the refrigerator.
That's right. I'm saying to pour your cereal from the box into glass containers or put the cereal box in your refrigerator.
When I say everything, I mean everything that isn't packaged in glass or metal.
You say you have a dog. Leaving dog food in a dish all day is a BIG no no. The mice will eat the dog food.
Don't leave dog poop in the yard. Clean it up as soon as the dog does its business. Mice eat dog poop as food.
Make sure you're cleaning every crumb from your counters, tables and floors. Don't allow family members to eat in any other room than the kitchen or dining room.
Bottom Line: Mice don't travel far from their nest. You either have a nest in your house, on your property, or very near your property if your yard is small.
Mice ONLY go into houses that have food sources available. As a result, part of the battle of eliminating them is eliminating the food sources.
I disagree that mice only inhabit places with food. The barn here has no food, several auto repair shops i worked in had no food, and mice were in these places just seeking nest building.
Further more, the heater vents, air cleaner housings on trucks and cars have no food, nor is there foods under a timing belt cover, all places i have found nests living and dead mice.
Othewise I agree with you, but want to mention that with a yard stick and a little wire, if you are handy and have a drill you can make a plank for the mice to walk, and bait the wired on yard stick which tips up, and drops the mouse against it's will into that water. (sea saw like)
My bucket tip up trap kills mice with no bait sometimes after i have simply cleaned it. I suppose the peanut butter scent remains as peanut butter is my best bait. I also use that on Victor brand traps, the only spring wire traps I will buy. Then I pack peanut butter into the trip trigger so a mouse can't just lick the trigger clean.
With the dead mice, I set them out on a wood pile, and every time with in a few hours some other critter comes along and takes them.
You definitely have mice because those are mouse droppings. We had mice at work and they actually ate half a bar of soap, so they'll eat lots of things you wouldn't even imagine. Please make sure you protect your food by putting it in mouse proof containers or in the refrigerator. You can put a glue trap in your pantry or anywhere you found the droppings and you'll probably catch some of the little buggers. Make sure your dog can't get to your traps though.
I disagree that mice only inhabit places with food. The barn here has no food, several auto repair shops i worked in had no food, and mice were in these places just seeking nest building.
Further more, the heater vents, air cleaner housings on trucks and cars have no food, nor is there foods under a timing belt cover, all places i have found nests living and dead mice.
There's definitely a food source with a radius of where they are living. Otherwise, they would permanently leave before starving to death!
Food sources aren't always packaged people food. Food sources can be animal poop, vegetation from a garden, etc.
Seriously, mice only travel 15 to 30 feet from their nest---even for food.
If there is no food available for them, they will move their nest and you wouldn't find mice.
Man, mice are amazingly destructive for their size. I grew up rurally, surrounded by cornfields, and spent every harvest battling them...when the corn is harvested, they come inside surrounding farmhouses, looking for food and places to nest away from the cold. Just a part of country life. They can get in without holes...even under a door with the slightest space, since they can flatten their rib cages quite effectively.
Nothing has ever worked as well for me as spring traps, which are reusable if you want to reuse them. I'm not a bleeding heart fan of vermin by any means, but I do feel that glue traps are needlessly cruel, as those things go...typically a spring trap is a quick death...occasionally, you'll get a quick mouse that gets a paw or tail caught as he flees, but the vast majority of the time, it's a swift neck break. Live traps are nice in theory...I've just never had one that's caught anything. Peanut butter is my go-to bait.
Second others on the issue of keeping any food that's not canned or jarred protected. I live in a city now and don't even have to deal with mice anymore with any consistency, but I still keep all foodstuffs that come in chewable packaging in bins and impenetrable containers. Not only will mice get into stuff that's only enclosed in cardboard and thin plastic and paper, they'll leave droppings and urine on even your closed food products...mice are vermin, they spread disease. Not good.
Mice will also eat things you wouldn't think of. I could not for the life of me figure out why I could not get rid of them one winter, until I went to take out a box of seasonal decorations the next year...and they had stripped an autumn door hanging that featured a few ears of Indian corn COMPLETELY BARE. A no-brainer...of course they'll eat corn...even if it's corn used as decoration. Just didn't think of it when I put the door hanging into storage. Another time, they got into a cabinet of toiletries...I had one of those relaxation muscle soothers you can heat up in a microwave and wrap around sore body parts...homeopathic, made of flax seed and lavender and chamomile flowers sewn inside a cloth pillow. Well, mice love to eat those things, too...chewed a hole right through it. Oftentimes, they'll chew up things that aren't even food items, too, just to get material to shred up for their nests. Horribly destructive little buggers.
I disagree. The coin provided for perspective makes them appear to be mouse dropping size in my experience. Well-fed mice (like if they're invading pantries and gnawing through cracker packages, dry goods, etc. and gorging till their heart's content) can have pretty significant droppings. Small mice can leave big poop. OP also already stated that he/she's begun catching the culprits.
I wouldn't be feeling too confident with Tupperware containers protecting my food. Mice will eat through them. I have personal experience with it. Use tupperware inside of metal.
We went over our house with a fine tooth comb for over and hour and could not find any obvious mouse-made holes into the house. We just assume they are coming through vents or some already-open path for them. (The house is only 3 years old.) So as far as eliminating the entryway I don't know what else do do here......
You need to look for not so obvious places. A mouse can squish itself down to fit thru a 1/4"- 3/8" space, so they'll even fit under doors. Put tight fitting gaskets on/under all outside doors & stuff fine steel wool and caulk really well wherever any pipes, elect wires, vents, etc. go thru the wall of the house. Check for small gaps where the house sits on the foundation.
Nothing has ever worked as well for me as spring traps, which are reusable if you want to reuse them. I'm not a bleeding heart fan of vermin by any means, but I do feel that glue traps are needlessly cruel, as those things go...typically a spring trap is a quick death...occasionally, you'll get a quick mouse that gets a paw or tail caught as he flees, but the vast majority of the time, it's a swift neck break. Live traps are nice in theory...I've just never had one that's caught anything. Peanut butter is my go-to bait.
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