Between a rock solid combination of construction, the changing of the seasons, and the wafting aroma of delicious Christmas cookies, the Litelysalted household has gone from "no mice" to "infested" over the course of one night. Seriously. I'm gagging as I'm writing this.Sunday I made cookies. Monday morning I woke up to mouse poopies all over my kitchen table. Luckily the 4 odd hours I spent baking my organic whole wheat cookies weren't in vain, since mice apparently can't chew through cookie tins. One disinfected kitchen table (and several disinfected outsides-of-cookie-tins) later... I set two mousetraps, confident the problem was solved.
Last night I had nightmares as a result of being roused from slumber from the "SNAP!" and proceeding death throes/nerve spasming of some unlucky mouse. This morning, I woke to not one but two traps full of disgusting mouse carcass. As well as twice as many poops on the table, and this time they figured out how to get up onto the kitchen counter to eat my bread. (And poop on my counter.)
Dear readers, I implore you. Does anyone have any experience with humane mousetraps? Not so much because I care about the little disease-spreading shit factories. I just want to spare myself the revulsion of their grisly deaths, and then I'll take the humane traps and go find a bridge to empty them out over a river or an overpass. That's right, you heard me. I may love the animals, but when you shit in my kitchen and eat my food? It's fucking personal.
22 comments:
The place of my employment is infested with mice. (and no, I'm not telling you where - you won't want to shop there anymore)
My boss seems to think that the glue traps work the best, but I tend to dissagree. It's said that the glue traps are humane, but I've actually seen a mouse trying to chew off his leg after being stuck to one of these things. It was awful. I would stay with what you've got already. Although there is a chance that the snap won't kill them right away, it's better than getting slowly poisoned or chewing off limbs to get away from stickiness.
Of course, you could spend the big bucks and get a whole bunch of the capture/release traps. Then you could catch them, free them, have them come back, and catch them again. FUN!
Do you think I'm kidding about the whole "throwing the mouse off a bridge" thing?
Glue traps are disgusting and violate my whole avoidance of their gristly death thing. And poison is also out because while I'd like to think my dogs wouldn't eat a poisonous dead (or dying) mouse while I'm off at work, you can never be too sure what dogs won't eat.
So it's either, snap their gross little spines or throw them off a bridge. And between you and me, I'd kind of like to see a mouse's attempt at flight.
pwmbelieve it or not, i DO have a humane trap that actually works.
you need a large metal bowl with sloping sides, i got one at smart and final, bigger than the usual mixing bowl.
butter the sides (yes, butter) and bottom thoroughly, put chopped walnuts in the bottom.
place the bowl where you suspect the most mouse activity, with a ramp on the outside to facilitate their access.
they climb the ramp to get to the nice smelly nuts, and can't get out the greased sides.
seriously, it worked in my garage. remind me to tell you about the time i caught two at the same time, and they had babies and escaped before the sun came up. we take them up on the hill and let them go.
whoops! sorry about that... had a little trouble w/ the word verification thingy!
bb- That totally made me laugh my ass off. When I was in college I lived with a pair of bleeding heart vegans and when we had a mouse in the apt, I actually made a homemade humane trap with a mixing bowl and a stick with peanut butter smeared on it. Who says Bugs Bunny cartoons teach you nothing?
So I actually caught the mouse, but when I boldly tried to photograph my spoils, I inadvertently let the mouse go and it ran under the living room couch.
Moral of the story: just throw the fucking mouse off a bridge.
Btw:
"nice smelly nuts"
Hee!!!!
*blush*
guess i've hanging around stallion and gumbo too much.
arrgh!
good luck w/ your mousies :
"love to eat dose mousies,
mousie's what i love to eat,
bite they tiny heads off,
nibble on they tiny feet"
(from a kliban cartoon)
Lightly - Rent a double barreled shotgun and blow them to smithereens!
Shick Shick BOOM
Shick Shick BOOM
P.S. I hate "meeses to pieces"!
Shick shick... Oooh. Now I'm channeling a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The kind where you just blow your whole house full of huge gaping bulletholes until the whole thing just crumbles to the ground. But at least you got that damn mouse! ...Or DID you???? DUN!
PS: I took off word verification, because it annoys the shit out of me as much as everybody else. And hopefully I won't get spammed again.
Did you try using lightly salted chocolate balls as bait? I hear they love those...........
poison is out because of the pets (besides this is not a good time for them die inside your walls and make your house smell like crap). I have to concur that spring-wire traps or glue-paper is the most effective way.
If you wanted to get creative you could probably charge a pack of pre-teen boys a hourly rate for a mouse shoot if they provide their own BB guns.
I won't waste my salted chocolate balls on those feculent little bastards. I don't even like using the good peanut butter on their traps. Yes; I am tempted to buy inferior peanut butter just so I may insult them as I execute them.
I put out a call out on the Angry Ferrets website to help you with your mouse problem. We are one big, happy yet somewhat dysfunctional "family" over there!
The last 3 comments were from there (although they are incognito)
Thanks for removing "word verification". It WAS a pain... albeit necessary.
Set your monitor on the floor, and leave it on tonight so all of the mice can read this:
ATTENTION ALL OF YOU MOTHER FUCKING MICE. YOU DO NOT COME ALL UP IN SALTY'S HOUSE AND SHIT IN HER KITCHEN. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MICE MINDS? DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU ARE DEALING WITH? SHE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND DESTROY YOU WITH EXTREME VENGENCE! YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO PACK YOUR SHIT (LITERALLY) AND GET THE HELL OUT.
OK, you can put the monitor back on the desk again. Silly fucking rodents....
Set your monitor on the floor, and leave it on tonight so all of the mice can read this:
ATTENTION ALL OF YOU MOTHER FUCKING MICE. YOU DO NOT COME ALL UP IN SALTY'S HOUSE AND SHIT IN HER KITCHEN. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MICE MINDS? DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU ARE DEALING WITH? SHE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND DESTROY YOU WITH EXTREME VENGENCE! YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO PACK YOUR SHIT (LITERALLY) AND GET THE HELL OUT.
OK, you can put the monitor back on the desk again. Silly fucking rodents....
Set your monitor on the floor, and leave it on tonight so all of the mice can read this:
ATTENTION ALL OF YOU MOTHER FUCKING MICE. YOU DO NOT COME ALL UP IN SALTY'S HOUSE AND SHIT IN HER KITCHEN. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MICE MINDS? DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU ARE DEALING WITH? SHE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND DESTROY YOU WITH EXTREME VENGENCE! YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO PACK YOUR SHIT (LITERALLY) AND GET THE HELL OUT.
OK, you can put the monitor back on the desk again. Silly fucking rodents....
I am from Ferret's. I come in peace.
Gather round children. Mama wants to tell you a story.
Years ago, I was shacked up with the future Mr. Jane, and we were infested. Mouse EVERYWHERE. I had two cats, who both caught their share of little critters but hardly dented the vermin infestation. I tried the poison, but after one died in Mr. Jane's shoe, and was discovered the obvious hard way.... we went with traps. I got sick of bleaching EVERYTHING. We went for the standard traps, and found (through humorous bets between us) what would work better - Peanut Butter or Cheddar Cheese. The ease at of me gleefully disposing of a dead mouse still surprises me. It sounds sick. But...... did you know that mice urinate CONSTANTLY????
The germaphobe in me went crazy.
I had no problem with ridding my place of mice.
Oh... No.....
I was so concerned about the number two I didn't even stop to consider the possible rammifications of the number one. So... thanks, for that! ;)
I am a huge germaphobe. And yes this is coming from a person who once flat-out refused to partake in "Chocolate Fountain," and said I would sooner drink out of a public swimming pool because at least the pool is chlorinated. You can only imagine what this experience is doing to me.
there are no humane traps. the glue ones are worse, i think, although less disgusting for human eyes. what is it about mice pooping in the kitchen? they do that in my kitchens too.
What Annie says is right - no glue traps, please!!! They cause sickening ends, and there is the danger your pets might get caught in them, as well as other less deserving creatures.
I did the whole catch/release thing for over a year. Mice have very elevated metabolisms and must drink water every few hours or will suffer/die of dehydration, thus negating the humane purpose of the no-kill trap... so I found myself getting up at midnight to drive up the road with a tin cat full of mice every damn night.
Not cool. I reluctantly switched back to snap traps.
I caught over 25 mice in 2006, all in D-Con covered mouse traps. They are easy to set and are reusable (to a point). You can get them at Giant grocery store, of all places. The corpse is hidden, and disposing of it is a matter of tilting up the hood, holding down the trigger, and shaking it out. As a final bonus, the inner snap has a plastic coating, so it doesn't decapitate the mouse. I have gotten 6 to 10 uses out of each trap.
Ugh. Good luck.
Well, I guess it is all perspective. You live on this earth right? Your are probably like what 5'4" or so? Well.. just because you have a better understanding of life and a larger body structure, doesn't mean you have the right to torture animals. I respect the fact that they have eaten your food out of your kitchen, and you are mad about it. Although, if you look at us, in persepective, who are we to come on this earth and take it over? Animals don't know better, they are hungry and you have food. Just like we go grocery shopping. If you think they deserve to be thrown of a bridge and drown for eating your food... then you must think that you deserve the same.
Since you asked for our suggestions ... get a "live trap" and set it free miles from your home. NO mess, NO cruelty.
Cruelty to animals is inhumane. Glue traps are inhumane... drowning mice for existing is inhumane. www.bangluetraps.org
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