We have mice in the house. Hopefully, only one or two. It's absolutely shocking. And old farm house on the prairie has field mice? I think they're getting in under the back door, because we never put a new concrete back stoop in after the geothermal, so there are a few holes. (We run a tight ship around here, yes indeed.)
The mice haven't really been much of a problem, but whenever I see one, I scream like a little girl. I just can't help it. A giant yelp involuntarily escapes me. What is that? It must be some sort of primal reaction.
Bad-Ass Husband (BAH) put out some mouse traps with cheese. At first, he didn't catch any, so he decided it wasn't good enough cheese. This is Wisconsin, after all. These mice are connoisseurs. Then he set out some cheese and the mice ate the cheese without getting caught. For a while, he was just feeding the mice. Then we caught one. Then we caught another, and just the mouse's foot was stuck, so he escaped into that hole under the back door. I let him escape. It was my fault. I was busy screaming like a little girl. But maybe the mouse just left and he isn't coming back? That would be nice.
I'm going out now to buy some concrete mix for the back porch.
I can send Elvis. As a Maine Coon mix, I feel he would excel at mousing.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you need a cat. But take it from me, peanut butter is far better mousetrap bait than cheese, because it sticks to the trap. Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY those sticky traps. They're horribly mean to the mice.
ReplyDeletePeanut butter. Yes, it works.
ReplyDeleteI would get a cat- I really like cats a lot. The problem with a cat is that we seem to live in some sort of bird sanctuary. Walking outside in the morning, it's just amazing. I think I might record all of the bird sounds sometime. We have all this tall grass prairie, and then a woods beyond that. We see so many varieties. A cat would eat the mice and then move on to the birds, I think!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, because I've always loved cats and didn't understand people with mice problems. I always said, why don't they just get a cat?
Peanut butter, then! Yes!
We don't use the sticky traps. My preferred method, really, is just to scare the bejesus out of them and have them go and tell their mouse friends to never go back to that house again! That's what cats are mainly good for- at least, Mr. Kitty, who liked to suck on a mouse for flavour without ever actually injuring it.
I can personally vouch for the peanut butter in the mouse traps...my mum and I lived in a very old, falling apart house about 10 yrs. ago...we had a major mouse infestation...we got traps, baited them with peanut butter and caught 26 mice in a 24 hr period!
ReplyDeleteOh...and I scream like a little girl when I see a mouse too.
Just put a bell on the cat. Or a white noise generator. Or create some sort of extensive theramin type force-field around your house. A girl can do that, right?
ReplyDeleteMaybe a dog? Our house has been under remodeling since forever ago and although we get the occasional mouse, they tend to find their way out when faced with a curious dog sniffing at them.
ReplyDeleteWe've been catching a mouse a day, now, with peanut butter. How many are there, I wonder...
ReplyDelete