Mice tried to burn my house down

[sprucebunny]

I don't use the broiler very often but tried it the other night and the house was filling with nasty smoke.
Finally took the fire extinguisher to it  After a while with the big overhead fan going and the windows open it was better...no damage. If you don't count all the dust from the extinguisher.
Took the gas broiler thing apart today and this is what I found:





Close inspection reveals that mice are health concious: there's calcium pills, macaroni and pecans and peanuts. This is only a quarter of what I got out and then took a torch to the element to clean it. :

War has been declared.  >:( Last year they succeeded in burning my plow truck and they are chewing up the seat in another truck.
Are the rodents this aggressive everywhere ???

[Roxie]

Are ya thinking of the trap and release method again?   :D

[chet]

Joan,
I can send you one of dem super aggressive pussy cats we have here in da Upper Peninsula.        Ya got to remember to lock up yur guns though.  Dem U.P. cats can't be trusted around guns.   ;)

[sprucebunny]

Roxie....NOPE I'm trying to figure out how to incinerate them right in the trap  ;D

Chet...I'll take one. As long as it can fend off the husky and it's not a mind reader to open the safe ;D

I feel less and less bad about the rodents that I have killed.....

[Jeff]

Joan, will  you be re-locating them somewhere near the porky? ;)

[Bibbyman]

Seams like every fall and spring we get a few unwelcome guests.   

Last fall my son kept finding acorns in his shoes each morning.  It's hard enough to figure how they get in let alone come and go with something the size of an acorn.

We use Decon. 

Last fall also,  I boxed up some blades to send back to Wood-Mizer for re-sharp.  When Mary loaded them up to take them to the FedEx place,  she seen a mouse hole in one corner of one of the boxs.   About a week later we detected the unique smell of a dead mouse in her Durango.  We looked all over and left the doors open as long as we could but we didn't find the mouse and the smell didn't go away.  Finally,  I kept sniffin' around and was able to locate it inside the upholstery of one of the back seats.  I was able to remove it without ripping up the interior.

[tnlogger]

 :D :D :D i just knowd some one would bring that up  well one thing at least dem mises is to small ta carry a GPS. Go get um Joan.

[dewwood]

Joan,

I can understand your frustration.  It seems like an unusually bad critter year already.  So far I have found a skunk, possum and racoon in the barn and that has just been in the last week or two since the temps started to moderate a little.  I try to feed them lead whenever possible but sometimes I just can't get a good opportunity.  Might not be the answer with mice in your house.

Good luck with the critters.

Dewey

[Bibbyman]

Mary's brother was a big gun nut (and batcher),  he had mice in his house all the time. 

He'd load up his 45 single action Colt with wax loads (just prime the empty case and push the mouth of the case into sealing wax.) and set in his chair and take pot shots at the mice running around the room.  Got a few too!

[Roxie]

Well Joan, it's easy to understand now why cat's are toting guns.  Those mice eating calcium tablets could be a substantial threat!   :D :D

[Quartlow]

Joan  want to know what you did to make these meeces so mad they tried to burn you out  :D :D

[sprucebunny]

This has been a quiet year for mice..... musta finally plugged up where they got in ???

The first full winter in this house I caught an average of three a day. That was back when I had the astronaught training program... Ya see, them mice come with there own little grey suits and walk right into the tiny-mini-plastic hav-a-heart trap/launch vehicles I had and I'd take them out on the porch which is about 30 feet above the average terrain and flip the little door open and sling them into OUTERspace ;D
Sometimes thier tails would whip around a branch and they' be hangin there... :D
Any how ...maybe they liked it and came back for more ???
Don't think so cause I started catching ones you could tell apart by the lumps under thier skin ....  you don't want to know anymore  :

Yes... I've thought about moving

Jeff   This is WAR...no prisoners, no relocation , and no mercy  ;)

Bibbyman   I like that idea ;D  Got to keep them loads outta the hot sun, huh ???

Yah, Roxie  Hope the mice don't eat spinach, too  :D

[Furby]

Got a couple of cats I'm willing to send ya, otherwise they will be taken care of themselves as I don't like cats living in my backyard!

[Bibbyman]

I think one reason we don't have or see mice in the summer time is... the snakes get them!  More than once I've seen a black snake side into the atic of our earth-contact house.

Maybe you should ....  well, maybe not. :D smiley_dozy_bored

[pappy]

SB,
Got Lead??   :D

[Don_Papenburg]

I use the little green pellets . They are made from sweetcorn and poison. The meeses love em ,they will spend a day running those things back to there nest.  and some of the next day . then walking real slow on the third day by the fourth they seem to be to full to move . I get the stuff in packets that way I can throw them into the far corners.

[asy]

OK...

Now...

I can understand mice getting into your house, we have them here too   

BUT!!!

What I can't understand is how they start fires???

Are they carrying mice-lighters? have they evolved a prehensile thumb and are now able to strike matches??

What's goin' on over there?????

asy :D

[Percy]

Mice are weird. When I was a kid we had one eletricute hisself in the stove(220volt) and she got to stinkin pretty bad. Mom got peeood and we hunted for the nest. They were proliferating/procreating/mulitplying under the freezer. Mom got me and my buddies to lift the freezer real quick and she hittem with the vacume cleaner. Just about filled a fresh electrolux bag with baby mice (burial at sea errr uhhh toilet :D).  All the others scattered and got so freaked out I found many dead ones  frozen in the yard the next day. Got a cat to clean up the stragglers and within a week we had the problem solved. Cat got pretty fat there for a few days.

[etat]

My dang cats are getting fat, old and lazy.  I guess they're doin their job though cause I ain't seen a mouse in or around the house.  Every once in a while one gets trapped in the feed barrel.  I usually put it out a it's misery and pitch it down the hill instead of giving it to the cats.  Cause if they get their grubby paws on it they don't want to kill it right off.  Oh no.  They'd rather play with it and terrorize it to death.  They'll catch it, play with it, and then turn it loose and about the time it thinks it's got the jump on em they'll catch it again.  Finally when it does get too tired to run they'll swat it with their paws trying to make it play some more.  Only when it completely gives up will they have mercy on it and put it outta it's misery.  Nope, if they want a mouse they gonna have to catch their own dang mice cause I am NOT gonna give em one to torture.

[Engineer]

Catch 'em in a havavhart trap and drop the whole trap in a pond.  I use the old-fashioned snaptraps baited with peanut butter. 

Had a bunch of mice in an old semitrailer I was using for storage of some old maps and a lot of lumber.  Well, the mice got into the maps and made a big mess out of a couple dozen of them.  I cleaned out the mess, never did find any mice, but I bought three big boxes of mothballs and scattered them in the map drawers and all over the trailer, and the mice ain't been back.

[Corley5]

I just bought some D-con and some of the sticky traps.  We've got mice in this house for the first time ever and it's now war >:( >:(.  I haven't found where they're gettin in yet but I will and in the mean time some of em are gonna die ;).

[Grawulf]

Pappy,
   That is an awesome picture! I could not stop laughing  :D - wife thought I was flippin' out. Those UP cats are amazing critters. Joan, you really do need one! I'll bet with that little scope, that kitten never misses.

[Furby]

Corley5, Look along the bottom edge of your siding. A mouse can fit through an opening the size of a dime.

My Grandma used the sticky traps, only to find the mice would pull themselves off.
I hate decon and any of the other pellet stuff. They can carry away a whole bag or two and stash it before they die. Then at some point you will find piles of rotting green stuff that makes a real mess. :-\
Dead mice in the walls don't always smell real good either. ;)

[sprucebunny]

Well...that's what I've been wondering : where do they go to die on D-con ???

A couple of people have tried to tell me that they go outside to find water but I don't believe it. Doubt they can find their way out .;)

And I don't want a bunch of poison stashed in my walls or my oven ;D   But then I'm not sure I want bullet holes in the floor either :D

I'm going to try mothballs and snaptraps.



  :D :D

[Furby]

Ya should have seen the old part of the house when I tore it down.
Piles and piles of green stuff! I don't think there were to many wall cavities that did not have the remains of a long since dead mouse in it. I sure don't buy the idea that they go outside looking for water. The yellow blocks are not as bad as the pellets, just have to watch them. As they get old the moisture in the air makes them melt and will create a mess as well. Snap traps are good. I suggest you tie a piece of string or wire to the trap, and the other end to something solid or a weight. Those traps have been know to grow legs and walk off, no joke! We looked for one at my Grandma's last winter for several days. Finally found it two rooms away behind a bunch of stuff with a dead mouse attached.

My offer for free cats still stands!
I can try and catch the young one if ya want.