This year is the worst I've seen. At home we've never had a mouse problem in the house till now. Every day there is at least one in the traps in the basement. Found one place where they might have been getting in and plugged that one and they have slowed down in the basement.
I spend most of my time in my camper in the woods and the mice onslaught has been fierce this fall. I bet I've trapped at least twenty this year so far. Plus they are in the cab of the semi too. Every time I get in to start the semi, there's one in the trap.
My wife said she saw on the TV where it's something about the weather this year that has increased the numbers of mice. Not sure what about the weather is causing a lack of birth control, but whatever.
I use those grey squeeze traps that used to be made by Little Giant. We could not get them for a while but now they are available with a different name. Just a little dab of peanut butter on the plate and they are deadly. Never had one that got even a bite as a last meal. Have had some that got a foot caught and even had one that chewed his own foot off and left it behind. They do get smart if they get away and afterwards I find the mouse trap tripped and nothing in it, but eventually that peanut butter gets to them.
I've found the black colored traps that became available when we could not get the grey ones are worthless. The mice can eat the peanut butter off the black traps and never set them off. The black ones I bought I threw away as there is no sense of feeding them.
The last one I caught in the camper, I just opened the door and dropped outside to be disposed of the next day. Then I forgot it and later the next day I was loading the truck where I could see the camper door and I saw two crows flying around over the camper. Then one crow sat in a tree and stood guard while the other crow landed by the camper, walked between my pickup and camper and grabbed that dead mouse and they both flew away. Amazing eyesight those crows have to spot that dead mouse between the pickup and camper from a hundred feet in the air.
Is anyone else having mouse problems this year?
My mouse problems are not limited to just this year, but it is the time of year that they are trying to infiltrate even a moderately warmed house. :D
Some of my traps have quite a few notches in them already this season 8). Lady at the store looked at me funny when I picked up 20 traps a while back, asked if I had 20 mice to kill. Like I took a population census! :D Told her at 50 cents apiece (on sale) the traps were reusable, those 20 were a many year supply ;D
they are every where >:( left the skidder parked for a few days started it yesterday to get wood and smelt something burning those little buggers packed leaves all around the turbo good thing i had my water jug
Quote from: Gary_C on November 10, 2014, 01:27:39 PM
Is anyone else having mouse problems this year?
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I have 15 hungery cats my mice population is way down
We got a few with poison here, but nothing out of the ordinary for this time of the year. Last Friday morning my wife had extensive surgery done on her nose and sinuses by Saturday she looked like Mike Tyson had gotten a hold of and she felt even worse, couldn't talk well either and was staying pretty well doped up. I had left and just started the truck to head for the elevator when my phone rang and she was screaming for me to get back home, scared me pretty good until she told me why, snake in the house! She's deathly afraid of any and all snakes, so I ask her is it a big one or little one (I knew the answer) and she said you know it doesn't matter. I walked in to find her standing on a rickety little antique chair peering around the corner no less. I would have laughed a little more but instead I told number one the baby garter snake could probably climb the chair faster than you did, number two it's so cold it won't even move, and number three, when that chair breaks and you fall, hit your nose on something and knock the stints out of it I'm NOT putting them back in ???.
If memory serves, in a nutshell, mice do well with allot of rain. I think it was back in the 80s, huta virus broke out (not good for humans) in the southwest as a result of a boon in the mouse population. Something to think about if your in the middle of an explosion.
Ive not see it here, with 9 buildings and a house (farm), but I do use poison, traps, and cats, because they are a problem 24/365. But according to the traps, nothing out of the ordinary, yet. ( house built in 1904 )
I had 6 traps set in the cabin in my 2 week absence from here. While I was gone I caught 3, and the day I came back I caught 2 more and have not seen any sign of one since. Hopefully I have them cleaned out for now.
They sure made a mess for you, Jeff.
Not so bad this year, which surprise me a little, after loosing Dixie
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I thought it would be bad, for Missy, seems to be more of a bird dog than a mouser.
this said, they can make a mess for sure, nasty lil critters,
Last Friday I was checking fluid levels in the semi tractor before I started it and when I opened the door to start it, there was a mouse looking out from under the dash at me. After I got back from delivering that load later in the night I made sure the trap was set and Saturday morning there was a mouse in the trap. Problem is there have been so many that I am not confident it was the one I saw.
In the camper there is a storage compartment under the bed with no way I can see for a mouse to get in. But one did get in there and chewed up a sleeping bag, a blanket, and a comforter plus he left plenty of pellets behind. It took about two weeks before I caught one in that compartment and in the meantime he was leaving little piles of soybeans under the sheets in the bed. >:(
It's an ongoing war. :snowball:
I fight a constant battle with them as well. I use snap traps for the most part. In the outbuilding I use the old bucket trap; resets itself so I don't have to check it every day.
Google up 5 gallon pail mouse trap.
I maid one for the shop and we have caught about 35 mice in it in the last month or so. Was bad enough I left a bag of candy on the counter one night, come back the next morning and there was a hole ate through the bottom and it was full of mouse poop and a few pieces left of candy!