Monday, January 17, 2011

The Three Most Important Things About Catching Mice? Location. Location. Location.

We dealt with a mouse infestation last year. I think they originally took refuge from all that snow in February. One mouse is cute. Even two. They’re little, quiet creatures. I actually removed one or two gently (you can fling a mouse a goodly distance by its tail). Sadly, they can’t be toiled trained and tend to leave their ever so tiny and cute mouse poo in not so cute places. They started getting bolder as well. Once they started mooning me, it was war.

Off to Home Depot. I have to say that the race to build a better mouse trap has succeeded. It’s like going to the computer aisle at Best Buy and about as confusing. You can get traps that all but put the mouse in a tiny little coffin and play Amazing Grace as it is lowered into the trash can. In the end, I went with four or five claw like contraptions along with a similar number of baited traps.

We’d spotted the mice at a few places, so the claws went there. The mice had gotten into a few spots, so those were natural locations. We used to have a bin full of various sweet things, generally candy or jelly brought back from trips to Costa Rica. I found a few empty wrappers one time and thought who would eat a candy and then leave the wrapper? What happened, of course, was the mice found the candies and would consume them, leaving a wrapper behind. As the mice apparently had a sweet tooth, I used Nutella for bait instead of peanut butter.

The early results were impressive. I think we caught a dozen mice the first week. Well, caught is a euphemism as the claw is not for those who prefer catch & release trapping. I started putting X’s on the most successful traps. Fortunately, we didn’t have enough mice for one of them to make ace. Ten kills, right?

I never saw any mice in the poison-baited traps. They were purported to trap the mouse, but ours were a bit too small. I did see a couple had some serious nibbling, so I suspect they were effective in a quiet way. There are probably some dessicated mouse carcasses back behind our cabinets. So we could finally relax.

Well, until this winter. December was brutally cold for Washington. It’s not as bad as Minnesota, where I went to college, but I also tended to wear warmer clothing there. We started to see some evidence of a renewed infestation. I spotted the first mouse this afternoon. It was nibbling on something it found on the range top (which admittedly needs cleaning). We’re better prepared this time. We bought a lot of storage containers so there’s no easily available food. We just need to keep the kitchen clean at night.

And finally to the title of tonight’s post. The mouse came up from behind the range and I’m pretty sure they use the electrical cord as a ladder. So, I moved one of the claw traps to that spot. A couple of hours later, Keen mentioned that she thought she heard it snap while she was doing her workout. Yup. Mouse #1 down. The trap triggered about five minutes and caught mouse #2. I’m curious as to if there will be another victim by morning. Sorry, mice. We’re not ready for pets.

Update from this morning: Mouse #3 down. We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

BB

1 comment:

  1. So, our mouse traps have been up and armed for what feels like weeks and we have only caught two mice. I think I have to send my husband down behind the cabinets.

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