The AM Forum

I've been infested with mice. Seeing them in my shed, which is not sealed up, has open gaps to outside above the walls under the eaves, etc. Its where I keep lawnmower parts, oil, yard tools, and most of my junk box components (transformers, inductors, capacitors, tubes). A month ago I opened a shoebox with telephones and cords in it, and found a nest. Cleaned it out. Today I opened the same box, and there was a mama with four sucklings attached. Yuk. They ate the vinyl clad coil cords for the phone handsets - apparently the attraction to that box over others. I replaced a lot of the cardboard boxes with plastic crates and boxes from the store, with snap on lids. I found the box with my first computer still in it, a 29 year old Rockwell AIM65 6502 microprocessor board. This was before IBM PC by 5 years, sort of nostalgic to me. There was my homebrew wirewrapped memory board using 4K (!) of 2114 RAMs all covered in stench. When I opened the carton, things were moist with mouse pee and two large creatures jumped out, 1 got away before I could smash them.

I set traps 2 weeks ago, nothing bit. Today noted that the peanut butter had been carefully eaten away without tripping them. I am curious what others have found effective to eliminate or at least control these varmits. I hate to see nice radio parts getting crapped up because of these opportunistic creatures. Cat is not in the plans, as I have a terrier-mutt who has a habit of eliminating loose felines, so that won't work. Sometimes I wish I didn't live in the sticks - but I suppose mice are everywhere. 

Are you using the standard Victor spring loaded traps?
(The kind mounted on a small rectangle of wood)
The peanut butter works, but the trip must be getting stuck.
Try the hinged traps Victor also makes. Plastic, the bait goes above the rodent's head, and the trip pedestal is still on the floor. The thing clamps down.

If you've got that kind of problem now wait til winter.

Good luck.

We were getting "sugar" ants coming and going, so we contacted the local pest control people and they killed the problem. They had a 1 year, 3 mo scheduled inspection plan for around $140... Cheep ....   they put down little sticky pad traps to monitor insect populations and egress/engress routes....  While placing something on an I beam in the cellar, I pushed one of them traps , and it felt "Heavy"......  one dried out miece .... My persional preference would be for a quick kill, but the sticky paper, along with a 'trap check' every 12 hrs or so may be worth it. I use Good Stuff expanding foam to seal the house where they come in.

Snakes work too.

The Victor traps were a lot of fun when I was a kid...  boobie traps.......

Ya can hare trigger the Victors; squeze the little bump-out inward wit a pair of needle nose and it will become a bit more unstable.....  Mouse urine will fluoresce; helps to track 'em down..  gud hunting.............   klc

Yes yes, Victor traps are the way to go!  I tried some similar hinged traps some years back, and got nothing but eaten bait.  Went back to the Victors, and get'em every time.  I guess they have a more sensitive trigger???  Use the usual peanut butter in a Victor and you'll be sending them to mouse heaven...   ;)
73, Karl

Yes, the Victors with the metal catch are a pain, but can work...(see kb2wig's  post)
I use the newer ones with the large platic bait paddle....

in either case, you must put the peanut butter on the BOTTOM of the paddle.....
NOT the top!
(On the large plastic paddles, fill the holes with PB.....)


At least, that's the only way I've found to work well....


Oh, and just in case....
MAke darn sure you're not breathing in too much of the dusty remains in those boxes...
And of course... wash up REAL well after dealing with the stuff that's been utilized by the rodents... DANGEROUS stuff!!


What's wrong with that dog? only likes cats, and not mice?
My Alaskan Husky  grabs any rodent that dares enter his area! and just like a proud mouser, leaves the carcasses by his food dish to show off!

Plasic is a great draw to rodents.... there's a salt in them that they crave...
Rats and mice especially will eat the insulation right off your electrical wiring, talk about a safety hazzard!

Right now is the time to get them...
As Fall comes... they're getting ready to nest for the winter.... right in the walls of your house....

Go get them!!!

Go to Home Depot, TSC, whatever and get some Decon. Much better then traps since it gets them all with not much effort on your part.

Decon comes in little wedge shaped packages, they eat the goodies inside, and they die of thirst. Set some water out and they die even quicker. A fitting end to anything messing with your valuables.  :) 

Decon works well but as posted, set out some water as it needs water to really activate the poison. Also be sure that your dog dont eat the mice. Anything that will eat Decon, will most likely kill them.

I have to disagree with the decon idea....

Just because, well yes it kills them.....

But, then the only way to find the bodies afterwards, is the smell of rotting flesh...
And a trail of flies!

Most will be able to get back to their nests.... in the walls or wherever before they croak.

If you don't mind that aspect..... very effective kill rate...

Yeah, a neighbor and I had rats earlier this summer. (and a possum) They were after the neighbor's dog food.

The de-con made my place and the neighbors place smell like a biblical plague for a coupla weeks, and we were worried for the dogs, so we gathered it up and tossed it.

Instead of the Victor snappy trap, i used a plastic thing called Tomcat. Very easy to set, and to empty. Has a little removable insert where you set your bait. I used some of my 4-cheese shredded Mexican cheese blend. ;) Anyway, this Tomcat thing, without getting into gross details, does some darn impressive damage to a rat for $7 of plastic and spring. Little SOB's were stone-cold dead before they even got ahold of the cheese, let alone knew what was happening.

But yeah, no more rats that I'm aware of.

My GF now has a rat or two in her garden, being the hippy she is, we got some of the little live-catch traps from Harbor Freight. When she gets one, she throws the whole thing in a bucket, puts it in the trunk of her car, and drives up into the Hollywood hills bright and early in the morning (after the old, slow cat has kept guard on it) and lets it out... So minus one for her, plus one for some filthy-rich SOB. ;)

So I've got one of those hippy traps too, just haven't put it together, as I haven't needed it.

...FUNNY, BUT FIG NEWTONS REALLY DO A GUD JOB, IN THE TRAPS....I'VE DONE THE PEANUT BUTTER THING, ETC, BUT FOUND MICE REALLY LIKE COOKIES, PIECES OF DONUTS, ETC....TIM....SK..

I suffered an invasion of the shack several years ago. It was like Steve McQueen digging the tunnel in "The Great Escape" inder my cellar door right inside the frame wood. Little stinkers tunneled right through 8 inches of pine to crap on my equipment. If you decide to use Decon to kill them, your house will fill up with flies and all you will se in there is fly traps hanging everywhere. I finally found the tunnel and re-framed the door which had to be removed anyway to make room for my latest transmitter but that's another story. I highly recommend the sticky traps. Zero maintenance and very effective. I had to catch a dozen of the wild critters before they stopped crapping in my NC-303 and eating the dial cords!

I consider myself an expert. When my son was about four he was raising mice in his room. I should have taken a count of them and lowered the population before disaster struck. I went in there one morning and he had taken a yardstick and put it in the tank. He said they liked the ladder.... The count was over 30 mice re-captured and returned to the mouse-atorium. We took the "Final Ride" to the pet shop to get rid of the mice after that. I spent several weeks picking mice off of my stereo speakers late at night over that one.

Get rid of them NOW!
Keith
WA1HZK

Tips for handling Victor traps. Check them often and don't let an expired mouse sit too long. Keep them (the traps) clean and wash them after a catch. The smell of a recent catch will warn the next mouse. Pick up some latex gloves at the drug store and avoid handling even clean traps by hand (keep your sent off them). As stated above don't handle those contaminated boxes. You don't want to come in contact with Toxoplasma gondii which is no doubt present in the urine and faces.


A single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii causes a disease known as toxoplasmosis. While the parasite is found throughout the world, more than 60 million people in the United States may be infected with the Toxoplasma parasite. Of those who are infected, very few have symptoms because a healthy person's immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness. However, pregnant women and individuals who have compromised immune systems should be cautious; for them, a Toxoplasma infection could cause serious health problems.


Have a listen to the story below. Be careful.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9560048

I killed our last cat by using Decon.   Apparently he killed a disable mouse that was on his last legs.   The vet confirmed it this.

I got to thinking about alternative snap traps.
Wish I could find a unit called the Black Choker, that my folks used to have out in the garage.
It was a black bakelite thing, like an oversized ashtray.
Turned upside down, there were four holes, one in each wall. From the "ceiling" hung four wire loops, and four bait wires. 
The unsuspecting mouse would enter a portal, push against the wire, and wham, up came the wire from beneath him.
Apparently mice are not too bright, or are very hungry, because I remember seeing as many as three corpses between trap checks.

To my recollection we never had a full house.

The trick[/i] with standard "whack" mouse traps is peanut butter, and place them square perpendicular to a vertical surface. The mouse has to enter left or right, and this pushes the lever and springs the trap when they go for the food. Increases the catch rate by a substantial percentage over random placement.

Don't Decon. Unless you like rotting mouse smell in ur walls or behind things you can't get to or find.

You need to keep the mouse traps up for 2-3 weeks and then put a few random out reqularly after that. It is a Mouse jihad!! They never quit. They send new recruits in all the time.

Worst part is that they carry the deer tick which carries Lyme Disease.

I use the 4 pack from Family Dollar or Dollar General, two per "Surge". They will get away with stealing the bait from some - but being greedy little critters, they go for the rest. WHACK!

I have tried two types of "humane" traps. The little plastic ones that catch one mouse, and an industrial galvanized version that has a metal box with a tunnel through one side to the other and a trigger on the floor in the center of the tunnel. Neat. Trigger the thing and it has a spring wound rotating mechanism that sweeps them into the holding pen! Problem with both is that they tend to FREAKOUT! Then they die anyhow franticly seeking escape. The ones in the little plastic catchers, same deal.

I just wack them now.

A high voltage version of the tunnel would be good??

Well, have to respect the jihadist mice on one level. Them like me, we both desire and want our liberty and freedom! Sad we can't co-exist. They've eaten too much for me to give them a break.

              _-_-bear

Mice can be destructive.  I've been fortunate enough that I haven't had them in the house or garage but they have made their way into my truck a couple of times.  I've also been fortunate enough that they haven't damaged the wiring in the truck but tore apart the insulation around the heater box the protects it from the exhaust manifold.  A buddy of mine had his wire harness in his truck completely ruined by the buggers.  I've been putting mothballs in various nooks and crannies under the hood and so far no mice or destruction.

I vote for the Victor mouse traps. Also you can have a little fun by beefing up the spring, give it and extra turn or two and fix it back to the board, usually you can get so much power that it will split the board in half.

The Victor traps are made in Lititz, PA!

Too bad, MIke, they're probably worth a lot of money as a collectible.

The thing was, the extra ports extended the amount of time between servicing.

I was always impressed that the triggering of one port did NOT jostle the others to go off. Clever stuff.

Wasn't there an episode on MASH where Frank Burns invented a rat trap that was a guilitine or some other contraption for dealing with that kind of vermin?

Not to mention that the other mice who came later never seemed to pick up on the fact that there was a DEAD NEIGHBOR next to them. You'd think it would spoil their dinner?

My house came with one of the old round traps with the multiple snappers. Also some large wire rat traps that look more like cages. The metal is so brittle that just touching them can cause a collapse.

My three cats are the ultimate vermin traps - most things on the ground and some in the air are handled. The Vermin-Cong do not even stand a chance. Even the garden which used to reqiure a fence around it to keep out critters, is free of problems now.

The payment for this service between vet bills, baby sitters when we travel and food and catering to their every need is around $2500 per year.

Oh and did I mention that they bring in ticks?

Mike WU2D

Thanks for all the advice. The majority recommended Victor wooden traps. I had gone to these plastic wedge shaped traps, which aren't as sensitive, because they are easier to clean out, dump the mouse in the trash, with one hand, whereas the Victor requires opening the wire guillotine and trying to get the remains to fall free. I will get some Victors out there ASAP. Yes, its a strange year, we got more rain, so the mice have been coming in droves. It has me worried, as they are trying to get into everything. They have eaten the insulation off under the engine hood of my car a few years ago. And got into our hot tub heater/pump compartment. I took care of both of those areas, keeping the car in a new garage now, and the heater compartement door got sealed using copper brillo pads stapled to the edge of the door, to block the open crack. Only a few have gotten in there last weeks, compared to many in the past.

I could try the DeCon, since the shed has no insulation in the walls, they would just die in the corners or outside. Or underneath.....

Afraid that my dogs would find a weak mouse outside and snarf it down. Bad thing. So I will stick with traps that break their necks and crush them, those varmits.

We have Hauntavirus here, from deer mice, kills one or two every year or so in New Mexico, usually they get it on the reservations, where the Natives gather pinon nut crops in rainy years. Mice love the nuts too.

We also have the plague from fleas off rodents. That has killed a few humans recently. 
Wish me luck.

John,

Although peanut butter does work I've found that they are crazy about Nacho Cheese Doritos. I've recommended it to several guys living out on trailers on drilling rigs and many times you don't have to wait 5 minutes to get one. The peanut butter takes longer.

It's a bit of a PIA to get it on Victor trap but you only need a small piece.

Marty

I buy the 4 for a $buck$ from the local Dollar Genrous or Family Dullard stores, and then throw the whole thing out!! one of the best ways it to get some carboard boxes, and that makes a little "welcome hut" for them. Less to handle.

A certain percentage of the time you get an ugly mess with blood.  :(

The box makes it an easy cleanup.

The key is to make sure they have double springs on the whack wire.

Will try the Nacho Cheeze... wonder if they make that aerosol cheezewhiz stuff in Nacho flavor!! That might be the ultimate[/u]!!

             _-_-bear

Only bad thing about traps is that some mice may take advantage of them and try to make more mice....

That's disgusting, Ed!

I just set out 3 new Victor wooden traps to replace the TOMCAT traps that didn't set off. Fresh peanut butter there, I will see how many I get tonight. The XYL had half a dozen gopher traps out right now, as they are trying to destroy her veggies.

Ed, although I didn't get a photo of The Act, the same thing happened when I was slow to clear out a squirrel carcass I had nailed out by the bird feeder. Some other one came up and started in. If I'd have had the gun ready I'd have nailed him too.

Wonder what it is.

Whuuuuuhhhggghhh. Uuuugh

<parp>

Ol' Victor did it. One trap had a fat mouse in it this morning, the other two were still not tripped, but the peanut butter was still intact. Tonight, being Saturday night, maybe there will be a mouse orgy in the shed. At least that one didn't get to my radio parts.

Paul, it must be that animal necrophilia is more popular than we would have thought. :)

Sunday morning, two dead mices. One near a power transformer on the floor and one near the door along the wall. I reloaded four traps today, lots of peanut butter to keep this going. I wonder if the mice will eventually quit trashing my stuff, or if there is a line of volunteers coming in, sort of a Jihad going on?

If I can keep them out, then my box o' chokes, RF inductors, capacitors, shelf of transformers, and so forth will survive for more generations.

Jihad.

100% certain.

They are relentless.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilence!

MORE TRAPS!!!

             _-_-