ARGH!!

[mamajoan]

I saw a (the?) mouse again in my kitchen today -- not once, not twice, not thrice, but FOUR TIMES. All while the kids were sleeping and it was quiet in the house. I am seriously freaking out you guys. I'm scared to go into my own kitchen!!

I did some more investigating and found a drawer that had contained some chocolate, which had all been eaten up and the wrapper shredded. So I cleaned out that drawer completely. And I wiped down the counters a bit more. But the weird thing is that the part of the counter where I've been SEEING the mouse is nowhere near that drawer! And where I've seen it, there's plenty of other food it could be getting into so easily -- boxes of cereal, plastic bags with bread in them, even on a couple of occasions unwrapped bread (that had just been baked and was cooling). So wtf?

Also I did some googling and found that supposedly a) you mostly see mice in early spring and early fall, and b) you'll never see a mouse if you have a cat. HA. So here it is the middle of summer and I just got a freaking cat! Who btw was lying at his leisure on the kitchen floor, just chillin', this last time when I came in and saw the mouse disappearing back behind the stove again. So clearly this cat is not doing fuck-all for me, which is irritating. I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the fact that I use that pine pellet litter stuff. Maybe if I used clay litter it would smell more cat-y and scare the mice off? Ugh!

Anyway, I called Brian who lives upstairs and he came and looked and seemed to feel that a) the hole I sorta-kinda plugged up last week doesn't go to the outside but into the basement and b) that might not be how they're getting in anyway and c) there's no point trying to plug up the holes because they'll always find another way in, and therefore d) the only solution is to never have any food out of any kind. Which, I'm sorry but that just isn't feasible, even if I were a WAY better housekeeper than I am. And anyway, the chocolate in the drawer wasn't left out! It was in a DRAWER!

But Brian did say that he would get some traps and put them in the basement. He claims that he had some trouble with mice about a year ago and he put some sticky traps around in his place and the problem stopped. I hate the idea of sticky traps because it's a slow painful death for the mice, but otoh if Brian's going to deal with them then I'll live with it. Also he said he'd try to get some of that spray-in insulation foam stuff, but he wouldn't be able to come by with it until Thursday night. And honestly I don't know if I can wait that long, you guys. I mean today is just ONE day and I saw a mouse in the same place FOUR TIMES, including once after I had wiped the counter all down and cleaned up a whole bunch!

So maybe I'll manage to get some of that foam stuff tomorrow. There's a hardware store in Harvard Square. Then I just have to figure out how to get it into that space behind the stove....

Seriously I am terrified of my kitchen right now, you guys. And I'm really upset about it all. I love this house. And I hate how I feel about it right now. :( :(

edit I meant to add that part of the problem is my lower cabinets aren't sealed closed in the back -- they're kind of open to the walls behind them, it's hard to describe. So once a mouse comes in from the basement he can basically get into any of those cabinets and thus into any drawer. I guess I can blame the previous owners for this. But it doesn't seem like something easy to fix....

Comments

[lapenn.livejournal.com]

I have found that putting food away until the mice disappear is typically sufficient. And I've plugged holes before and kept mice out of an apartment (granted, the hole led right outside, but after we plugged it up, we had no more mice).

In terms of "keeping stuff put away," my brother bought a few big sterilite tubs and kept all his food in there when he had a recent pest problem. maybe that would do the trick for you guys? "put away" means more than just "not on the counter" -- it has to be in a mouse proof container so it seems like there is no food.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- another thing I forgot to mention, I did get a big rubbermaid/sterilite tub and put into it all the food that was on the counter. But I feel like "all food put away" has to also mean no crumbs on the counter anywhere at all, ever. And that's the part that I just don't see as feasible.

The other part of the problem is that my upper cabinets are so dang small! I mean, the cabinets themselves are pretty spacious but the shelves are too short, so a lot of stuff I buy just can't be put in those cabinets. Which is (part of) why I tend to have a lot of food stuff on the counter. sigh.

Anyway, thanks for the comments, they do give me hope. :)

[lapenn.livejournal.com]

no worries :-) I hope you find out where the mouse is coming from.

[edie22.livejournal.com]

I live in south florida in a very old condo on the third floor. we had a problem with mice before, and i spoke with teh pest control division wher eI work and she told me that anywhere a mouse can get his head into (like even a tiny tiny hole) he can squeeze the rest of his body into. We tried a lot of things, humane traps that we could let them go, sticky traps (omg that was HORRIFUL), regular traps.. the best thing we got was this electrocution type thing. It was like a tunnel? and you would put cat food in the back, it would go in and the thing would zap them. It was instantaneous and it got rid of them. the trap is pricy though, like $50 on amazon.

Electrocution trap

[t-stop.livejournal.com]

We LOVE our electrocution traps. They are so much better than the springloaded traps in so many ways. Probably the best is that the more squeemish at my house can even empty them. Second best is that small children aren't likely to get hurt (we've tested with ours, V can't get in it without deactivating the trap).

I don't think they are $50.. and I'm pretty sure we may have an extra if you want to swing by.

My first night with one, I got 4 mice in ~4 hours with it. Since then I no longer believe in the "single mouse theory".

Re: Electrocution trap

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

oh really...so you didn't have to place it where V couldn't get to it? How big is this mouse zapper thingie anyway? Are you around tonight? And did you get the message about the Red Sox game next tuesday?

get rid of it.

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

1.They haven't ome up with a bette mouse trap than "the" mouse trap. The spring one. It's quick and pretty much failproof. It really gets rid of the problem.

2. Humane mouse trap. Some sort of set up with a ramp into a deep bucket that is irresistable to mice. They climb the ramp ( they love running on things like this) and fall into the bucket which is baited with something yummy to mice. Voila. Live trapped mouse.

[lapenn.livejournal.com]

one thought on mouse traps:

if you just have one isolated mouse that somehow got into the house, the mouse trap will get it. but if you have mice that are consistently getting into your house through some sort of opening, the traps won't really do much other than just kill them as they're coming in.

When I had to board up the hole to the outside in the mouse-infested apartment I was living in, we were using traps at first. Actually, that's how we found out where the mice were coming in -- we put traps under cabinets and such like, and the ones in the bathroom always had mice in them. Turns out the bathroom cabinet had a hole in the bottom.

In any case, I had a running tally of mice caught in the kitchen/bedroom/living room that immediately stopped once we boarded up the hole in the bathroom. So I'd definitely recommend trying to move your stove (can you get Brian to help you pull it out?) and spray foam/board up any hole behind that. Also, you might try pulling stuff out from all your lower cupboards to see if there are any little holes in there. I hesitate to recommend spray foaming them all because it's both expensive and will probably make ever removing them a pain.

I have faith in you and your ability to tackle this problem :-) just got to outsmart that little mouse! good luck :-)

[brina-is-sassy.livejournal.com]

:/ When my aunt was using the sticky traps we would wake up to screaming mice. It was terrible. I'd suggest the ones that trap them in a box so you can take them far away and release them.

We have 2 cats here, both catch, kill and sometimes eat mice (bleh) and we still see mice. I've had mice as pets though so I'm not very bothered by them. They must live off of crumbs or food from outside though because they can't/haven't gotten into our food.

[evil-macaroni.livejournal.com]

Your cat's broken!

[millerjess.livejournal.com]

Yikes, I don't blame you, mice creep me out! I didn't know they ate chocolate, LOL. I hope you can seal up most of your food if you can. And hopefully the mice will vacate your house asap. LOL at your cat just hanging out without a care in the world. We had ground squirrels at our old house and my cats could care less...lazy animals ;)

[hardcorewife.livejournal.com]

And this is why I pick dogs over cats. My dogs (back in Texas) used to round up rattlesnakes for me to kill with my rifle. The three of them were pretty good at it, cornering the snake, keeping plenty of distance between them and the snake, and keeping out of the path of the bullet. Gosh I miss those dogs, but I don't miss the snakes. They also used to hunt down skunks, possums, and just about anything else you can find on acreage. Good doggies.