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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/3/23 2:47 PM, cody dooderson
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAEddvG0D2jU7cSTUdGC77SJBQbbf5MaXejcfvgjWr=wqmsJC4Q@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">My parents use sticky traps. You need a cold heart
to kill them when you find them stuck to the trap. It's hard to
do when they are looking at you with their tiny sad eyes and all
you can imagine is their nest of tiny younglings hidden
somewhere in your wall. Also, sticky traps will catch other
animals including your house cleaner.
<div>I support you getting a bull snake too. That sounds like an
adventure. <br>
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<p>We tried various "fall in a plastic bucket" methods for our
sunroom and none really worked. I have nocturnal camera shots of
these guys hanging by one toe, stretching out nearly 6 inches to
lick every bit of peanut butter off of a roller-thingy that was
supposed to log-roll them into the bucket. We did catch a few
younger/smaller ones that way, but not the endless hoards we
expected (based on Youtube videos of other's experience). <br>
</p>
<p>We also didn't have the heartlessness to put water in the bottom
of the bucket (drowning) and have some evidence that the larger
ones were maybe able to jump/scramble out once they fell in... a
sad method I knew of growing up was effectively a poisoning method
that didn't propagate toxins into the environment... the method
was to put a small dish of water *inside* of a tray (pie tin?) of
raw cement... the mice would then walk through the cement to get
the water (and back out) but would then lick their paws clean,
ultimately impacting their guts with hardened cement. A
disturbing way to die... but at least cement-impacted guts aren't
something that cats/owls/snakes would then be poisoned by like the
more conventional "poisons" do. I suppose there is a risk that
pet might do the same thing, but I think the amount of cement they
might ingest might not be more than a minor annoyance?<br>
</p>
<p>Mouse-flux is at least as annoying as Daylight Savings time
changes... but a source of endless discussion nevertheless!</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAEddvG0D2jU7cSTUdGC77SJBQbbf5MaXejcfvgjWr=wqmsJC4Q@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">_ Cody Smith _
<div><a href="mailto:cody@simtable.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">cody@simtable.com</a></div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 2:18 PM
Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p><br>
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<p>Gil -</p>
<p> To misquote Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in
everything, that is how the mice get in".<br>
</p>
<p>I have lived with mouse-flux all of my time in my current
(rural)property 20 years). The mice (and ground squirrels
and packrats) in the environs require that I remain
vigilant to keep them living outside my home. This has
involved a lot of care around making sure that doors fit
(and close) tight and that any wall-penetrations (dryer
vent, etc) be well managed/screened, etc. <br>
</p>
<p>Virtually *every* Fall I recognize that one or more mice
have taken up residence in some nook or cranny inside my
house... evidenced primarily by foodstuffs nibbled on my
counter and of course "droppings". Sometimes the sight or
sound of scurrying. If I trap these invaders quickly
enough I don't have a whole family (or several) and even
worse, multiple generations take up residence. I've been
a vegetarian most of my life but I still would stoop to
kill-traps to stop this business right away. When Mary
moved here (5 years ago now) her (yet) softer heart lead
me to buy a decent no-kill trap which was limited to a
single-catch per night nominally. It still worked.
Equally important for me has been to have a live
mousing-cat in the house... even though I've never had one
catch/kill more than one or two in a season, I think the
presence and threat helps to reduce the number of mice
willing to force their way in when the opportunity is
found... I don't know if any voluntarily move back out
once they realize what they are facing.</p>
<p>Last winter I finally buttoned up a sunroom I'd had 90%
finished for years... this included replacing the raw
adobe floor with a clay-plaster finish, sealed with
walnut/citrus oil. The adobe floor (and cement bancos,
etc) could absorb/hide a lot of mouse-droppings/activity
that the new surfaces patently just enhanced... so the
flux of mice in my sunroom was mostly ignorable/tolerable
or in any case too hard to try to eliminate. With the
new finish it was just the opposite, and thoughtlessly,
the walnut-oil surface in the process of (many months
long) curing fully was a terrible attractive nuisance.
I think the little buggers thought it was a buffet laid
just for them. We had evidence of quite a few mice living
in there and even when we were catching and expelling one
per night, there was a never ending supply. There were
nominally *no* holes for them to get in, but if you've
seen my construction techniques you might not be surprised
to find that I actually *did* have a few *hidden* weak
spots where they might have entered. Our 20 year old cat
had gone blind the Fall before (quite gracefully) and
finally passed away on her own that winter... so no more
mouser or even the whiff of a threat of a mouser in the
house.<br>
</p>
<p> We then went away for 2 months with several different
house-sitters in the house who had not instruction nor
reason to try to keep up with the mouse flux. Besides, I
was used to mouse-infestation being entirely a winter-time
phenomena. When we returned mid-summer I sat in the
living room with the final house-sitter who was scheduled
to leave the next day and I sequentially set,
caught/released 6 mice in the space of a couple of
hours. The trap was just outside the room we were
sitting in and I could see the little buggers playing
chase on the floors, bancos, furniture as well as dancing
over the top of the trap and teasing their way in and out
of the trap before finally springing it. I went on to
catch several each evening (at twilight and beyond) until
we were down to rarely seeing more than two chasing
through the room... and catching one per night. Hole
after potential hole was plugged during this time. And
yet they keep coming. There is a chance these are
recycling, we haven't gone to the effort of notching their
ears or painting their tails or anything. My experience
in this environment is that there will always be dozens
(hundreds) of field mice aspiring to become house-mice...
so killing (or hauling far away) the ones we catch
probably doesn't change that much. I now wish I hadn't
moved the three bullsnakes I caught eating eggs in our
chicken coop across the rio grande, but invited them to
live in the sunroom... I think they are better (yet)
mousers than a cat.<br>
</p>
<p>We now have a fresh mouser who doesn't have continuous
free access to the sunroom (lest the buggers re-invade the
house proper) but who does spend time out there stalking
the hell out of every nook and cranny... she hasn't caught
any yet (though she did help catch a few who had gotten
into the house before we could trap them).</p>
<p>My best recommendation is to eliminate any
food-attractive-nuisances (refrigerator, cupboard,
animal-tight containers, etc), make sure you have no known
extgerior wall-penetrations (even the tiniest cracks they
seem to squeeze through) and then go on a trapping
frenzy... clean up any trace of mice ASAP so that you
*know* if you have any left as you trap them down to near
zero. And I recommend a housecat (or two), though I know
some do not like keeping cats. Maybe a ferret or a
schnauzer? My best ever Gopher-Getter was a weimerainer
who would sit for hours at the entrance to a gopher burrow
just to grab one... if allowed, she might have cleaned
them entirely out of the yard. We limited her time
OCDing out in front of gopher holes... it was hard to
watch. <br>
</p>
<p>Or maybe a bullsnake (or one of many other rodent-eating
varieties)?<br>
</p>
<div>On 1/3/23 11:52 AM, Tom Johnson wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="auto">Yeah, I buy traps from Amazon a couple
dozen at a time.<br>
<br>
<div>=======================<br>
Tom Johnson<br>
Inst. for Analytic Journalism<br>
Santa Fe, New Mexico<br>
505-577-6482<br>
=======================</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jan 2, 2023,
10:45 AM Gillian Densmore <<a
href="mailto:gil.densmore@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">gil.densmore@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px
0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Another surge of mice Q: For all of
Dismember i've had nothing but an ongoing trickle
of mice. what the is going on here? Is anyone else
having mice issues as well?</div>
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