Mouse in the House......................

[DaOld Man]

I think you should chill and let nature (and the poison) do its work.
Mice are intelligent, just as mentioned above, and they may get suspicious if you keep interrupting their habitat, so I would wait about a week before going back up in the attic, let them think you have forgotten about them.
Looks like the attic is their base of operation, so let them get back into the routine of finding food.
About the possible entry points, you definitely need to fix these ASAP, cause mice wont be the only creatures wanting to take up house with you.
I bought a house about 14 years ago  that was 10 years old when I bought it.
I was watching tv one night and a mouse came down the steps and jumped behind the tv.
This freaked me out and I bought traps and poison and set them out all over the house.
I got to looking around outside for entry point and I found a perfect one.
The house is sitting on a concrete block foundation.
There is a metal door that allows access to the crawl space under the floor.
I found that the frame for the access door has the concrete blocks surrounding it.
The blocks on the bottom of the door had the holes that are in the center of the blocks totally exposed.
The mice (and spiders and snakes) could easily go under the door by dropping off into the block then coming back up on the other side.
I couldn't believe the builder left this wide open (made me wonder what else I might have missed in the construction).
Anyway I filled the holes in the blocks with a couple of bags of concrete.
I also found a hole under the downstairs tub that possibly allowed the mice to move from crawl space to my space.
It was stuffed with fiberglass insulation but that's no barrier to a real mouse.
I patched it the best I could, which wasn't the proudest job id ever done. (The space to get to it was very limited.)
Anyway, no more mice, although I still have them getting in my workshop/shed, but I did some work on it a couple weeks ago and haven't caught any new ones since.

[mike boss]

Thanks DaOld Man,

For now I am waiting before going back up into the attic.
All has been quiet to date, nothing in the traps, and the biat outside not touched.
Based on the amount of bait I placed in the attic I'm confident waiting a few days they would not finsish the biat.
As per the box I was supposed to bait every 48hrs as needed.

[dkersten]

Your typical field mouse can enter your house through an opening as small as 1/4" in diameter.. their skulls and skeletons are flexible.  It is very difficult to completely seal your house up from them.

From your descriptions, I would say you have probably taken care of the problem by now.. The mice have eaten the bait and will likely be dead soon if not already. 

The last mouse I had was about 6 years back.  I would be in my family room down stairs and between commercials I would hear scratching in the ceiling.  As soon as I went to investigate it would stop.  I determined the joists they were between and followed them to the spot where my dishwasher water supply line runs up to the dishwasher.  Every night I set out a snap trap with PB for bait.  It took about a week, but one night I woke up to some sound, lay there for a while thinking about it, and then went to investigate and sure enough, the trap had caught the mouse.  Haven't had once since.

Unfortunately our town has been overrun by wild rabbits.  I am now considering ways of getting rid of them since we can't shoot guns in town..   None get in the house, but just about every yard in the city has a family of rabbits living in the bushes.  At night you can drive through any neighborhood and see dozens of them around the streets.. My yard gets hammered by them.  If there weren't so many cats roaming the neighborhoods day and night, I would poison the hell out of the areas around my yard and kill those suckers off. 

[mike boss]

I do feel confident I've taken care of it at this point.
I'll simply pop up, look at the bait and that should be the end of it.
In a week or two I have a buddy coming to do a walk thru looking for potential entry points.
He's not skilled in this (per say), just a home owner.......only difference is he will actually go up and walk around the attic............I WONT !

[pbj]

It's probably just hibernating until the weather warms up.  You'll see him again around March.

[mike boss]

I thought I would post an update on my problem.
To date I have caught 137 mice in the house.
I purchased 6 cats and tossed out every single food item in my house.

BUT SERIOUS NOW ..............


I've only caught the one mouse, and the traps in the basement (baited with PB) have caught nothing else.
And no new evidence found upstairs on the main floor ..... whic is great.
The problem outside I would assume is taken care of as the bait remains unopen. It's been about two weeks now, and again the bait not touched.

Yesterday for the 1st time in perhaps a week I popped my head up into the attic, I was able to locate the two bait bags that I placed within my site. They both had bait left. So I think I've solved this.

Over and above plugging the one area on the roof I found (near my down spout) missing a shingle, I have not looked in the attic yet. I will however in the next few weeks have my buddy do the walk thru for me.

I still want to use the spray foam in the garage, it is just that I have no time.

[SavannahLion]

You guys and your mice. Yeesh...

I have this creature that comes into my house every night. Eats enormous amounts of food. Makes the most horrendous noise you can imagine. The thing does this until about 9 or sometimes as late as 9:30 until it burrows itself into one of the bedrooms where it lays silent. If it doesn't go to sleep before 9, it worms its way into my fridge and starts horking food down like crazy. I've only managed to trap it once in the kitchen before it scurried back into one of the bedrooms.

Once asleep, nothing can wake it up until well after sunrise, not even a smoke alarm or fire department (yes, that has happened). On the weekdays, only food can wake the beast up. On the weekends, nothing seems to lure the creature out of hiding anytime before 12 noon. The damn cats won't kill it. The damn dogs won't do anything with it.

It's the most useless ---smurfing--- thing on the planet and I can't ever get rid of it. Not for at least another four years according to my wife.

[pbj]

I've only caught the one mouse, and the traps in the basement (baited with PB) have caught nothing else.

They'll soon return, and in greater numbers.

[ChadTower]

Mike Boss' mice always travel single file to hide their numbers. 

[yotsuya]

Mike's gonna need a bigger boat. 

[pbj]

Hold on to your butts.

[ChadTower]

Mike's mouse doesn't want to be fed.  He wants to hunt.  You don't just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct.

[HaRuMaN]

[jennifer]

  EEEEEEK !!!!!.....JENNIFER SO JUMPS UP ON A CHAIR !!!!

[J_K_M_A_N]

I recently found out we had some mice under our stairs so I ended up buying a web cam and trying to find out where they were coming in. I found out they were coming up some brick and had chewed enough of the 2x6 away to get in. I ended up getting this expanding foam from home depot. Be aware that it is a one time use as the foam gets in the neck and won't work again once it sits overnight. I figured out that when the house was built, they used nails on the sheet rock from the garage into the house and those get lose so there were big gaps at the bottom of the walls. I filled all of those in and have not had a mouse for about a month now. You have to get those gaps filled. That spray works great! Wear plastic gloves though. It is pretty sticky.

If you would like to see one of them die.... I caught about 12 before I was able to seal everything up. Some of the gaps were close to a half inch!

J_K_M_A_N

[knave]

Be aware that it is a one time use as the foam gets in the neck and won't work again once it sits overnight

J_K_M_A_N

PSA-sometimes you can clear the nozzle by turning it upside-down and releasing some propellant. You loose a little but not the whole can. I usually use them two or three times. (same goes for spray paint)

[mike boss]

@  J_K_M_A_N

That is the exact foam I bought. However so busy as of late I am yet to get outside and seal everything up.

There is no doubt that perhaps I over reacted in dealing with this. This was new to me and having a kid who plays on the floor all the time I was really upset that my kid could have picked up a lil mouse gift (aka TURD!).
I was creeped out to say the least. None the less I feel good about the results, and despite the jokes made I dont think 50 mice are in my attic laughing, thinking, "ha ha ha...he may have got Mickey but he will never get us!"

[DeLuSioNal29]

Make sure you cover your toilets too.

[ChadTower]

So if the mice chewed through a 2x6 what on Earth makes you think they won't just do it again?

[yotsuya]

There is no doubt that perhaps I over reacted in dealing with this. This was new to me and having a kid who plays on the floor all the time I was really upset that my kid could have picked up a lil mouse gift (aka TURD!).
I was creeped out to say the least. None the less I feel good about the results, and despite the jokes made I dont think 50 mice are in my attic laughing, thinking, "ha ha ha...he may have got Mickey but he will never get us!"

"Perhaps"? 


Oh, they're still there alright... waiting...

[mike boss]

LOL!

I'll get in the attic and look for entry points, and I'll use the spray foam outside.
I do however think I've MOSTLY solved the problem. I can say with confidence I've solved the current issue %100. Re-entry into the house is next on the block........but it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cold.

[DaOld Man]

Be careful with that expanding foam. If you spray it into a tight area, it will push something out.
I have a friend who but up a new door.
Before putting on the trim, he thought he would spray the foam around the door (under the trim area), for insulation.
It expanded, pushed the door frame in, and warped his new door.
It has quite a bit of power when it expands and can damage things if it has no where to expand to.
Just use it sparingly.
Also I wonder if a mouse can easily chew through that stuff?

[Vigo]

My understanding is that they can chew through spray foam. It might work, because they might not know there is something worthwhile on the other side, but the magic ticket is spray foam combined with steel wool. According to my neighbor who seems to be filled with a million tricks. It does a number on rodent teeth. and they will not touch it after a nibble. He also said the steel wool/foam combo can also be used as a squirrel repellent. Just keep some balls of steel wool/foam in places squirrels haunt, they will grab it thinking it is a nut, ding up their teeth and run. They will be scared to go near the area they hurt themselves. I haven't tested repellent yet, but I haven't had any of my foam patching chewed through.

[eds1275]

but the magic ticket is spray foam combined with steel wool.

That's a great trick!

It expanded, pushed the door frame in, and warped his new door.

As for expanding foam pushing a door out of square he used the wrong stuff. You can get hardcore stuff for things like between bricks or whatever, and you can also get low pressure expanding foam for around windows and doors.

I usually spray the stuff upside down to clear the nozzle, then wrap the end in saran wrap and can use it until the can is empty.

[danny_galaga]

Not sure what you are freaking out about. Mice occur in pretty much all homes. That, and cockroaches. One time, when my sister and I were tearing out our kitchen to rebuild, I found some mice in the cupboard under the sink. Because we had also cleared all the living room floor and there was no furniture, when they ran out across that (to them) vast space I was able to chase them and catch them by hand! I caught the whole family, and as animal friendly as I am had to drown them in a plastic bag of warm water (apparently warm water is better). So in that one day I cleared the kitchen out of mice without even using a trap!

[Deadpool]

I was a sneaky little feller when I was younger.  We used to have mice in the house quite often but I used to put some food by the hole they would come out of, and instead of getting a mouse trap, I would sit there with a BB gun and just wait for one to pop its head out of the hole.  It is a sure way to get the job done!  However I was also a young lad and had all the time in the world.  But nothing is more satisfying than handling the situation yourself!

[Fursphere]

I had mice problems when I bought my house about 12 years ago.   About 2 years after I bought mine, the house next door was sold and renovated.  The guy who bought it tore it down to the studs (a very old couple owned the house previously).  When that happened, I got invaded.  Big time.  I killed about 8 or so in the first week.  One I caught running across the garage floor right out in the open - a pipe made short work of that little fool. 

Anyway, I had a few stragglers that took more work to get.  In the attic, I used mouse traps + peanut butter + dry dog food (science diet small bites to be specific) to bait the traps.  Worked like a charm!  I saw a rat jump from a tree branch to my roof too.  Trimming the trees back seemed to fix that problem.

I don't like using poison.  The last thing you want is one of them eating the poison, running of into one of your walls (or ceilings) and dying.  You do not want that smell in your house.  If all else fails, hire professional help. 

[Deadpool]

I had mice problems when I bought my house about 12 years ago.   About 2 years after I bought mine, the house next door was sold and renovated.  The guy who bought it tore it down to the studs (a very old couple owned the house previously).  When that happened, I got invaded.  Big time.  I killed about 8 or so in the first week.  One I caught running across the garage floor right out in the open - a pipe made short work of that little fool. 

Anyway, I had a few stragglers that took more work to get.  In the attic, I used mouse traps + peanut butter + dry dog food (science diet small bites to be specific) to bait the traps.  Worked like a charm!  I saw a rat jump from a tree branch to my roof too.  Trimming the trees back seemed to fix that problem.

I don't like using poison.  The last thing you want is one of them eating the poison, running of into one of your walls (or ceilings) and dying.  You do not want that smell in your house.  If all else fails, hire professional help.

I had that happen too, why I use a bb gun..lol