Part 3 (parts 1 and two are here)
As I was cleaning out the garage yesterday I found the tell tail signs of little vermin everywhere.
Mouse poop!
Dagnabbit!
I found the poison traps that I put out before - all empty. One little bastard even had the quejones to make a little nest in one!
Bastards!
At first I was having a hard time killing these little guys. I mean look at how cute your average house mouse is:
But they are very destructive and their excrement smells horrible and now it's personal.
Here are a few facts about these pesky little pests:
Mice have keen senses of taste, hearing, smell and touch. They are excellent climbers and can run up any rough vertical surface. They will run horizontally along wire cables or ropes and can jump up 13 inches from the floor onto a flat surface. They can slip through a crack that a pencil will fit into (sightly larger than 1/4 inch in diameter).
I am not one to catch and release these little guys because there are just way too many of them and they breed incredibly fast. Did you know that female mice will become "mature" at about 3 months of age? The gestation period for a mouse is 19 - 24 days and a female can get pregnant again within 48 hours after giving birth.
Average litter size: 9 - 20 pups
Corky and Casey are very good vermin hunters. We find little dead mice all over the back yard, but once they are in the house they can't get to them because they run along the sill of our basement which is up way too high for their little Westie legs to reach.
So unfortunately for Mickey, Minnie, Speedy, Mighty mouse and all their little mouse friends it's curtains for you:
8 comments:
Shazza, I feel your pain. I've been victimized by those verminious vectors.
Hint One: Spray some of that foam insulation into all the little cracks you find around windows, doors, etc.
Hint Two: Do not hire Orkin. They are the biggest ripoff imaginable.
Hint Three: Adopt a kitty. Just the presence of cat seems to frighten the bejesus out of the critters. When our first cat died, the mice came back. Now that Eddie is firmly entrenched in our household, we have no indoor mice.
I hate, hate, hate, hate mice. do whatever it takes, kill them all, jeez it just gives me the creeps for you. good luck!!
Hi Shaz! When we moved into our house (which is over 60 years old), early one morning I got up to use the loo and all four of my cats were converged (cartoon-style) on a poor wee mousie. They were just a hair's breadth away from it, all of them and I rescued the thing and put it out the back door. We haven't had a problem since (unless you count the rat, but he was outside) so I guess the word got out not to come to the Hyggehus because it's full of cats.
I could never kill a critter, but I know how frustrated you must be.
Good luck!
I've seen a good trap with a bucket of water and a plank. They run up the plank, fall in and glug, glug, glug!
Kat
Tammy - You need a sedative, I think.
Kat
Cats are nice. The trouble is they often get bored part way through eating mice and leave bits all over the floor.
ahhh, those mice are SOOO cute. We had one die in our baseboard heating thing. When I finally determined its location, it looked like a little angel in the fetal position.
I know, they're cute. But I can't stand them in my house. I have found poo in my basement storage room, and my cats are always eager to hunt in there. They've never found a thing, though. Bastards is the right term.
I've had a bad mouse problem the first two years in this house but it's better now. I prefer the old fashioned snap traps; they kill instantly and there is no chance of second hand poisoning another animals, such as an owl or a cat.
I used to hate killing them but like you say, they are everywhere!
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