Help I am over run with mice. I have caught 28 mice in 6 days

Question

I have caught 28 mice in 6 days and I just keep putting out the traps. After the 5 day rule I will start sealing and cracks or hole in the house. I am afraid to put poison out for the fear of the smell so I just keep puttin cheese in the trap. They are under my bathroom sink which I am grateful for. Will setting these traps invite outsiders in? These little guys are in the wall of the house.I have been in this house 17 years and have never seen a mouse or its droppings. Could Covid and being home all the time have something to do with it?

I will take any suggestions!

Answer 1

Mice are like most pests, they have a few basic needs and are likely to stay where those are met. Mice can also reproduce very quickly, with a gestation of 20 days they can get pregnant 10 times a year and have up to 14 offspring in each litter so you can go from a few to dozens very quickly if they're happy inside your house.

They're looking for food, warmth/climate control, and bedding/nesting materials. Houses have plenty of all these things. To get mice to leave you often have to trap or kill them, and to keep more mice from coming in you must make it less hospitable by blocking all the holes they can get in through (replace siding or trim, caulk, use expanding foam, etc) and sealing all food in airtight packaging - keep all food contained to the kitchen if you can and vacuum carpets regularly for crumbs. If all food is put away, they'll have no choice but to go for your traps so this will help your trap success as well.

A bedding material trick I learned is to plug mouse holes inside the house with steel wool; it seems like they can gnaw on it or use it for bedding but it can kill them when they try.

Mice are capable of extreme compression; the largest part of their body is their skull and their skeletons contain a lot of cartilage so anywhere their head can fit, the whole mouse can fit. This means you need to be looking for tiny exterior holes/gaps to fill up and not just large ones.

Some other outside-the-box suggestions: cats are natural predators of mice, and are widely used to dispose of them. If you're not interested in keeping a cat as a pet after the mice issues is dealt with, you may be able to borrow or rent a cat. Please don't buy or adopt a cat and then release it after the mice issue is over.

Mouse poison (D-Con in the US) dehydrates the mouse bodies after it kills them which greatly reduces normal decomposing smells. Obviously if you have dozens of mice the combined smell may still be an issue.

Answer 2

At a previous home, where we had a mouse problem, I used an ultrasonic pest deterrent with pretty good success. Do your research, but I'd stay away from the really cheap ones as they are marginally effective and only cover a small area. Even with the more expensive ones, you may need several. Given the severity of the problem, you may need to move them around once in a while to confuse the mice. In my current home I have several and do not have a mouse problem.

EDIT: oops, meant to add Fredric's advice is very good, you need to find where these critters are entering and seal them up. One common entry point is foundation vents. They are supposed to be screened, but are often damaged and need to be patched.

Answer 3

Mice - at least European mice - can go through holes where a pencil can go through. The fur makes them appear much bigger.

As already stated in another answer, ultrasonic sound could be a solution.

An approved recycling- solution needs this equipment:

• An old smart phone with charger
• An old stereo set with boxes where at least the high frequency chassis of one channel/box must be working
• A cable to connect the phone plug with the amplifier
• A free signal generator app, f.e. Keuwlsoft Dual Channel Function Generator

The hardware can be found in the "obsolete electronic box", in the basement, attic (of friends/relatives) or in the next recycling yard.

After installing the SW and connecting everything the sweep function can be set to an interval between 15kHz and 40kHz. If any tenant is disturbed, enlarge the lower interval setting, f.e. to 17kHz.

The waveform should be triangle in order to produce many high frequencies, sinus waveforms are less suited.

The volume should be set to a level where the amplifier is not heating up too much - and where everything can work for a long time without starting fire hazards.

The level depends also on the hearing capability of all tenants and neighbours - cats and dogs could be annoyed by that signal, and also bats.

The box(es) can be directed to the wall with the mice population.

This set up is much more powerful then plug- and- play solutions. The sound is much more annoying - comparable to a neighbour, who is a professional musician in an orchester who plays the diatonic scale or the same short piece of music 24/6.

And it is more flexible, and if it can be all made out of recycled devices, it is free.

Edit: Taking a screenshot disclosed the fact, that this App can only sweep up to 22kHz, which should work fine, since the triangle produces higher frequencies. Both channels have the same parameters except for the sweeptime in order to get more annoyance = 2 musicians playing the scale with variable offset at the same time. Only deaf mice or mice with Cr-Vd- hardened steel nerves will stay.

Answer 4

If you have a large number of mice to deal with, you might want to consider a bucket trap. It's not terribly pleasant but a standard mouse trap needs to be reset after one mouse trips it. A bucket trap can catch many mice at once and avoids the issue of mice dying in the walls and/or potentially poisoning outdoor predators.

Basically you take a bucket and drill holes on two sides near the top that will accept a dowel or other straight stick/pole. Then take a plastic bottle such as a 1 liter water bottle and put a hole in the bottom. Put the stick through the first hole in the bucket, through the bottle, and then the other hole. The bottle should spin freely near the top of the bucket.

Put several inches of water at the bottom of the bucket. Now slather a bunch of peanut butter or similar on the bottle. Set up a ramp that leads to the bottle but leaves a gap that's a little less than mouse length or so. Mice will walk up the ramp and stretch to reach the bottle which will spin under their front feet and cause them to fall in the water and drown. Place the bucket where the mice are found. Remove the mice from the bucket daily.

Just saw you can buy kits for this as well. Here's an example