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My roommates have just discovered that there is a mouse somewhere in this apartment. It has been spotted twice over the last couple days. Although it was funny to watch them open cabinets and doors while holding a broom and a flyswatter, I am guessing this is not the most effective way to get rid of this varmint.
But my girlfriend wants to be a vet, and it goes without saying that she has a certain affinity for animals. She says that if I kill the mouse she will be very very very angry.
So I need a humane way to dispose of this creature. I watched Tom and Jerry as a kid, but I'm not real sure a box held up by a stick with a string and some cheese is the way to go either.
Does anyone have any other ideas for a way to humanely capture and rid myself of this varmint?
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You can buy humane traps at a hardware store. What are you going to do with it once you catch it?
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Be very careful if you decide to capture it live. House mice carry all sorts of diseases, including Hanta virus.
It would really be better to use a standard mouse trap - they kill the mouse almost instantaneously by breaking its neck.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Actually Annie, they don't always. If the bar hits them too far down their back it'll just break their spine and paralyze them without killing them.
I've typically resorted to sticky traps, myself. They're terrifying for the mice, unfortunately, but as long as you find them and free them quickly enough they aren't fatal. To free a mouse from a sticky trap, all you need is a bottle of vegetable oil--pour it over the trap and the glue looses its stickiness. It works its way under the mouse fairly quickly, and he's free before you know it.
Of course, the mouse is likely to be exhausted, and in a state of shock both from having been caught and having been menaced by a giant, so chances are good that what you're actually doing is providing an owl or a snake with an easy meal, but what can you do? At least that way another creature is profiting from the mouse's death.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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If the standard trap hits perfectly it kills the mouse instantly by breaking it's neck. If it doesn't, they thrash and squeal piteously for quite some time. If you're me, the mice decide to come out and get trapped about ten minutes after you decide to go to bed, so you're treated to the loud snap and squealing right as you were drifting off to sleep.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Im telling you, get a trash can and provide a sturdy ramp propped up on the side of it. Then place food up the ramp and inside the trash can. The mouse is likely to jump in if you do it right and not be able to jump out because of the slick sides (though you need to make sure the trashcan is tall enough). Then all you have to do is get up the next morning and find a full but stuck mouse to take outside.
I know this can work because this is how we used to catch our hamsters when they got out.
Posts: 306 | Registered: Jun 2003
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RR: I told you before, I do not have a ramp. We have a bucket, but no way for the mouse to get inside. I suppose we could break the ping pong table and use it, but that seems like wonton and pointless destruction in the name of a varmint. Personally, I like the suggestions where I kill it and lie to you.
Everyone else, thanks for the (sometimes) helpful suggestions. And thanks for the ones that made me laugh as well. I will keep you updated.
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I use regular, disposable, crush-em style traps. No tears from me over a dead rodent, and my family kept a microtus pennsylvanicus (meadow vole) as a pet for little over a year. Given the large populations of these rodents, crushing a few in my dwelling won't dent their numbers. I might feel differently if I was contributing to the destruction of their habitat. There WAS a mouse somewhere in my apartment, I know because I saw the "evidence," but he disappeared before I found out. Hmm...you guys are giving me another argument for acquiring a pet cat, aren't you? *suspicious look*
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Buy a $3 humane trap -- usually a clear plastic tube/ramp thingy -- and put some peanut butter on a cracker. Unless you have a roommate who likes peanut butter beyond all comprehension, this works just fine.
And it's considerably better than killing harmless mice.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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It works fine if the mice fall for it Tom. In my expereince, though, they either figure out that the trap is just that, a trap, and avoid it, or are able to raid the trap without getting caught. Maybe I just attract unusually wiley mice.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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"It works fine if the mice fall for it Tom. In my expereince, though, they either figure out that the trap is just that, a trap, and avoid it, or are able to raid the trap without getting caught."
Hm. In the event that you are infested by Super-Mice, yes, your typical transparent tube trap won't help you. You'll need Lex Luthor.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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But what if you mess up and get a *red* kryptonite cat by mistake? Then you'd be in all sorts of trouble.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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For some reason, I thought the title said Moose... I guess you could just lay a glue trap and when it gets caught, then you could just get rid of the glue and leave the mouse 5o miles away from your home. Or you could also toss it in your ex's backyard.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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That's why all of our super mouse traps haven't worked...nobody's been in a black trench coat, fedora and taunting the mouse with a bad Russian accent.
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We were cleaning my grandma's house after she had been gone for over a year -- there was mouse sign all over her bathroom.
But that's not the worst of it. There were two long-dead mice in the bowl of the toilet.
It was the nastiest experience I've ever encountered in my life, cleaning up the poo and nibbled soap and mouse carcasses.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I just saw the mouse. It bounded out from behind my tv and under the door to the living room. So we know for certain now that it is real, and it is here. I will immediately set forth to set up some kind of trap involving all of the suggestions here. It will most likely kill me in the middle of the night when i fall for my own trap.
Posts: 1612 | Registered: Jan 2003
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As much as I laughed at my roommates yesterday, I am just as big a fool. Upon sighting the mouse, I grabbed a broom and proceeded to poke everything in the house to see if it came out. Apparently I was going to sweep it away? Yes.
Phase 2: I wonder if my parents still have the old game mousetrap at home...Maybe they could send it to me and that will work.
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The first mouse I saw in my house my parents were over, and Dad grabbed my corn broom and very efficiently killed the mouse. I didn't want to do that, but the next one I saw, I happened to have the broom and have the mouse cornered. I stood there, trying to make myself kill the stupid thing, until it ran past me and under the stove.
These were not the chocolate thievin' mice from this year, this was about 6 years ago when I first moved in. I seem to have gotten mice every third year in the house, now that I think about it. Hmmmm.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ok, I went to walmart to buy traps for this mouse. They didn't even HAVE lethal traps! What is this? The Wal-mart I know and love is all about stomping out and killing the little guys, whether it be mom and pop stores or mice in my apartment. I'm not sure if I like this new touchy feely wal-mart.
So my girlfriend gets her wish. We now have non-lethal traps set around the apartment. These traps include the Mice Cube (I'm sure the bad rhyme is intended, though it makes me shudder at the marketing geniuses who thought it up) and some sticky traps. These are all baited with snickers bars, because once my sister had a mouse in her apartment, and she finally caught it using snickers bars.
As a semi-amusing sidenote: I felt really bad about buying candy for a mouse and nothing for myself. So I bought myself a Caramello bar because they are better than Snickers and I am at the top of the food chain, dangit!
posted
The combination of a good mouser and a wiley mouse is a good way to get cat pee sprayed down your stove's burners.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Noemon, that happened to us! It was probably the most disgusting household moment in our history!
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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*grins* I have to admit, watching a mouse try to scamper by an old mouser sitting on a ledge napping in the sun was an educational experience.
Without so much as batting an ear or opening an eye, this wiley old cat rolled off the carport wall and landed squarely on the scurrying little rodent.
The improvised lesson in rodent physiology was fascinating.
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We had a mouse jump into our washing machine for a while. I went in to get the clothes, and there was movement. If there had been a chair, I would have jumped up on it, just like in the movies. We captured him, put him outside, and "he" returned. Turned out we wer majorly infested. Our cat had gotten old at that point. Now, we have the Death Squad, a mother-daughter team. I haven't seen a mouse, or a mouse turd, in a couple of years. (and the cat pee in stove incident was a couple of years ago, perhaps in the first stage of mouse annihilation.)
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:The combination of a good mouser and a wiley mouse is a good way to get cat pee sprayed down your stove's burners.
Ah, the classic Spite Piss.
quote:Without so much as batting an ear or opening an eye, this wiley old cat rolled off the carport wall and landed squarely on the scurrying little rodent.
Nice to see a real professional at work, eh?
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Well, the time it happened I was absolutely horrified. I told someone, and they said it had happened to them! But I never knew why.
The things you find out. When we were playing a game in science class, we learned that squirrels eat baby birds. i was horrified, thinking they were gentle herbivores. Upon further research, we found out that squirrels get addicted to nicotine from eating ciagarette butts. One of my students said, "Oh my! One day we were sitting on the porch, and my aunt was smoking a cigarette. This squirrel kept jumping at her. Now I know why!"
And we all thought smooking was dangerous simply due to cancer?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:And we all thought smooking was dangerous simply due to cancer?
Smooking is one of the most dangerous pastimes in human history. Much more dangerous than smoking.
Edit--you wouldn't think so, with a name like that, would you? It's the innocent sounding name that drawns them in, lulls them into a false sense of security, and then VHWOOM! there goes their future.
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