The 6th mouse I trapped in about 3 days. I think this wipes out the family. BTW, you can mummify a little critter like this (or say a dead hummingbird, if you find one) by placing it on a pie plate in the freezer, wrapped in Saran wrap with air holes punched in it, and leave it for about two months. I learned this at a workshop on bones at The Bone Room, a great natural history store in Berkeley, Calif.
Note: they have invented a better mouse trap. The Ortho 0321110 Home Defense Max Press ‘N Set Mouse Trap has a “bait well” that you fill with peanut butter, so the trap is sprung by mouse digging around in it; this solves the problem of mouse deftly removing bait without springing trap. Ortho also makes a rat trap with the same feature.
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
I recently went through a spate of mouse-trap buying, I'm eager to pass along a recommendation. If a catch and release trap is amenable to your situation, the Kness Tip-Trap 109-0-001 Live-Capture Mouse Trap is a fantastic product. The only caveat I have is that, depending on the length of time the trapped mouse is allowed to remain in the trap, a small rubber-band should be used to secure the exit (Before I did this, some mice would chew and push open the door). I hate to sound like an advertisement, but I tried several different models, and the fact that this one, which I had thought least likely to work, turned out to be the only one which captured mice (see my review of a less effective product.
http://www.amazon.com/Kness-Tip-Trap-109-0-001-Live-Capture-Mouse/dp/B00004RA4G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1283963409&sr=8-1-catcorr
We don't get a mouse in our cabin very often, but when we do we use a Havahart live trap.
http://www.havahart.com/
We use the larger one for woodrats that raid my garden. The trick is to release them far enough away so they don't return. In our case, they get a boat ride to Goat Island. Unless they can swim a long ways they're not coming home. – Margy
don't kill them- get a humane trap, and release the mice several kilometers away.
A compassionate position is the best option for every being involved!
I have another way of dealing with the "Problem of the Mouse".
Twenty four years ago I bought a 10 acre junk yard. I now have lovely out buildings, a greenhouse, garden and pond.
But, oh, the mice!! No amount of traps, cats, peanut butter, beer…nothing could keep up with the mice. So…..I created a "recipe" for their mouse parties.
Oats, rice, cat food and dry, quick setting concrete.
They eat it, they get a drink and you don't see them again.
I know this may sound inhumane to alot of people but after my neighbor used chemicals on his mice and the cats and 3 dogs including his own died of poison from eating the dead mice, I came up with this method.
I also have not had to use the method for many years. Now the cats and other preditor keep up with the mice and I don't mind the occasional visitor.
The earlybird gets the worm….but the second mouse gets the cheese.—Stephen Wright