A Mouse in the House

[Nawd]

There are at least two or more mice in my basement. I'm thinking of getting a humane mouse trap. My friends think it is silly, but I don't want to kill such a cute creature. My only question is, being that it's very cold right now, can I release a mouse or two (or three) into the cold and will they survive?

I don't want to save a few mice just to have them freeze to death, but i don't want to cage them until spring either.

Silly question perhaps, and like my other friends you may think that I should just kill them, however I don't want to hurt something that is just looking for warmth and food.

Let me know what you think if you wish. :)

 

[Chopper]

Thay are very resorcefull creatures . if you kick them out thay will probbly just go to your neighbors house / barn lol .


Good luck with your mouse problem ;D

 

[The rabbit]

I tried this a few years back , worked for me. I bought to small strobe lights. left them on in the room were there was a problem.
I figured as animals such as mice rats etc have eyes then that was their weaknes. The mouse/mice moved on . Seems strobe lighting annoys them as much as it does humans. Once no sign of them , secure entrances where they were getting in.

 

[Laura]

We tried humane ways of dealing with vermin; doesn't work. If you watch some of the David Attenborough series about planet earth and wildlife, there is one where just a couple of mice end up being millions and millions and destroying everything in sight. Plus, they carry diseases.

Last winter, we had a running contest between the humans and the cat... Kitty scored very high in confirmed kills, and probably had twice as many without "evidence" being shown. The total overall was over 60...

Right now, we are at 15 on the human effort (Mr. Scott), and Kitty has been eating the evidence judging by her lack of interest in being fed by us.

We had one in our office about a month ago that was so bold it got up on Ark's desk while he was right there! Then, one night it crawled up my leg and that was it! It has now joined its soul pool in mouse heaven. Maybe after a sufficient number of recyclings, it will come back as a cat!

 

[SeekinTruth]

It has now joined its soul pool in mouse heaven. Maybe after a sufficient number of recyclings, it will come back as a cat!

 

[Gawan]

We tried humane ways of dealing with vermin; doesn't work. If you watch some of the David Attenborough series about planet earth and wildlife, there is one where just a couple of mice end up being millions and millions and destroying everything in sight. Plus, they carry diseases.

I concur and most often the more humane traps are very, very stressful for the animal itself and can result also in dead. And as you wrote, it is cold and rises also the question how will the mouse find shelter after you release it again? Quick and easy would be the best way imo also when it sounds hard.

 

[Gimpy]

Mice harbor many nasty diseases, and as cute as they are, we humanely kill any that the cat doesn't catch. We live near several fields that harbor rats, and every year at harvest time we get an invasion of all kinds of rodents.


As much as Kitty loves that? She has a bad habit of dropping live mice on Hubby and I as we sleep...to 'encourage' us to be better mousers.

This did encourage us....to find every possible nook or cranny the critters were coming in through, and seal them up. The worst rodent highway was a heating duct that slid off in the crawlspace. Once that was fixed, we haven't had any more Thunderpaws in the pre dawn hours.

As a rule, Hubby and I do everything we can to discourage mouse habitat around the base of the house. That means making sure bushes are not too close, not leaving any kind of mulch or bags of grass seed lying around. (We store those things in metal trash cans so they cannot gnaw into them.) Bird feeders are also kept a decent distance from the house, as any spilled seed will draw mice. (And skunks! Skunks LOVE sunflower seeds....who knew?)

If I find a mouse nest away from the house, its live and let live. We have a very healthy population of snakes, birds of prey, and other predators that keep them down.

 

[Nawd]

Thanks you all! I need a good mousing cat I suppose. I can't use traditional traps because of the kiddos, and posion seems more cruel than a quick death. I'm fairly certain the mice or mouse got in through the garage door that enters into the house. My three year old son lpves tp check the mail slot in the garage, but forgets to close the door all of the way.

LOL at 'thunderpaws' I'm confused how the saying 'quiet as a mouse' got it's meaning. Must have been from someone who was deaf.

 

[Mrs. Peel]

Thanks you all! I need a good mousing cat I suppose.

Yes, I'd recommend NOT a pedigree cat, but a good-ole domestic short-hair, with all claws attached.. My two Persians wouldn't know what to dd with a mouse if it bit them!

 

[Aiming]

Thanks you all! I need a good mousing cat I suppose.

Yes, I'd recommend NOT a pedigree cat, but a good-ole domestic short-hair, with all claws attached.. My two Persians wouldn't know what to dd with a mouse if it bit them!

Interesting this is coming up now. I also remember a similar thread, but it was about taking care of a mouse. Anyhow, since winter began I'm pretty much surrounded by mice: I can hear them above me in the attic, as well as in the walls, and every day I can hear a mouse gnawing at something as if it's trying to find an entrance into my apartment. For all we know, it's just their winter shelter, because there's no food in there for them to live on. I already thought about letting my cat get onto the attic, but I'm not sure she'd know what to do with them - but I might well try and find out. And it just came to my mind, that there was one time, a few months back when I found a dead mouse in my apartment and my cat had been trying to alert me to something all along, and I just didn't get what she meant, until I found that mouse (which I think she must've killed, as this would explain the noises I heard the night before; so it seems I'm just underestimating her).

Well, finding that mouse was really funny, too, because as I said, I hadn't expected it there, and my first reaction was to utter a surprised sort of scream (which I've always found so ridiculous to see in other people and now I was doing it myself, lol) - and as usual, whenever in our shared life together, I was making a terrified sound, my cat came running to me (to see whether she could protect me from something dangerous, judging from her body language ;)), and then she just looked at me as if saying 'Dude, I've been telling you about this mouse all day long, but you just wouldn't listen!'

LOL at 'thunderpaws' I'm confused how the saying 'quiet as a mouse' got it's meaning. Must have been from someone who was deaf.

Lol, agreed. They're extremely loud! Good luck with getting rid of them, Dawn!

 

[Gimpy]

LOL at 'thunderpaws' I'm confused how the saying 'quiet as a mouse' got it's meaning. Must have been from someone who was deaf.

Oops....the Thunderpaws reference is to the way the cat races around the house chasing her prey....she makes quite a racket, because she plays with the mouse for hours after killing it.
(Throws it up in the air by the tail, and then chases it around by batting it with front paws. Loudly.)

 

[Search]

Just not so long ago I was watching how my cat caught the mouse. He is no longer a kitten, but still not a cat (he is a 'teenager' :) ). So he caught it into his mouth and then let go and again caught and let go and he did that many times, in other words he was just playing with mouse. I even tried to release the mouse (it was in the yard) because I felt very sorry for the mouse. But I could not get to do it, and I haven't tried very well, I did not know how to act properly. As by releasing the mouse I take away the freewill from the cat. But the cat is living with us in the house and we feed him, and he is not starving. And we have alredy took away his free will because he live with us. Although if he had eaten it once, and did not torture her, that would be much better. However, this mouse can come to our house and
cause damage. So, I left the cat and mouse, and I think I did the right thing.
My wife and I try not to kill the moths, flies, and various other insects, if possible. We caught them and released through the window.
I do not know if there is any sense in it. Perhaps this fly, or will die an agonizing death. Maybe it would be better if I just kill it. Or maybe if I let her go away, I let her alive longer and maybe even to die a natural death.

There are at least two or more mice in my basement. I'm thinking of getting a humane mouse trap. My friends think it is silly, but I don't want to kill such a cute creature. My only question is, being that it's very cold right now, can I release a mouse or two (or three) into the cold and will they survive?

I don't want to save a few mice just to have them freeze to death, but i don't want to cage them until spring either.

Silly question perhaps, and like my other friends you may think that I should just kill them, however I don't want to hurt something that is just looking for warmth and food.

Let me know what you think if you wish. :)

I also think that you need to take a cat. :)

 

[Gertrudes]

I have to admit I am one of those women I grew up making fun of, that are afraid of mice In fact, I am phobic (more ) To be honest I don't know how that happened. One day, already grown up, I saw a mouse in my house and before I knew it I was on top of a table screaming. There was a part of me observing the situation that was completely stunned. The only thing in my mind was "where the hell did that (the fear) come from??"

To make things worse, a couple of years later one of the houses I lived in by myself was invaded, literally, by mice. I would wake up with mouse poo on my pillow. Since then I can't stand the idea of having even the tiniest little mouse in my house. It is totally irrational, but there you go.

Funny thing is, seeing a mouse on the street (there's loads of them here) doesn't bother me, but it does make me completely mad if it is in my house.

What we have been doing is to use an ultra sound device to keep mice away. Perhaps this is a very bad choice, I don't know whether the device also affects us, which has concerned me. After having done a bit of research I still don't know.
Regarding mice, the device so far seems to be working. The house had mice before we moved in, some of my neighbours also struggle with mice, but we don't.

Note that I am not promoting the ultra sound thinguie! As I said, I have no idea how that may affect me.....but it is just a way I found to cope with my phobia..... :(

We can't have cats at the moment, unfortunately.

Interesting this is coming up now. I also remember a similar thread, but it was about taking care of a mouse.

Yes, that was an interesting thread. It can be found here: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,24365.0.html

 

[Aiming]

There was a part of me observing the situation that was completely stunned. The only thing in my mind was "where the hell did that (the fear) come from??"

That's how I experienced my screaming reaction to the mouse as well. Another part of me was simply in disbelief about this irrational reaction.

However, I've found similar reactions when out of the corner of my eye I see something crawling - the reaction seems to be linked to the moment of perceiving something, and not yet knowing what it is. As soon as I recognize what it is, I feel in control again. So maybe this specific thing is linked to some instinctual protective reaction.

Funny thing is, seeing a mouse on the street (there's loads of them here) doesn't bother me, but it does make me completely mad if it is in my house.

I can relate to this as well, though with me it's more in relation to spiders. It sure is strange to see such reactions in oneself, which are so out of proportion, and not having an explanation for it, isn't it?

Interesting this is coming up now. I also remember a similar thread, but it was about taking care of a mouse.

Yes, that was an interesting thread. It can be found here: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,24365.0.html

Exactly, that's the one. :)

 

[Mr Meowgi]

I try to be nice to the wild critters but in the house they do not belong. Mr. Meowgi (see avatar) my main coon cat loves catching mice. We get them starting in the fall generally. I rearranged the kitchen recently and that seems to have done the trick as we haven't had any mice since.We had some pest issues in the garage as well (detached) I have seen a nice black kitty around the yard taking care of that as well. With me it comes down to balance. If I find a spider in the summer months I put it outside. As long as some critter isn't trying to take over I generally leave it be.