way OT but funny- evicted by mice

thurlowe · Post by **thurlowe** » Tue Nov 19, 2002 2:34 pm

If you're like me, it's really hard to even look at a mouse's mangled corpse in a trap. My method was to use gloves, a broom, and a dustpan, and throw out the trap WITH the mouse still in it. Happy to throw away $.75 worth of trap.

Once however, the mouse was still alive, caught by the tail and leg. Somehow I forgot that a little bath in a bucket of water would dispatch him. Instead, a more drastic solution came to me. Scooped into a plastic grocery bag, the mouse never saw my rear tire backing over him.

Cara the Stone-Cold Mouse Killer

Sunnywindo · Post by **Sunnywindo** » Tue Nov 19, 2002 3:43 pm

On 2002-11-19 12:52, dakotamouse wrote:
Mice? And the problem is?

Squeak

Okay, I think we all admit that you're an exception. You and those sweet little brown and white mice they sell as pets.

But we are talking about the wild, disease ridden, eat and destroy type here. And one or two of those aren't so bad to deal with, but when they invite themselves to your house in droves.... *Shudder*

Reminds me of one year (when I was a kid) we lived in a house out in the middle of no where. It was surrounded by mile after mile of farmland. Our closest neighbor was a mile away.

Winter hit and every mouse for miles must have converged on our home. Mice in the cupboards, mice building nests under the dressers, mice running across the kitchen floor while you are fixing dinner. We kept them at bay with traps and poison. Lots and lots of traps and poison. As the winter progressed we got fewer and fewer mice.

Then spring came. With the snow gone you could see all the holes the mice had burrowed into the lawn, and the many little paths they made through the old grass beneath the snow... and all the dead mice which had eaten the poison and died outside on the way back to thier little holes. It was disgusting!!!

There had to have been at least several hundred half frozen, half decomposed mouse corpses scattered all over the yard. And that was just the yard, we didn't even bother with the field boardering the yard. The dead mice were scooped up with shovels and thrown into a fire. Took a while to clean up. Just glad they all didn't die in the house.

All I can say is goodluck with your mouse problem Angela!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sunnywindo on 2002-11-19 16:48 ]</font>

markv · Post by **markv** » Tue Nov 19, 2002 4:23 pm

On 2002-11-19 16:43, Sunnywindo wrote:

...You and those sweet little brown and white mice they sell as pets.

They sell those as "pets", hmmm, in our house they were always snake food.

Mark v

atarango · Post by **atarango** » Tue Nov 19, 2002 6:37 pm

Mouse update:

caught one this morning in a glue trap: had to drown him..... that was so traumatic

came home to another one in a glue trap- didn't want to deal with drowning so i sqarely hit him over the head with the broom handle.

i sound like such a mouse killer- you know- and i love animals- that's the thing but these guys are a menance....

I have bruised several fingers setting conventional traps- they keep snapping on my hands. My ring finger is black and blue- for a second there i thought i broke it...

i hate this- i am so jumpy if i hear any squeaking or skittering about i jump.... I just want them to go away...

but thanks for all the suggestions- we are trying to be careful, knowing that mice carry diseases and all that jazz (not something i want to think about)

but it sucks because i no longer want to come home....

-Angela

Michael Sullivan · Post by **Michael Sullivan** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 8:53 am

Last May I moved out of hopefully the last dorm room I will ever live in.

There were mice. Lots of people hated them but I thought they were kinda neat. Little and furry and stuff. If they'd've eaten my books I would have gone on a rampage but they never bothered me so I didn't bother them.

I think the maintenance crew was putting out poison, though, and one day I walked in to find a dead mouse square in the middle of the floor. That was unpleasant. On the other hand, maybe they regarded my room as a kind of haven to come and die in peace. Maybe I was their benevolent but terrible god and they wanted to send their brother to me in sacrifice. Maybe they thought I would help him but I didn't make it there on time.

Maybe I wasn't studying enough.

curioso · Post by **curioso** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 10:51 am

On 2002-11-20 09:53, Michael Sullivan wrote:
...Maybe I was their benevolent but terrible god and they wanted to send their brother to me in sacrifice...

Maybe I wasn't studying enough.

Er...maybe you studied TOO HARD!...

"...My...brain...hurts..." - M. Python

Kim in Tulsa · Post by **Kim in Tulsa** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 11:18 am

Your landlord should absolutely do something!

I had a flea problem once when I first moved into a rent house. I kept trying to get the landlord to do something but she wouldn't.

Finally I asked her to come over and do a walk-through with me. We went through the house and then I took her into the backyard to show her where I thought the fleas were coming from. I said "I think they are coming from that hole over there...why just look at your feet!" Her feet and lower legs were absolutely black with fleas. She went shrieking through the yard, trying to get them out of her stockings and off her slacks. I yelled "Don't go through the house!"

She ran to her car and jumped in and drove off without so much as a good-bye. That afternoon an exterminator came and literally drenched our yard and interior of our house with pyrethrin. I mean, he had a huge vat and a hose like a firehose that he sprayed the place down with. It did a pretty good job, although we always had some fleas.

That's the end of my flea infestation story.

Kim

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 12:08 pm

I had mice in Good Ole Bridgeport, they loved the cat and dog food and were not wee cowerin' beasties. They were sleek, well-fed and fat. They ticked me off becasue they left holes in everything and trails of turds all over the kitchen sick! I put everything in glass, and that helped somewhat, tried for glue traps (It was hard hearing them squeal in the middle of the night, until they got their snouts in the glue and that was the end of that.) Just when I was considering capturing the boldest one, the one carrying the battle pennant, and breaking his legs and sending him back to their leader with a message, my little terrier caught the idea fom the cat, and was a very good mouser. The cat would leave the dead bodies sans heads in the dog's food dish, and the dog would catch 'em drag the bodies under the chair and chew off their heads, but at least the turds that turned up weren't mouse turds! In Chicago, there was never an expectation that a landlord would ever do squat about mice or even rats for that matter! I've seen rats there that were so tough, that after they'd ingested a gonzo dose of poison, they would lie panting in the middle of the kitchen floor, look like they were dead, then get up and stroll away! Glue traps are good, they make the little rascals suffer!

_________________
Waiting for the Mothership...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anna Martinez on 2002-11-20 13:11 ]</font>

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 12:21 pm

How about an exterminator for the landlord? I am also a grad student living in a "chicken coop". One day I found a mouse in the bathtub..I got it cornered in the drain then used a rubber maid container to get him into it. I like animals, so I set it free outside. Home for me is in Vermont and its funny but I have only heard of mice problems in the city. We have rats around the farms, but never heard of them invaiding a house like they do in city...most likely because there is no other place for them to go.

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 12:31 pm

markv: I have a king and a milk...what snakes do you keep? Though, I do not feed them live food...mail order frozen rodent for them (thawed and warmed up!) YUMM!:-D

[/quote]

They sell those as "pets", hmmm, in our house they were always snake food.

Mark v
[/quote]

markv · Post by **markv** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 1:15 pm

On 2002-11-20 13:31, Sage wrote:
markv: I have a king and a milk...what snakes do you keep? Though, I do not feed them live food...mail order frozen rodent for them (thawed and warmed up!) YUMM!:-D

They sell those as "pets", hmmm, in our house they were always snake food.

Mark v
[/quote]
[/quote]

At one point I had a desert phase Cali King, Western hognose (I had a collecting permit), Corn snake, a houdini of a milk snake, Fox snake, and two rather grumpy Texas rats. Our house is now sadly snake free since we have kids now. I'm sure we will pick up one or two when the kids get older.

Mark V.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 1:30 pm

I am just curious: Why do you want to get rid of spiders? But just sweeping/vaccuming you keep them from taking the place over and otherwise they are very beneficial. For one thing you should be happy to see them in your house: It means your carpet isn't leaking Formaldehyde or some other horrible stuff.

Sunnywindo · Post by **Sunnywindo** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 1:44 pm

On 2002-11-19 17:23, markv wrote:

They sell those as "pets", hmmm, in our house they were always snake food.

Mark v

Yes, I had always thought that mice were typically sold as food for snakes to. But lo and behold in Pets Mart the other day my son and I were looking at all the cute, small animals they had for sale. Right between the hamster and the guinia pig in a nice cage by itself with it's own little exercise gym and everything was a tiny brown and white mouse. It was even labeled fancy brown and white mouse (or something like that). It was a bit different than any mouse I had ever seen, and at the price they were asking, it definately wasen't being sold for snake food.

mvhplank · Post by **mvhplank** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 1:48 pm

On 2002-11-20 14:15, markv wrote:
At one point I had a desert phase Cali King, Western hognose (I had a collecting permit), Corn snake, a houdini of a milk snake, Fox snake, and two rather grumpy Texas rats. Our house is now sadly snake free since we have kids now. I'm sure we will pick up one or two when the kids get older.

Mark V.

Hmmm...out in the country as I am, I'm familiar with the fall Mouse and Spider Exodus (if you're a mouse or spider, otherwise it's an invasion). I drew the line at squirrels in the attic and we'll see if metal mesh "hardware cloth" will keep them out this year.

My two cats are useless as mousers because (1) their mother didn't teach them how to hunt and (2) my friend Bill "trained" them to chase toy mice--so they treat the real mice like little cat soccer toys. I hear squeeks in the wee hours but find no corpses.

But twice a year, when the black rat snake and Eastern milk snake families down in the dirt-floor cellar have babies, I get tiny snakes in the main part of the house. If I get to them before the cats play with them to death (they're an ideal cat toy--self-propelled string!) they go out to recover at the feet of my St. Francis statue.

If the wolf spiders I find are big enough to make a noise when they hit the floor, out THEY go, too.

M

TomB · Post by **TomB** » Thu Nov 21, 2002 7:52 am

On 2002-11-20 14:30, Bloomfield wrote:
I am just curious: Why do you want to get rid of spiders? But just sweeping/vaccuming you keep them from taking the place over and otherwise they are very beneficial. For one thing you should be happy to see them in your house: It means your carpet isn't leaking Formaldehyde or some other horrible stuff.

Bloomfield- While you probably didn't really mean it this way- Umm, sweeping and vaccuming are regular occurrences in the house. Your point is well taken that havindg spiders suggests that my house is not leaking too many poisons and the like. The thing is that we seem to see a couple of spiders every day. My wife has a very large paranoia when it comes to bugs, so it would be easier if there were fewer.

On an urelated note, I'm curious to know whereabouts in the "Groovy Pioneer Valley" you come from- but I don't blame you for not saying. I'm originally from Fiskdale, Ma., and after many years of sailing the seven seas, am now living in East Hartford.

All the Best, Tom