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The Mouse Hunter
I have a new house with several hundred open acres around me. This is my first winter here and the mice are invading me big time. So far only in the basement. I have gotten 6 of these rascals. The have been cleaning off the peanut butter bait about half the time without getting caught. Any ideas for better traps or bait? A cat is out of the question because of my physcho dog, and the dog just trashes the place when allowed in the basment. Time to go Re-bait with a combo of sticky trays! Thanks for any advice.
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The Mouse Hunter
Bob, just as with the larger animal traps you sometimes have to set the mousetraps lighter by not pushing the rod into the pan slot as far. This can be hard on the fingers though. 
Good luck, Dave
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The Mouse Hunter
If you go with sticky trays, make sure to fasten them to something so the mouth can't pull it up under something and die. I don't like to use poison for the same reason. You end up having dead mice decaying and stinking and can't find where they hid. I have heard of another method that some may deem cruel but I have heard good results. Take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it about half full of water, put a hole in the bucket near the top and run a rod through it putting a paper towel holder over it inside the bucket. Put a little ramp up to it for the mice and bait the roller with peanut butter. They step out of the roller and slip into the water and drown.
You also might want to check into adding a little prevention as to where they are getting in at. My yard used to be a horse pasture and before that it was part of a corn field. Mice were everywhere when we moved in. I cleared everything back away from the basement doors and put in large stone (about 1" to 2" . It seemed to slow them down enough getting to the door and I haven't had any mice in the house that I can tell anyway!!
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The Mouse Hunter
I trapped a few mice in the unfinished basement of our new house and found an inch wide gap between a doorframe and the floor. I filled it with foam but a couple of days later a hole was chewed through it and a few more mice caught. So I cut a piece of wood to fit and glued it in place. We haven't had any mice for a few years now.
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The Mouse Hunter
This is by far the best trap I have found.
I have caught hundreds of mice and only once have I found a sprung, empty trap and only once have I found a live mouse snared inside.
I bait with a tiny glob of peanut butter and the mice cannot resist it. These traps are efficient, deadly and clean.
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The Mouse Hunter
A lot of times, the positioning of the trap is as important as the type. Make sure thay have to come at the trap from the bait end, and can't crawl over the spring. We always position ours diagonally in corners. Seems to help, sometimes.
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The Mouse Hunter
I've had 5 in my old pick up this fall, and at least 5 in the shed/workshop. I've caught them on the standard victor mouse trap, the wood base, with the metal triger. I put just a enough peanut butter on the triger in the little loop. this way they have to work the trap to lick the peanut butter out of the and SNAP...
Its very rare that Bait me...
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The Mouse Hunter
Thanks to everyone. If they get near my tractor I may burn down the garage.
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The Mouse Hunter
Every time I change the air filter on my wife’s Camry I find a mouse nest in the filter housing. I am going to have to pull the battery out and wrap some metal screening around the snorkel inlet.
I have also found nests in the tractors engine compartment but no damage anywhere.
I think after four years of continuous aggressive trapping I am finally making a dent in their numbers.
Another thing I have noticed is the mice feast on dead bugs. So I unplugged the big mercury vapor lamp out by the garage that killed bugs by the hundreds on summer nights and hired Orkin to spray the exterior of the house. Both of these things helped reduce the breeding stock down to manageable levels.
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The Mouse Hunter
BigBob, I know the feeling. My first winter on my acreage I killed over 20 mice. Seemed like the previous owners didn't do much to knock them down. I used traps like you did. Then I put Dcon up in the attic. That seemed to kill off one of the sources.
I also put Dcon out in my shop to kill off that population. I hid the boxes in locations where the dogs couldn't get them. It seems to have helped. The following winter, I killed some more, but only about 6.
I got tired of checking my trap line so I went with poison. It seems to be working. I haven't found where they are coming in, but I know who built the house so I expect there is a mouse highway somewhere.
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12-08-2004, 07:17 
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