Oldest remedy ever - get a cat.

Perhaps you can use one of those live catch traps so the mouse has to go inside to get to the food? There are also baits that can be tied to the trigger mechanism ... stuff like raisins or dried apricot that can be "sewn" (needle through the fruit) onto it.

Lee AKA Fireraven9
How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns;
Contented breaths his native air,
In his own grounds. - Pope

Use peanut butter...it works every time.

Use it on the old snap trap....the peanut butter I mean.

Cats don't always work. My cats play with the mice until the mice go into shock. Sometimes they get away, sometimes they don't. I've found them dead and barely alive. We live near a large farm and always get mice this time of year.

Try using the sticky traps. You can buy some and place them around baseboards and other areas you have seen them. Just keep them somewhere the cat won't get to!

People have mice in their home, not a mouse, in the past month I have caught about 20 of the little buggers. It all started with one mouse who decided to die atop a plastic duct inside the gas dryer, about two months ago - what a stench !!
GoingCrazy, there are also some other threads on mice in Home Disasters.
A mistake I did make - I placed some peanut butter on the existing trap cheese, this does not work, apparently, so I tried a platter of cheese and wine, which did work lot better.

Try Ridex electronic pest control from QVC. You buy one for each floor of your house, including the basement. You plug them into an outlet and leave them alone. A red flashing light lets you know they are working. They last a year or so before they have to be replaced.

I had a squirrel in the wall/ceiling/roof area. It drove me nuts! I couldn't get rid of it. It made so much noise, kept me up all night. I tried loud music, tons of banging on the walls, nothing would get rid of it. Finally, I ordered the Ridex and it went away in a couple days. It also got rid of most of the ants in the summer. Only a few ants pop out now. Haven't seen a mouse in years either. I used to have cats, and I had more dead and once in a while alive mice around then than I do now with the Ridex.

Check them out at QVC. They are supposed to get rid of mice, other rodents, certain insects, and are not harmful to pets. There may be increases activity at first, while the little creatures are annoyed, but it's all about them being so annoyed they leave. I didn't see increased activity, but they say it can happen before they leave.

They are expensive (especially if you have to buy three for two floors and a basement, but it is money well spent! I don't know about other people, but I will not be with out my electronic Ridex! I have had them for years, and will always buy them every year.

Oh, I should have said not harmful to most pets. If you have a pet mouse, hamster, rabbit, etc...it might bug them.
Check out QVC or call for which pets it's okay.

I recommend a Rat Zapper, available on the Web (do a search). About $70, but they really do work and offer a relatively humane way for a mouse to die.

I think you may need a different brand of snap traps. Try a different store and see if you can find some with more of a hair trigger. If the traps are hard to set without them going off, then you've got the right ones. Peanut butter and cheddar cheese work really well for mice.

I used glue traps. They work great. On the down side, the mice get stuck to the traps alive. You have to kill them or they will suffer. DH had batting practice with them.

I also bought something like the Ridex at Sam's Club. I put one on each floor and one in each room of the basement. We haven't seen mice since.

Peanut butter and cheddar cheese, served with red wine - damn mice eat better than I
pepperoni works well, neater than PB ,and stringy, when the mouse pull a little, SNAP !! Finally, mouse no 21 is dead

Skymom-The Ridex pest control devices only last 1 year? I have them and never knew that they had a 1 year life expectancy-maybe that's why we had ants.

Ann

Hi Ann,

Yah, they say they usually last one year, or whenever the red light goes out.

I think they said they sometimes work even when the light is out, I am not sure. I would call QVC and ask for their recommendation. As far as I know, they recommend replacing every year.

I rather play it safe and replace them every year with out fail. It's just excellent piece of mind, and I know they work.

I have killed probably 2 dozen mice in my house over the past 2 years. I no longer have a mouse problem.

The thing is, I have FOUR cats. The mice were only getting into my crawlspace, a dark damp area under the stairs that I grandly refer to as "the dungeon". Well ever since I got my kitten, who is curious and adventurous, not to mention, will completely murder anything resembling a small animal (he likes hunting and destroying ponytail holders because they are frilly), I have had zero mice. Either the mice are staying away because they smell my mouser in the crawlspace, OR, he is killing them before I even see them.

I let him 'play' in the crawlspace daily.

I used to use the snap-traps and they did a great job. But of course I cannot / will not set those dangerous things in the crawlspace any more, now that I have a more conventional mouse-killing device.

=0)

- darkeyedgirl

We had them in our garage for the first time this year. They were even hanging out in my car (they leave those pellet shaped calling cards). I had left a bag of dog food in the garage and the buggers ate through the insulation strip on the garage door and hung out for weeks. I was afraid they'd get inside the house.

We removed all food items and got several good old fashioned snap traps. The trick is to tie the bait to them with a thread. I used cheerios as bait and it worked like a charm.

Don't mess with this, mice can carry nasty diseases. Since your house is infested you may want to call in a professional exterminator.

I found this website helpful. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mouse Control

I am remodeling my kitchen (possible alternate thread? :0) and one little guy shot out across the floor as we destroyed the existing base cabinets. I have set glue traps, snap traps, and nothing seems to attract this mouse! I am at my wits end...I am using peanut butter in the traps. Should I try another bait?

A word of warning about Ridex. About 4 years ago I had mice in my walls so I ordered a Ridex from QVC. It is supposed to last for 5 years. I plugged it in and then my horror began. The mice left the walls but they all came inside the house. I hate to kill anything. It got so bad that if I was at the sink, a mouse would dash across the back of the sink in front of me. I would see them running through the house. I called QVC when the guy from Ridex was on selling them. They would not let me talk to him. I then called the Ridex company. The woman said that sometimes happens. The mice want to get away from the noise but they don't always go outside. In my case they all came inside. They were in all of my drawers, the bottom and top kitchen cabinets. I had to resort to using D-Con which I hate. I had mice dying and bleeding to death all over the house. I felt so bad for their suffering but I could not live with a house full of mice. At the time I had and still have about 10 cats. All are outside except for one blind cat inside. My blind cat caught 2 mice in my bedroom. That's how many I had in the house that a blind cat could catch 2 of them. After that first year with the Ridex, things improved and I did not see or hear any more mice up until this year. The Ridex is still blinking but I have mice in the walls. I bought 2 more of the plug in things at the Co-op (not Ridex). These didn't seem to work for a couple of weeks. Now I don't hear the mice in my bedroom walls but do hear them sometimes in other parts of the house. Good Luck. Judith

Do not feed the cats anything for a month or so,Juduth, the mice will be gone !
Interesting about Ridex, another American company only interested in profits, not service nor value.

I'll stick to Chinese '4 for one $' spring traps.

Okay all you mouse infested people ..... when we bought this house in 1977, it was infested with mice. Since the house was built in 1974 we were surprised. I started in with the traps, but DH, who is very smart, said that there was no use trapping them til we found out where they were getting in and plugged it up. He went around the house caulking everything in sight, then around the house at night with a flashlight, with me in house looking for openings. Well, he was right! Caught all the mice and now we usually get one every other year when someone leaves a door open.
Kathy G in MI

Caught another one ! He made the mistake of returning to the scene of the crime to eat more of my microwave popcorn(still in wrapper). So I left the chewed on package in the sink drawer as a lure, and placed two traps in the remaining space. The mouse may have tripped over one of the traps !! I believe that the mice made the refrigerator their home

My DS recently moved into a house with a mice problem. He borrowed our cat to do the exterminating. Now, our cat WAS a good mouser in his youth, but...he's getting up there in years.

The cat had a wonderful vacation. Eating, sleeping, getting incredible amounts of attention from all four room-mates...and not a single mouse was caught!

DS stopped over last night and mentioned that they'd gotten another cat. This time a kitten from the pound with a killer instinct. The kitten went through a broken floor grate into the duct system to bring back one of his trophies!

The best traps that I have used are the sticky traps. I got a whole family under the kitchen sink. It's nasty when they're still alive, but they did the trick for me.

Be sure to tuck some steel wool around the spot where your plumbing goes through a floor or wall. That seems to be a major highway for the little creepers.

I cannot sing the praises of the RatZapper highly enough! One family member moved into a house infested with mice and the great mouser who lived with her had a ball killing the mice;
but after that cat died, she was faced with getting rid of the rodents herself even though the dogs occasionally would take care of one. Also, after 30 years, we suddenly developed a problem with rats in our garage.

We researched all the solutions: exterminators, poison, snap traps, live traps. But they all had major drawbacks. We plunked down the money for the RatZapper and soon had 3 dead rodents--all done humanely, quickly, and cleanly. And the RatZapper will last forever, so the cost is well worth it.

Here is a link that might be useful: RatZapper

Reading all of your experiences I'd just like to share some of mine with pest problems. I've had an ongoing problem with mice and in the summer ants. We used to get roaches, but I think a conscious effort to only eat up to the kitchen table helped keep them away. For all who have problems with mice. My mom used to stay on me about killing the MOUSE in the house, but I read in a rodent book mice live in colonies, so killing on is like winning the battle, not the war. I find that the old fashion snap traps are the most effective, a bit brutal to the rodent, and often disgusting, but very effective if you know how to set them right. As the StripedOne said peanut butter works very well. But you can also use a piece of fat back or salt pork. Take a needle and thread/ dental floss and actually tie it in to the bait panel of the trap so the rodent can't make off with it without setting off the trap. Set it and put it in a hidden area, the critter will feel like its sneaking which will make it more likely to try and actually devour all of the bait. Then the next morning you should have a dead mouse to dispose of. The meat should still be there so you can reset the trap a few more times without having to apply more bait, like you would with peanut butter. Once after killing like 7 mice ine one night. I had my girlfriend over, and she saw one run out from behind the refrigerator, talk about embarrassing, she freaked out. I know how to catch mice, my problem is I dont want to be able to catch them cuz I dont want them in the house at all. Which is why I had hoped the Riddex things would successfully ward them off, and end my battles against pest for good. But judging from most of your tesimonies it would be a pointless endeavor to try them. Also, a bit off subject, I found a spider in a bunch of grapes I had bought today. It had started to weave a web at the center and also deposited a few eggs. I was pissed because I had already ate some of the grapes. So you guys check your fruits good before you by them.

For those of you who had problems with mice and insects popping up everywhere after you installed riddexx or other electronic deterants. I had a similar experience once with roaches. Usually they'd only come out when the lights were off, then scurry away once you entered the room and turned on the light. But once I put in the roach motels they started dragging across the floor like they were drunk while I was watching TV. Sliding down the bathroom sink while I brushed my teeth. Not at all creeping in stealth like they usually did. What the heck do they do in those motels. I think some of these pest controls make insects and rodents act crazy at first, then they either die out or leave cuz they can't take anymore of whatever it is that the product does. I think I'm going to order a ridex plug in and see what happens. But I'll make sure to sleep with my mouth closed.

I am having problems with mice In my 3 year old daughter's bed.They are chewing her sheets up & wont stay out of her bed,Can anyone help me please!!!!!

I find the standard old fashioned snap trap works best. I bait them with small blocks of cheese, wedged in tightly so the trap will go off when they nibble. Set the trap on a piece of cardboard (maybe 8x8 up to 12x12) - sometimes they bleed and that will catch it. With a small child around I would put traps back out of sight, such as under the bed against the back wall. Mice run along the walls anyway. Put out two in case one gets set off without catching a mouse.