Mice out

[CUElk]

Ye$ there i$ a rea$on why the pe$t control indu$try u$e poi$on$.

Impractical or just too lazy? Until you've tried you don't know and you never master the problem with poison, you just push it down the road when you have to deal with it again.

Thanks Brent. As you can see from my first post, I was not asking how to kill em, I was asking for suggestions on repellants. Anyone can go buy poison and kill shit. Not that I am a mouse advocate, but I have no desire to kill a bunch of mice if I can simply keep em out. Another reason is my camper is about an hour from the house and I don't have time to deal with that mess. My camper is kept clean and all holes are sealed. We had a few get in last year, not that big a deal. I was just looking for some type of repellant ideas to help. Thanks for the replies.

 

[Mallardsx2]

A bucket of water with sunflower seeds placed outside. Keeps them pretty thinned down.

 

[Nathan]

Ye$ there i$ a rea$on why the pe$t control indu$try u$e poi$on$.

As someone who was in the pest control Industry let me say this.

Doing a mouse exclusion is way more profitable than poison/trapping. So I’ll disagree with you on saying it’s a money maker.

Reality is it’s laziness. Excluding mice is very much possible but it is very time consuming and until you become proficient at it you’ll find it takes multiple attempts.

Couple sugggestions.

Avoid using spray foam or store bought steel wool as exclusion aids. Mice will chew through them. Look at sites that specialize in wildlife control supplies. They sell product designed for rodents.

While I have never tried to do an exclusion on a camper I have on enclosed trailers and garden sheds with success. I’m sure it can be done but guessing their will be some trial and error on that one.

 

[thusby]

If you don't want to kill any, then I think you just need to live with the fact you will have some mice in an unoccupied structure. You can try non-lethal repellents forever and you will still have the random 1 or 2 mice. I have used poison, glue traps, kill holes, and buckets in my polebarn for the last 8 years and still have at least one smart mouse every year who sets up shop for the whole winter and I can't kill.

 

[mplane72]

Big deal is keeping it super clean with no food at all. A big part of it too is where it's sitting. If on bare grass or ground it will be hard. If on gravel or a pad may want to consider expanding the area of open hard ground around trailer. But that's not the end of it. I get rodents in the attic every once in a while. No food up there. Some tree or bush in the area has seeds they store by the pound up there. Real solution was getting rid of cardboard box nesting areas.

I made the mistake of putting the mothballs IN the first camper we owned for the first winter. My wife chewed on me about that every time we used the camper for the next three years until it was stolen. Now I use dryer sheets. No mice yet.

 

[1_pointer]

I use Irish spring soap bars. In camper and in all our work trucks that sit all winter with pretty good success.

We must have tougher/hungrier mice at our cabin!! I can show you Irish Spring bars with teeth marks and one that is completely gone!

 

[Mudder]

More like a certainty. As a mouse biologist, I have to say there are WAY better methods of dealing with mice than most presented here. Drowning in antifreeze is one of the least humane, poisons can have indirect effects, cats too, and so on and so forth.

Consider reverse game management for mice. If conservation for game species is "Habitat, Habitat, and Habitat!!" then think about how to reverse that for mice by removing habitat, in your garage, around your garage, etc.

If dispersal corridors are critical for mule deer, they are for mice as well. How are they getting into where you don't want them? Find it. Fix it. There are tricks to finding access points. There are tricks to figure how to block them. But they aren't hard tricks, just situation dependent and may require some ingenuity.

If forage matters for a healthy elk herd, what are those mice eating (besides dirtclod's cockroaches )? Clean it up. I've met a million people that have declared death to anything and everything around their country acreage because they don't "learn" to stay out of the cat food bowl that is out 24/7/365. Don't be lazy, clean it up and learn to feed your pets properly!

These methods work better because once you have done them, they tend to solve the problem more or less permanently, unlike simply inflicting mortality which simply creates a vacuum to be filled, usually sooner than later.

Finally, if all that won't work, put out a few snap traps baited with a 50:50 mix of dry oatmeal and peanut butter and check them once in a while (don't be so lazy that you can't check a trap or two once every week or three). Dead mice pretty much dehydrate in most climates so it's not that big of a deal.

And know what species you are dealing with. One or two of them can kill ya. Which means cleaning up after them may require a few precautions. Lysol or dilute bleach and a mask are your friends - sounds familiar, eh? Take it from someone who learned the hard way - you don't want to go there.

Okay, enough ranting for one morning. Off to the range with a new gun.

I've got a woodpile (habitat) a garden full of edibles, a sixty-foot tall Walnut tree, there are overlooked nuts laying around all year. I use multiple approaches, I have two Terriers and a neighbors Cat who visits nightly. I put out live traps for Rats and Mice. I put a meat feeder on the woodshed roof, which gets periodic visits from the neighborhood Weasel.

Tip of the day; tie a short length of string on the trap trigger, Mice can't seem to resist a little string, really helps catch the small ones.

Plugging up Mice access points, building foam, and stainless-steel steel wool. Mice are really hard to stop, if they can fit their head through a hole chances are the rest of their body will follow. I had one make it 3/4 the way through 3/8th inch mesh.

In the spring when they are seriously reproducing a bucket trap, like mentioned with a roller across the top smeared with peanut butter and a ramp works well in enclosed areas. Drowning them makes me uneasy until I remember my bout with Tularemia.

 

[roravetz]

This year in September we had a bunch of mice (some looked like the size of rats) trying to build nests in our truck engines and spare tire compartment, some even were able to chew through a few wires.

Is there certain areas you try to avoid when picking a campsite to try to keep mice issues to a minimum? What do you do to minimize truck rodent issues while camping?

 

[Dakotakid]

I closed today on an acre in the wilderness. I have been scheming on how to build to keep mice out.
I am looking at a shipping container but with the kitchen separate from the rest of the living space. Wife is struggling through the concept of having to go outside to enter kitchen but I am winning...

 

[OntarioHunter]

One of my friends put a five gal bucket with about 2" of antifreeze in the bottom. Then put a dowel rods across it with a piece of plastic pipe over it just a little shorter. Put some peanut butter in the middle. They fall in and with the liquid they can't jump out and then drink a little. just have to dump it out from time to time

Yep, the old bucket trap. Antifreeze also acts as a preservative so carcasses don't get too stinky. Make a ramp up to one side with a piece of board. We always used wire through ends of a beer can but I think the dowel and piece of PVC pipe would work better.

 

[madtom]

Yep, the old bucket trap. Antifreeze also acts as a preservative so carcasses don't get too stinky. Make a ramp up to one side with a piece of board. We always used wire through ends of a beer can but I think the dowel and piece of PVC pipe would work better.

Plus, Google suggests antifreeze is flammable, so disposal while camping is a breeze

 

[johnp]

I got at tip from a friend on how get rid of mice and it has been working great .
One small bucket of TOM CAT cube bait . Do not open it , cut several one inch holes around the base of the bucket and set the bucket where ever you think the mice will find it . I put one in a shed and another inside the trailer skirting. Check them once a month or so . The bait is being eaten and there has been no sign of any mice in the trailer.
My friend was not a bit surprised " works like that every time "!

 

[Dakotakid]

Yep, the old bucket trap. Antifreeze also acts as a preservative so carcasses don't get too stinky. Make a ramp up to one side with a piece of board. We always used wire through ends of a beer can but I think the dowel and piece of PVC pipe would work better.

I tried it with windshield washer fluid.
3 gallons of gelatinous goo.

 

[Howie]

@BrentD - there is a reason the pest control professionals use poison, and if the problem persists, they use more poison and/or place it better.

You’re overcomplicating things. Yes, if a food source is present it’s good to clean it out, but as far as bedding areas go, it’s pretty impractical to plug every mouse-sized hole in many sheds, garages, vehicles, and old houses.

Hi BrentD,

I found the prob with poison is they eat it then find a hidey hole, die and stink till they mummify.

 

[ccc23454]

My trailer in VA that was left in woods year round: i always raked underbrush and pine needles away from under it, sprinkled mothballs around the perimeter and set traps inside with soap bars scattered. Bucket traps work great and are not limited to 1 snap. In summer not much mice problems, snakes seen to that

 

[Addicting]

I have found glue traps better than snap traps. It’s a little less humane but they don’t steal the peanut butter and not get caught.

 

[MarvB]

Couple of shallow pans of tequila and a bag or two of sand....

Sneaky bastards get drunk and throw rocks at each other and while they’re distracted you stomp their little asses!

....remaining tequila to celebrate the victory!

 

[LuketheDog]

And know what species you are dealing with. One or two of them can kill ya. Which means cleaning up after them may require a few precautions. Lysol or dilute bleach and a mask are your friends - sounds familiar, eh? Take it from someone who learned the hard way - you don't want to go there.

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