apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Sorry Maxwell! I hope you get 'em!!

I'm having a serious SPIDER problem! Apparently, this is spider season? Who would've known? Not me!

This morning I'm closing my bathroom door and a very large beige spider (never seen one like this before) was chillin' on my robe!! Of course, I belted out the loudest scream ever and bolted!! I should mention that the water in the shower was running...did I go back in and turn the water off you ask...um...NO!! I shut off the water completely with the valve! I should also mention that I live in the basement and that I went upstairs to take a shower! I'm SCARED of spiders, especially large beige ones!!

Can someone please help!!!!!

P.S. The spider is still at large! I'm scared to go home! :(

You have my sympathies. We have dealt with mice in the past -- I should say, my husband dealt with them while I hid in the bedroom with covers up to my chin. My husband swears by Victor Quick Set Mouse Traps (http://www.amazon.com/Woodstream-M130-Quick-Mouse-Trap/dp/B00004RAN0). And although you don't know where your unwanted visitors are coming from he also suggests you clean your entire counter off every night, maybe store things in a box and put them in the bathtub for the evening and just try putting a trap right on the counter near the backsplash. Also one behind the fridge where your little one can't reach it.

And if you're interested in really fighting the good fight, try to figure out where you've got holes into your apartment (the culprit in our last place was the hole around the thin water pipe leading to the fridge/ice cube maker). My husband bravely stuffed the hole with steel wool and we didn't have any mice after that.

I feel your pain! I was plagued with non-stop mice for over a year when my street was under construction... I went through EVERY kind of trap, bait, whatever and they outwited them all. Whatever i used I could only catch one that way, then the rest of the mice figured the method out and avoided it.

The absolute only thing that finally worked was some stuff called Shake Away that I think someone here recommended. It's dried fox urine and it freaks them out apparently. It took a few days after I put it down everywhere (don't worry ... it doesn't smell), but they didn't come back. Once in a while I see one, and shake some more of that stuff behind the stove and I don't seem them again.

I lived in some pretty crummy farmhouses in my childhood. The most successful (and seriously unintentional) mouse "bait" we ever used was a half-eaten snickers bar. Hope you have better luck!

maxwell, I live in your neighborhood, and my super tells me that everyone is having rodent issues because of the neverending excavation of houston & sixth. My super lives in the basement apartment with small kids-- he is scrupulous about keeping everything in the basement clean, and uses glue traps. so far, our building has been spared-- except for the little fellow in the laundry room-- but he met a gooey end. Makre sure your landlord knows the scoop because it's in her interest to keep them from getting into the building, and I imagine she'll want to help.

A few years ago I had some persistant super mice. They got stuck in the glue traps, but managed to pry themselves loose with their super strength. I found the traps upside down on the top of my stove the following morning. I was finally able to get some exterminator strength pellet and block poison baits (not pet or child friendly) at a midtown hardware store. It finally did the trick. Good luck.

Please, figure out another solution Maxwell. Glue traps are incredibly cruel.

I just saw the video. Why don't you get ALL the food off the counter, then bait the glue traps with peanut butter and put them on the counter? you know where he eats, so give him only one menu selection. and as soon as you get him, take him outside and kill him. it's about as "humane" as getting killed by a cat, I think, so don't beat yourself up.

bklyntee was he huge and stripey looking? usually those are wolf spiders and they apparently aren't harmful but scare the sh*t out of me. they are HUGE! luckly my bf person was a boyscout/eaglescout so he knows which ones they all are. we have to spray for roahches and ... brown recluses!!!! but they are small so if your guy was large he wasn't that.

if you want to coe to alabama, you can borrow my cat roxy and take her back to ny. then i'll come to ny! ha. i'm a nerd.

There really isn't an easy way to tell if it is one mouse, several mice, or a pregnant mouse or mama mouse taking food back to its babies behind your cabinet.

Somebody mentioned on the original thread to be OCD about cleaning surfaces. This is essential. If there are mice in your building they have targeted your space and will continue to claw, bite, burrow and elude anything in their way in order to get into your apartment. This is why people tell you to take live trapped mice at least 5 miles away to release them. They themselves are very OCD once they have a target.

Is your sink cabinet open in the back? I'd imagine they are finding their way in through the back of the cabinetry. Everything must be cleaned out of those cabinets. They should be left as spare as possible. No rags, sponges, cardboard, blenders, nothing. Then, if there is a space between the cabinet and the back wall I would put snap traps and poison there. Of course, if find an actual mouse hole you must stuff that full of steel wool.

Also, there may be space behind your oven. It gets warm and cozy in that cabinet and if you are finding mice in one cabinet chances are there are mice in other cabinets.

Keep your kitchen counter spotless. Keep baby areas completely sanitized. Mice are attracted to doo-doo and can live on it. I know you guys have such a small space and there is no room to put anything so this has to be very frustrating.

I've been through this. It's not healthy, mentally or physically.

Call a pest guy and sleep well!

If the mice are confined to an enclosed area, snap traps and plugging holes are the way to go. We had a professional exterminator come once, and I was shocked that that was basically what his arsenal consisted of. Tried and true. Guess no one really has been able to build a better mousetrap.

We had a lot in our pantry this year, but plugging holes and setting out snap traps seemed to do the trick. We only caught one, but I'm hoping his fate left the others sufficiently traumatized that they decided to move elsewhere. Sad, but those little guys carry diseases, which is why we're fighting this war.

I heard that mice are abundant this year because it was a rainy spring.

We were successful with the device that electrocutes -- supposedly humane, but not so sure about that based on the loud, gruesome zapping sound as the deed is taking place -- and I know that because my husband and I were on a stakeout to try to determine its movements and why it was eluding the traps. Whatever method is used MUST MUST be accompanied by a thorough check and blocking of every possible crevice in the apartment -- you absolutely have to crawl around on hands and knees with a flashlight and plug up those openings.

I DETEST mice and ripped out my kitchen to make sure there were no entry points in the apt (extreme perhaps, especially since I rent, but that's how much I hate them -- I can feel the bile rising again as I remember watching that little bastard cavort on the rug where my kids were playing just hours before and then running up and down the sides of their high chairs).

p.s. I don't find movies like Ratatouille amusing in the slightest! Forgive the rant. Plug up those openings.

I agree with betsbillabong -- try fostering a cat or something! Glue traps are horrible horrible things. I can't even believe people admit to using them.

No, wolf spiders are dark brown and hairy -- like little tarantulas. They're completely harmless, and are really good at killing bugs. I've had a lot of the beige ones in my house this fall and as far as I'm aware they're just another common house spider. I don't know if you have brown recluse spiders in NY -- they're beige with a brown violin shape on their back. To help keep the spiders down it's good to vacuum your house REALLY well. including using the attachments in any heating/cooling ducts and all corners and crevices. It's also a good idea to check the undersides of furniture, where they like to nest.

Sorry, I have no advice for mice.

I have to second the advice on the Vector traps. While we still have the occasional visitor, it is not long before the light is blinking and we empty the mouse.

My current workplace has "squirrels" that run over our head in the ceiling. It sounds as if a medium-sized dog is running in after a long walk, amplified even more by the ugly dropped ceiling. I say "squirrels" because I am just hoping they are not rats. One day I came in to my office and a tile had fallen from the ceiling...I think one of them fell through and found himself in a therapy office!!

The brown recluses where I grew up were the size of a quarter. My brothers would shoot them with bb guns.

Seal every possible point of entry with steel wool. Even if the entry seems too small for anything to get though, seal it off. Pull the fridge and stove out from the wall and inspect all the pipes. We had gaps behind our stove that took forever to find, but once sealed, no more mice. Also, crawl around inside your kitchen cabinets to make sure all point of entry in there are sealed. Do the same in all the closets. Gap under the front door? Fix it.

I can't emphasize this enough -- seal everything to prevent the mice from coming in.

As far as catching one already inside the apartment, I've had luck with glue traps. They're super gross, but worked.

Sorry you have mice you don't want--understandably that's inconvenient to distressing. I went back and read the post with suggestions, but am having a hard time figuring how you ended up deciding on glue traps. I don't believe it's possible (without concerted effort) to find a more barbaric commercially available alternative. Glue traps can immobilize the animal in random ways and they starve. If they're able, they'll try to chew off limbs to free themselves. You want to live with that karma? Seriously?! Humane catch and release traps are available at most hardware stores, and easy to make on your own, as many of the posters to the original question suggested. Poison could be a concern if you have "on purpose" animals in the house, but is a preferable death. Snap traps are the quickest. Are you intent on killing them? Ultrasonic devices can be very effective if you and your neighbors don't have pet rodents--I know several people who have used them with success.

We have used the snap traps baited with peanut butter and plug any holes with steel wool. Our local government has a webpage dedicated to pest control that suggests these methods.

There's absolutely no advantage to glue traps but no point to using any traps at all if you haven't plugged entry points. Lots of people here recommend steel wool but mice were shoving aside the steel wool in my apartment and frolicking freely before the super came in and plugged up everything with a sticky black caulking. You need to be sure to get behind everything: stove, fridge, cabinets; take off your radiator covers and seal up around the pipes; look for any holes around baseboards and if there's a space between your threshold and front door, get yourself a metal door sweeper.

Happy to report I am now mice-free.

And one final (gross) point: Mice pee and poo everywhere they go. If you're just picking up the little poos they're leaving behind, you're not really cleaning. Wherever you see any droppings, you should be swabbing down the entire area before you even think about preparing food there.

Unless you like mice leavings. In which case, enjoy.

For heavens sake don't suggest catch and release traps in NYC! Where are you going to release them? In someone else's entry? Central Park? Humane treatment is all well and good, perhaps you'd like to adopt them? How about some roaches? All of god's creatures have a place in the ecosystem, but not living in your apartment. It is not good health and hygiene to live with rodents of any kind running around your home. As someone mentioned above it's likely there are others in the building as well. Unfortunately your landlady may need to address this building wide.

Love the video, very Blair Witch.
There is nothing left to do than burn down the apartment building and start again.

Kill the mice!! They multiply like crazy and they're filthy creatures. Cursed with bad eyesight, they urinate as they go along, so they can smell their way back. Mouse poison and traps that kill the mouse (not glue traps) are the way to go. Clean and bleach and prepare to wage a rather long battle.

BklynTee -

I doubt it was a big brown recluse in your bathroom. They aren't common to NY, but are to the South and Midwest. Plus they are recluses for a reason. They like to hid out in dark places... like inside old sneakers, in log piles, crawl spaces, etc. People typically get bitten by reaching into a dark spot looking for something. If you do get bit by your spider, make sure you kill it. Should you need to go to the emergency room, staff will need the dead body to identify it and treat you properly. But keep in mind there are only about a dozen spiders that have venom which is actually harmful to humans. Chances are, it's harmless... which doesn't make it less scary!

You have a mouse and you leave fresh food on your counter?? ARE YOU INSANE?? You do realize don't you, that mice won't go back somewhere unless they have a food source, right? I'm tempted to say you deserve the mouse.

Oh, btw, your traps should be flush against the wall. Mice can't see well, and always run with one side to a surface.

Blyntee, use a very large,long handled broom, and hit him hard! Sprays don't really work well on big spiders, then treat your place for the buggy things they eat.

Like you, I have a little one to worry about. Seal up your house and kill the rest with poison. Mouse droppings can be deadly, especially to kids who crawl around in those corners where mice like to roam.

I second the half eaten snickers. If you know where it has been, try to figure out how it got there and start laying your traps along the walls to prevent them from going back. I've had most success behind the fridge, around the stove (mostly behind), and under the sink.

get a cat, they are best for mice and insects too!

I live on one of the major canals in Amsterdam. Anyone in Amsterdam who tells you they don't have mice is really saying, "Today, so far, I don't have mice." The mice prefer to come out at night but if they realize there is no cat in the house, they will frolic in front of you. They are actually quite small, very cute, like to frolic and I think they are brazen little hussies! I can hear them in the walls. As long as they don't show their faces and I don't see droppings, they can live. When they show their faces, they are on a countdown to death. Here you can use snap traps, glue traps or poison. I choose poison. It dehydrates them and they usually try to exit the building to find water so I don't have to deal with the aftermath of my dirty deed. Yes, it is a bit heartless of me but after countless invasions, I no longer worry about the rodent kingdom. Only twice in 5 years have I found and had to throw out a dead mouse. Once I saw one die in front of me. I felt sorry for him but didn't hesitate to grab the paper towels to pick him up and throw him out. After they die, your place becomes the 'death house' and they don't return for months. Maybe for you, they will never return but in Amsterdam after about 6 months a new generation rediscovers my place. Usually because a neighbor starts some construction or gets a cat and then all of THEIR mice migrate to my place (probably to the neighbors on the other side as well).

A few things to keep in mind:
1) mice can collapse theirs bodies to get into an opening the size of a pink eraser on top of a No. 2 pencil. This is why it's important to block holes with steel wool. Also why it is so easy to miss holes that should be filled with steel wool.

2) you may not have a hole on or near your countertop. They may be running up a cord. They would run up the refrigerator cord to get to my countertop. I watched them-it was really funny-did I mention they are actually kind of cute and like to frolic?

3) Samsd is right about the food. Put it in hard plastic with a lid or metal containers with high sides (think: Breadbox). They can chew through plastic and paper bags/wrappings. They love cereals, grains and butter! Nothing quite like the sight of litlle razor teeth marks and footprints in your butter. In my experience they always avoid things with sugar and fruit.

4) If you want to entice them into the glue traps, you might try mixing a little oatmeal (natural) into the peanut butter. Mice love oatmeal and peanut butter. A little tip from a biologist I used to date. He kept rattlesnakes and copperheads at a field camp where he taught. He had to trap live mice to feed the snakes. I've tried it here in Amsterdam--the peanut butter and oatmeal bait, not feeding rattlesnakes and copperheads--and it worked better than using just peanut butter.

At least you don't have rats which are smarter and bolder than mice. But that's another story . . .

Glue traps are horribly cruel. They struggle and they're still alive. It's like a botched lethal injection. Killing them outright with traps or poison is much more humane.

What about using a snake, like farmers do?



(I'm joking, people.)

Blyntee, I think Crash is toying with you. The usual big spider/broom scenario is: the first sweep or jab enrages the spider, who then pulls that spider thing of running straight at you very fast. The next, spastic swipe you take with the broom while screaming propels the spider up and into your hair. You run out of the bathroom and flail in a St Vitus dance in the bedroom, dislodging the spider, who disappears. Sweet dreams!

Buy one of those old, 2-volume OEDs in microprint. Each volume weighs about 50 pounds. Keep one volume in the bathroom and one in the bedroom at all times. Drop from directly above as needed. Leave the book where it lands until you have a guest who doesn't mind dealing with it for you.

I used the Victor electronic traps about a year ago, when I was finding mouse droppings on top of my stove.

They are great - bait with peanut butter, leave where you've seen mouse spoor. I caught 6-7 mice in a one month span.


http://tinyurl.com/2cfm8m

Why oh why glue traps? There are about 1 million better and less cruel options out there.

I finally went back to the bathroom today (with my Mom as backup!). We didn't see the spider but I knew he was still in there somewhere. I went to homedepot and bought Ortho Home Defense Max to spray EVERYWHERE!!

So about a half hour ago I go back to the scene, ready to vacuum like the exterminator I called told me to do and spray my entier place. I bravely go into my bathtub, with the broom, and close the door to see if maybe my mom and I missed him the first time. Ummmm....guess who's still there hiding in a crease in my robe!!!....it's him!!

I slowly opened the door with the broom and ran so fast I hit my knee on the wall! This thing is bigger than the first time I saw it! I called my mom again and she's coming back to help KILL this beast (sigh)!! I'm angry now and I'm about to beat the living hell out of this thing with the broom...thanks Crash!!

Thanks to everyone who gave me tips!

The real dilemma is how you wanna be hipsters think you're so trendy paying through the roof to live in a cramped rodent and cockroach infested POS apartment camouflaged with granite counter tops and stainless appliances. What a joke.

I posted this link on the previous thread on the topic. Check it out -- it's about how to catch a mouse without a mouse trap:

http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2005/09/how_to_catch_a_.html

The comments on that thread are encouraging. Why not try this and tell us if the system works? (I know I've also seen videos of this method working well; maybe from when I read all the many many comments to that link, months ago....)

My dilemma is over for now!! Last night my mom came over and was scared too! So, we asked my next door neighbor to help! He came in, saw the spider, took a piece of toilet paper, grabbed the bastard and flushed it down the toilet! Just like that!!! Whew! I am so relieved and thankful!

I pray that I don't have this problem again! I know that I'll have spiders but I DO NOT want to ever see something like that again!

For the person who asked why glue traps, I think it's because at least in NYC they seem to be the most readily available and some brands even come with baited poison. That way you catch them and they don't necessarily die in the walls potentially creating a smell you can't remove.

As for keeping food out on the counter, I never ever kept food out on the counter, but I had mice anyway prancing around on the counter top. Really freaked out my dog.

Maxwell,
After I made a big enough stink (had to actually call the city) my landlord finally dispatched an exterminator to deal with my mice. I'd been battling them for weeks by then and I made the same mistakes you have. I thought "more is better" so I went nuts and clustered the traps together. Apparently this is a mistake. If one mouse becomes familiar with the placement of the traps and the smell of the bait s/he can communicate this information to fellow mice chemically. That is how they seem so smart in dodging our attempts to get rid of them. They have tiny brains and are half-blind but still, they outwit us: this is how. So the exterminator suggested I get rid of most of the traps I bought and he pitched a couple of cubes of poison behind the stove and left.

By far the most effective thing I did (I have been mouse-free...I think...for several weeks) was filling various cracks in with steel wool. The molding had pulled away from the floor just enough to allow them access to my apartment. The exterminator pointed out cracks even tinier than that they could use. It is a big project to close these up but worth doing. It is better to avoid the question of how to kill them entirely by denying mice access to your space.

As far as what sort of traps are concerned I respect the views of the people speaking out against the glue traps but I think they must not be New Yorkers. I would never harm an animal for sport or defend animal testing but when it comes to my small New York apartment I get to be the only mammal there if I want. Mice are filthy, spreading germs and disease wherever they go. As I sat up in bed and realized they (plural) were--literally--running back and forth throughout my studio with impunity I realized that I would use anything short of a crossbow to make them as dead as possible. I urge you to not let it get that far before reaching the same conclusion.

Although, I gotta say, I would never kill a spider. Spiders in the house are good luck.

I had mice occationally when I lived in Hell's Kitchen, and I used glue traps and they worked. .

The thing is ... glue traps work. I'm not a vegetarian, so I kind of figure if ANYTHING is going to die it might as well be the mice that have invaded my space.

What I tended to do was that .... since those traps come in pairs, when a mouse was caught in one, I'd take the other one and make a little mouse sandwich in order to not have to touch him, and them throw him away immediately taking the garbage out.

Yes, it's gross, but it must be done. Find a better way? Go for it, but that worked for me. I think the cover-all-the-holes thing is a good longterm solution of course.

You ABSOLUTELY HAVE to put the traps in the path of where he goes...aka...the counter. Put the trap where you found the droppings. If he's found food there before, that's where he'll go back. Trust me. I've been fighting them in two different houses and have caught almost all of them.

glue traps are cruel... waah, waah, waah...

i wonder how many homeless people the anti-glue trap crowd pass on their way to the hardware store to pick up the kind and gentle mouse deterrants.

they're mice. get over it.

Ok prepare yourself for mental grossness, but this is what we used when we had a little mouse problem.

A combo of snap traps and this special poison that actually dissolves the mouse after it has died. It comes in cube form, and the mice eat it (for whatever reason), and then they are promptly killed by the poison. The poison then dissolves the mouse from the inside out, so if they crawl back into the walls/floorboards to die (which they usually do) you don't get a horrible smell. We went through a lot of cubes, but I think we had A LOT of mice, and in the end it did the job.

Just make sure to use them only in a place that Ursula will be NO WHERE NEAR (of course).

No mice advice, but I love the video.

Very "Blair Mouse Project."

angie,

now THAT'S a video i want to see here. and also see it posted on whatever social networking site mice visit (mouster?) as a warning to all others who might dare enter my apartment.

Mice and spiders live where there is a food supply: get rid of their food. For mice it's your food that is available. For spiders, it's insects. Insects like moisture and your food. Clean and disinfect everything and fix any moisture problems.

Live traps are pretty much not feasible in Manhattan/NYC, right? Central Park is not big enough to release them - they will just go to someone else's building and somebody else's mouse will just find your building - it's an endless cycle. I've also heard/read that when you release a mouse/chipmunk in the middle of nowhere, the (very terratorial) resident males will simply kill it when they find it.

That leaves killing them. Glue traps leaves them to starve or for you to finish them off - yuck. Poison dissolves them from the inside (which is probably only slightly more humane than the starve-to-death glue traps) and leaves the possibility of the odor of rotting flesh - yum. IMO, old fashioned snap-traps are the best way to go - a quick death that you don't have to witness. Get a bunch of them, they are cheap.

This is a somewhat grisly comment, but with all the concern about the humanity of the glue trap, I feel like it's important to set the record straight.

The way to deal with a glue trap is finish them off quick. in 250 square feet, you'll know you've caught a mouse pretty soon after it sets foot in the glue. Then bag it in in heavy plastic, and slam the bag against the sidewalk. Yes, it sounds brutal, but its also the most merciful dispatch. On that note, I do not recommend just tossing it live into the garbage. Cruel to the quarry, and not very nice to your super, either.

Perhaps in a giant suburban house, you could forget about a trapped and starving rodent in the basement. Not in a West Village studio. Talk about horror movie.

Joeq-

You asked me the other day if I *really* knew if a mouse (and other small creatures) feel pain. Um.... YEAH. A mouse's nervous system functions the same way as ours does, and its brain is going to interpret pain just as we do. Evolution made them that way so they can avoid injury and death. In the body, feeling pain is protective.

You also felt the need to assume that those of us who would take the time to go to a hardware store to buy a humane trap would ignore homeless people along the way. Please. This is age-old BS - that people who care about animals do so at the cost of caring about humans. I manage to do both just fine, thanks.

Educate yourself about the pain felt by trapping animals here:

http://www.helpinganimals.com/wildlife_glueTraps.asp

I may be a 'bleeding heart' to you, but I'd rather have to big a heart than too small.

Actually that is no longer true of the reclose, There is another deadlyspider that shares the same poison but lesser dose. The Hobo spider with yellow brown to brown color and slight wavy lines to sortof S's facing eachother. It is mad quick and prefers darkness but not afraid of light. Bites result in numbness and several of the recluse symptoms and a pencil eraser sized or smaller flattened welt. 1 Case where a man got bit over a nerve behind his ear caused partial palsy on that side of his face. When the spider was inspected it came back recluse right here in ny. Me and my girlfriend have bein bitten by one.From micro in size to a silver dollar. Broom wont work and daily destruction of its food sourse will not help sticky paper triangles work but im still seeking a bait.

It's weird how you get used to stuff after a while. I lived in a roach and mouse INFESTED apartment when I was in college (did I mention that the roaches were so big, you could see them chewing? And they flew!!) and the first time I saw a mouse, I jumped up and ran out of the apartment screaming.

Later that year, I recall sitting on the couch and watching bunches of them "frolic" all over the living room, in and out of the couches, up and down the curtains... thus marked the beginning of a serious alcohol and weed addiction.

Now, 10 year later, and 100% sober, I'm cleaning a place that I'm supposed to move into next week, and I find mice traps and droppings under the sink and in the roaster drawer of the oven. Guess what? I'm not moving in that bitch.

While no one wants vermin in their abode, these creatures have lived with humans for centuries. Successfully. That means they have figured out most of our tricks. Cats do work but not every cat is a mouser or spider eater, however, active indoor cats always looking for action (example: Siamese) will usually eat mice, spiders and any other small insects just because they want to play! Oh, and don't move to Australia; they have REALLY horrifying deadly bugs there!

I live in an old (built in 1897) building and over the years have had unwanted visitors - ugh! - rodents...They truly give me the heebie jeebies and no, to me they are not cute. Their main points of entry are around pipes in kitchen area and under floor moldings which have, over the decades, separated somewhat from the floor, allowing visitations from the contortionist mice.

To the point, I have stopped up their entry holes with steel wool but over time the steel wool rusts. I just found out that copper mesh does not rust so hopefully this means that I will not have to go back and replenish the steel wool. I also put caulking over the steel wool, which little teeth can happily much through but, the steel wool (now using copper mesh) forestalls for a while.

I never had this frustrating problem before but this week I have baited traps with peanut butter and some sly mice with a light touch have evidently enjoyed their snack without tripping the trap! Very discouraging.

Lastly, I have used poison in the past and aside from one occasion, the mice evidently went to their reward somewhere other than my apartment, much to my relief. The one time the poor mouse died in my apartment from poisoning it was very upsetting as I saw his death throes so I swore never to use poison again. I took him out of his misery with a bash from a broom while my boyfriend of the time hid behind my skirts. However, after experiencing some mouse frolics despite the traps which they assiduously avoided I had to resort to poison. It works - best I've found is Contrac which is used by professional exterminators. I found it in only one hardware store which no longer exists but it is available online. There are other professional exterminating products online which most likely work as well as Contrac. I've had no success at all with the D-Con poison.

Now, for the ants which every spring come to say hello...off to deal with them.