apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Steel wool
is cool

it stops further infestations

But a cat
is where it's at

despite the meeses protestations

I have lots of experience with mice, having lived for 10 years in a falling down shack on a little island. Mice will "come in" in the fall, therefore, more mousie activity and sightings in the fall. When they come in, they will then spend the winter happily copulating and breeding, after which they will then spread throughout your domicile finding new and ever more clever ways of getting "in" and doing their mousie thing wherever and whenever.
It could be argued that it is not inhumane to snap trap/kill a mouse as the alternative, letting a mouse out on the street or into the park, is as inhumane as, say, letting your cat out to fend for itself on the street.
I am a firm believer in the good old fashioned snap trap.
Then pick up the trap, wrap it up in a plastic bag, and throw it away.
Also, leaving the mice in the walls by stuffing holes with steel wool, etc., will just end up creating an awful mousie stink that will NEVER go away.

We have had really good (and very humane) luck with this product:

http://www.alwaysbrilliant.com/aa/aspx-products/1-689/2-55188/SC-FROOGLE/bb/Live%20Catch.htm

Shake away is an outstanding product. It uses the animal's natural fear as a deterent. We just used it a couple of days ago to get rid of a nasty vole. Turns out the stuff scares all kinds of rodents away.

https://www.critter-repellent.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=MICE

http://www.biconet.com/critter/rodentgranules.html

i have a terrible mouse problem right now only made worse by the fact that i am doing renovations and have huge gaping holes in my walls for plumbing and electrical work that no amount of plastic and masking tape will cover. i am not happy to hear that the mice are breeding away as we speak. that stinks.

I finally rid myself of the mice that haunted my apartment for over a year. Holes in sturdy materials can be filled with steel wool and you'll be fine, but holes in the rickety sheet rock behind my stove had to actually be covered with plywood, because the mice would just pull the steel wool right out.

As for traps, there was a great tip in Esquire once about avoiding food on traps. Mice would rather collect things to help them build their 'nests', so you should use bits of fluffy cotton or lint to entice them. After I closed up the holes I used this trick to catch the two critters that were now sealed into my apartment. I went out for 4 hours and by the time I came back both were caught. Good luck with yours!

Here's a classic "only in NY" story: A friend of mine had mouse holes all over her kitchen and was plugging them with steel wool. As she put a wad into the wall, two live wires that were just dangling back there for some reason - were conneted and instantly lit a fire in the wall. Luckily she was able to quickly put it out (it shorted out all the electrical of course) but it was like a scene from City of Lost Children.
Ahhhhh, slumlords!
ps: a cat is the only thing that really works. They will never come back once they know a kitty has moved in.

Some miscellaneous mouse related thoughts:

I have read that better than peanut butter for trap bait is peanut butter with anise seed mixed with it.

Some people have luck with the 'sonar' things that mice hate the sound of.

We had very bad luck with sticky traps once----we threw them away with the mouse still alive on it and the mice were somehow able to free themselves and eat their way out of the garbage bag.

"I didn't want to hurt the mouse while I was killing it."

Classic. And how about the woman who suggested going though an elaborate plan to live catch the mouse in a bowl, then she suggested putting the mouse in the freezer to kill it. Yes, much more humane that a snap trap!

I still haven't seen any live trap users explain how they get rid of the caught mice.

Too bad one can't rent some mercenary cats on a temporary basis, hunh?

We have a couple of extremely coddled purebred cats. The instict to kill mice has sadly been lost through many generations of breeding for friendliness and beauty.

Nonetheless, it's still extremely rare that we see mice or evidence of mice in our apartment, even though mice seem to be everywhere in our building (and are certainly in our pantry, which is unfortunately not a safe area for the cats).

There's a continuous state of offense and retreat: a mouse will appear outside the pantry, the cats will stage an elaborate, multi-day stakeout until they catch it and make a show of carrying it around in their mouths (but not killing it), and then the mice will again retreat to the pantry, temporarily defeated.

The point is that even super-tame purebred cats that live to do little more than sit in laps purring are still cats and as such do a pretty good job of keeping the mice away.

moema, your pantry sounds like a good spot for one of those sonic things that mice supposedly don't like.

Jon_B: Funny you should mention that! Just the other day, when I went in there to check the traps, I noticed--to my astonishment--that there was an outlet right next to the pipe where they were originally coming in (before we sealed it off with steel wool). It's an old building, so I just assumed there weren't any outlets in there. Ever since, I've been thinking we should get a sonic thing.

So I'm off to the hardware store (or Sharper Image). Thanks for the tip!

One point that moema reminded me of: even if the cats arent mice catchers, they will usually alert you as to how the mice are getting in. There was a giant bug in my apartment over the weekend and while my little furball didnt feel the need to catch it, I was aware of its location when she started stalking an empty flowerpot.

I have used live traps numerous times without issue. I take the mice out to a field and I let it go. It ain't that complicated.

This is the "catch and release" problem in NYC:

There aren't too many "fields" in NYC. Unless you mean "public park" which probably means you provide food for a rat.

Let's face it. NYC is not the countryside where little field mice roam free like in a children's book, and sometimes move in to the cellar. NYC is a concrete human-created living machine. Mice are vermin and spread disease. If you catch one in your home and "release" it anywhere in the city, you are either feeding other, bigger, nastier vermin, or you are giving your adorable disease vector to some other apartment. I would not catch a mouse and give to my neighbor. That is not nice to my neighbor or HER kids.

I value the desire to be humane, because cruelty diminishes us as human beings. To be humane, in this situation, means to get rid of the disease spreader the best way you can. Cat, snap trap, or glue. To be humane, to be morally consequent, means you might have to administer the coup de grace yourself. To release vermin that will only infect someone else's home is not humane. It is moral procrastination.

Of course, scaring it away and sealing up the entry points is another way to go.

CATS!!!
Have had one for 5 years, the only 5 years living in NY (or any city for that matter) without a mouse in sight....

And I am a neurotically clean person...

I just caught two mice in my apartment last night. Nine months ago, I thought my sanity was going because I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye, fuzzy brown spheres flying between the furniture of my living room.

Choosing to remain still and quiet, I eventually realized it was a mouse (or more). On times, when I came home, I would see a mouse in the middle of my living room as soon as I put the lights on. Within seconds the mouse had run underneath the fittings, or run up into a wall-mounted fireplace - one minute the mouse was running parallel to the wall, the next minute it had just disappeared. So I would wait and wait and wait, and the mouse would never reappear, until the next time. I knew the mice were coming through a hole in the fittings of the kitchen, and so had blocked that up, but they seemed to be coming through other ventilation vents.

Another time, I very nearly caught the mouse in the kitchen, but it hid underneath the washer/dryer. Tried to get it out using the thin nozzle of the vacuum cleaner, but not long enough. I bought I couple of those cheap plastic flap-trap humane mouse-traps. The mouse was bright enough to smell the bait, but too dim/bright to enter the trap.

Last night, I was lucky. Saw the mouse in the living room, I saw the mouse as usual. Quickly closed the door to the hall and the kitchen. Grabbed hold of the vacuum cleaner nozzle and switched it on, turned round and saw the mouse frantically trying to get through the gap between the door and the frame. Moved the nozzle thing towards the mouse, and before I knew it, the mouse is now stuck to the nozzle with all four limbs free. Almost in a state of shock and confusion as to why it could move yet not move. Victory! Mouse #1 is caught.

I thought that was all the mice. That night, I'm in bed, when I hear what sounded like a cat or squirrel in the bathroom, but the window is closed - I heard the clinking of glass, footsteps, then scratching at the door. Then I heard footsteps in my bedroom, and in the gloom, I could see a faint fuzzy blob move along the floor, then move out again. It came back and went out again.

That put me on the warpath. I started searching the other rooms; the hallway, the utility cupboard, the other bedroom. Nothing. I'm about to go back to bed and so start to switch off all the lights in each room. Then I see the second mouse in the bathroom. Quickly, I close the door, go and grab the vacuum cleaner, and go back into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. But the mouse has gone again. There is nothing here for a mouse to hide, except for a solitary brush holder. On a hunch, I switch the vacuum cleaner, on, insert the nozzle in the holder, and retrieve mouse #2. Victory double plus! Another mouse caught.

There is a new product out in the market called Xcluder Rodent & Pest Fill Fabric that is a combination of black poly and stainless steel wool fibers. It will never rust or fall apart and should be used in place of standard steel wool or copper mesh. Once you pack it in the crack, hole, or crevice, you never have to worry about it. FANTASTIC material which can be purchased at www.SoBoDistribution.com, check under their Rodent & Pest category. You can also read more about it at www.GetXcluder.com....definitley work a look if you have rodent, bat, or any other varmint problem.