Ways to get rid of a mouse invasion without hurting them? No poisons or traps, please.

Talk to them.

@zenele I don’t speak Rodent.

There are no kill traps that catch them and then you have to go far far away to release them because they will come right back to their nice comfy homes if it is even within a reasonable walking distance. They are also territorial so where you release them will likely belong to some other mousey gang and they will have fight to the death turf wars.

They are cute…they are also filthy and piss and shit all over your dishes and anything else they can find…and believe me they find everything.

And if you have one, you have many.

I used to be of the no kill policy and I still hate to set a trap. But a bad year of mice and I suddenly realized that they were completely willing to force me and my family out of our home given the chance.

So it was set the kill trap time and we all lived snappily ever after…except the mice.

Why? Why do you care about the mice? What @Merriment said. Gross, gross, gross. You’ll find them under your bed, or if you get enough, running over your body. They make noises in the walls at night. Like they are having a convention. And you can’t get them out. They decide to move out when it pleases them.

Oh and then they nibble into all your bread and snack bags and for gods sake the little ketchup packages that the hamburger chains hand out.

Cute? What about a mouse is cute? Are we talking Disney cute here? Rats are cute, too. Anything with fur is cute. Porcupines are just so cuddly. And bobcats and coyotes.

But if you must capture them live, there are little mouse havahart traps. Good luck with that.

One day, I went down to our basement to do some laundry and noticed a very large puddle on the floor. By the time we figured out the leak (more like a waterfall) was coming from the drainage pipe to the dishwasher, the cascading water had shorted out a few outlets and light switches in the basement. It also ruined two area rugs. The cause? Mice had chewed through the plastic pipe. We had to pay a plumber and an electrician to fix the damage, plus buy new rugs.

After that, we switched from humane traps to poison in the drop-ceiling of the basement. The poison (I forget what it was called) made the mice thirsty before they died so they’d go outside and not die inside and smell up the house. We never had odors from dead mice, and haven’t had a mouse problem since.

I know they are cute, but besides not being potty-trained they multiply quickly and can cause quite a bit of damage by chewing. If you don’t want to use poison, use the traditional style of mousetrap. They seem to work best and kill the mice quickly. You can even buy covered traps so you don’t have to look at the corpse. Seriously, a mouse problem isn’t something to ignore.

The humane traps work really well, but you do have to transport the mice very far. Like, get into your car and drive a long way off before you release them. If that’s something you are willing to do on a daily basis until all the mice have been relocated, go for it.

We always get rid of ours by not making our home hospitable to them. Keep all food contained, remove any ‘mice bedding’ such as old newspapers etc; and we also went through the house and sealed off mice entrance points with wire mesh. No more mice.

@Draconess25 No hurting, no traps no poison? Maybe the Pied Piper?

Without reading the above…

They make dog whistle-like things for mice that make a high pitched noise that humans can’t hear, but supposedly drive mice crazy. We’ve had them in our house for a couple years and it seems to work.

Mice doesn’t have feelings,they use their instinct. Whether we like it or not it’s the fact that most member of the rodent family have became ‘pest’ and will influence the wealth beings and healthiness of human beings thus making them one of our natural lifelong enemies from long time ago. What I could suggest is that you call exterminator and clean your house from these tiny little creature. It’s the fact that many many mice died each day not only from their natural predator but also from other reason. We just can’t save all of them. Living in my country will make you realize that mice aren’t your good neighbors and many of them died from poison and traps set by all human in their household. Don’t let their cute look deceive you,they’re a bomb of disease in a nice box!

@boots – we tried the sonic mouse repellent thingies too and they did bupkus. Maybe our mice are hearing impaired?

@boots Bull$hit that humans can’t hear them! I sure can!

@all If you haven’t learned from my other questions & answers, I greatly value animal life over humans.

@Doctor_D But mice don’t have AIDS & STDs, do they? Humans spread disease just as readily.

Another vote here for the humane trap method. If that doesn’t work, while I am not advocating killing the little guys, getting a cat will kill them in a natural way and will drive the bulk of them out.

@KatawaGrey Thank you. At least someone has respect for other living creatures! I’ve actually wanted a cat for years now, but we a already have a Yorkie & a Pomeranian. I could perhaps hire one of my girlfriend’s cats. Pay them in ham….

@Merriment They work here.

@Draconess25 I think you mean “bull Shit”, dear. I can’t hear them and I have no problem hearing high pitched noises.

@boots: Actually, some of those whistles are designed in such a way that very young people can hear them but most people over the age of thirty or so can’t because of the degradation of hearing as a person ages. It is entirely possible that @Draconess25 could hear them because she is very young.

@Draconess25 OK you’re right about that. But how about Salmonellosis, which is a type of food poisoning, gastro-enteritis accompanied by headache and fever,parasites include mites, ticks, tapeworm and fleas? How all of those sound to you? It all might not sound as fatal as AIDS & STD but it still will harm your healthiness in certain way.

@KatawaGrey I wouldn’t use my cats for this purpose. Mice could infect your beloved pets through contact. If I can choose I prefer my cats to be alive. Veterinary cost is much higher than exterminator cost anyway.

@Doctor_D Any furry animal can get fleas & ticks. And cats catch & eat mice all the time. It’s healthier than that overprocessed pebble-food.

Cats are only good deterrents if they are already experienced mousers. Otherwise, the cat probably won’t be very effective. Cats can contract tapeworms, lungworms, and roundworms from eating mice. Source. I’ve never heard of a cat contracting worms from quality cat food.

@Draconess25 I completely respect your preference to not harm the mice. I don’t like resorting to lethal pest control either, but the fact is that mice do have the potential to be destructive and carry disease. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve lived in homes that have had problems with mice to one extent or another. Even when we had nine cats, we still had mice. Years of trying different methods of getting rid of the mice has taught me that traps and poison are the most reliable and effective means of dealing with them. The non-kill traps work, they just require more effort to relocate the mice if you don’t want them scurrying back to your house. You’d also have to ask yourself what is more humane: A quick a painless death, or relocation to a new area where the mouse will have to fight for territory and possibly be killed/starve in the attempt?

You could do what they did in the Medieval/Renaissance times and have a male friend or relative urinate around the foundation of your home.

@MissAusten Answer me this: Would you eat cat food? And if it was out in the wild, it would at least have a chance to fight back, instead of being tricked. I don’t like the world “humane”. It implies that humans are the better, kinder species.

@Draconess25 I agree with @MissAusten. It’s not simply some tiny tick or fleas but some kind of parasite inside them(worm eggs,bacteria,virus,etc) which make them our enemies. Most wild prey are contaminated anyway. And believe me,our humanly processed commercial food are a lot safer and healthier.

@Doctor_D: If you have cats, and your house has no mice, it’s probably because the cats eat the ones that come into your house. You don’t “use” your cats that way. Your cats choose to eat the mice. It’s a lot worse for your cat to keep him locked up to prevent him from killing mice.

@Draconess25: If it makes you feel better, remember that you are an animal as well and any action you take against the mice is no more and no less than they would do to you if your places were reversed. Also, humans are not better than mice, you are correct, but in the grand scheme of things, mice are not better than humans either. Morality is a construct made by humans for use in dealings with other humans.

Just as a point of fact, mice do carry diseases that can be contracted by humans. See hantavirus, which is no joke.

@Draconess25 I’d eat cat food before I’d eat a raw wild animal. Humans as a whole may not be humane, but individual humans certainly can be. What’s kind and gentle about letting a cat kill the mouse? Have you seen the way cats “play” with their food?

If you do find a way to keep the mice out of your house without using any traps or poison, let us all know. I will certainly try it if we ever have a mouse problem again.

You could get some cats, but you might be better off with rats than cats. :-)))

@KatawaGrey Even if it’s true,I prefer to buy some lab mice for this purpose if it’s really essential for my cats rather than waste my money for veterinary cost(it’s quite expensive here).

@Draconess25 If you really feel sorry about taking innocent life you must also remember all of our ‘food’ that you eat each day made from killing hundreds,I mean billions of plants and animals. We just can’t avoid that fact.

Allowing cats to deal with it isn’t more humane. A snap trap is usually instant death. A cat, not so much. All letting cats handle the problem does is allow you to feel falsely innocent of causing a death.

@Draconess25- you say you value all animal life over all human life…you may change your viewpoint when and if you should ever become a parent.

Have someone else use poisons or traps.

@Merriment Letting animals hunt each other is the natural order of things. Not tricking them. And I wouldn’t want to be a parent. I stopped likeing kids a long time ago. They’re cute when they’re old enough to use the bathroom, & until they’re about 5.

@ChazMaz I already do. The point of this question is to persuade my mom otherwise. So, it would defeat the purpose.

Bringing a cat into the house to hunt the mice isn’t the natural order of things…it is you interfering in the “natural order” of things. Since the mice would be less likely to have taken up residence in a cat occupied house in the first place.

How sad that you can’t appreciate the non potty trained child but can embrace non potty trained mice.

Good luck to you…and your mom

@Draconess25 Your Mom is setting traps and killing them because she does not want mouse poop and pee all over the place that she has to clean up daily.
If you want her to stop killing them, take some responsibility and offer to clean up the P&P every day. Also promise to wash all the silverware in the drawers if/when she finds poop in the spoons and forks. Offer to seal and mouse-proof the house and see if it works for one month. If it does not, then agree to let her have her way and promise not to complain when she does what needs to be done.

@worriedguy I already do all of that. And I’m not going to let her have her way until I move out. Then, she can do whatever the hell she wants. And if she wants me to move out sooner, she can cough up the money for my tuition instead of blowing it on cigarettes & beer. She can at least buy bottled beer. It’s way better than canned.

I have used the plug in sonic thingys. they work for spiders too.
and cats are the best. they love it.

Strategically place a couple of good speakers and play Abba continuously until they either commit suicide – or move to Sweden.

My vote would go to getting a few cats.

It’s that whole “Circle of Life” principle. What could be more natural ?

Can’t you just hear Elton John singing in the background…..it’s the circle of life…..

@Buttonstc I woke up listening to that song!

:)