I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who has opened a drawer only to find that a mouse has taken up residence, chewed thru paper receipts, insulation and whatever it could find to make a nest. I've tried mouse traps, but you can't put them in every drawer...at least I can't because I must have a hundred drawers in the shop. Does anyone have a good suggestion for something that will disuade mice from an area. I have been told that placing chunks of Irish Spring soap in drawers acts as a deterrant, but haven't tried it...Yet. Any other good deterrants ......
Drier sheets is what has worked for me, they hate them and avoid them like the plague. There is also 179 threads dealing with mice, you gotta find something in all these that will work for you. HRP
Heard both good and bad about dryer sheets. Some have said mice use them for nesting material. I've never had a rodent problem. I use the old fashioned spring traps and Decon edible poison.
Gary, the rodent's in South Carolina seem to dislike the drier sheets, maybe they find them unexceptionable to their delicate palates. HRP
Hi. Many years ago I had some get in my attic and they came down inside a pantry wall and chewed a hole into the pantry just above the baseboard and were reeking havoc in there with pantry items. If you can find where they are coming into that room you could try what worked for me as I caught a lot of mice thru that hole & totally wiped out that bunch - got them all. I took a box without a lid and sliced one side where I could place it against the wall with that one end folded up the wall and taped it securely to wall with that flap. It worked like a hinge to check traps. Just placed some weight on top of box to keep it down. I cut a small hole in the far end just to provide light in the box to give the mice a target to go towards. I placed a few pieces of dry dog food against far end below that hole for scent. None got to the dog food. Then You can either place those sticky traps or regular mouse traps and as they move thru the box they get caught every time. If you are using the old style snap traps you need to take care of it every time you hear one go off or with all traps full they can then gnaw a hole and get into pantry. With the sticky traps you just have to check it daily. Leave a bit of room where they drop down into box before they hit a trap and a bit of room for the dry dog fod or whatever you place on other end. Best mouse trap I ever had. Moving forward to today I had some get in my metal building workshop a few years ago where I build the custom Archery bowstrings I make to sell in my ebay store - ol-nobulls arechery store - (mostly recurve, longbow, Oneida or old style compounds or crossbows but have a few modern compound strings) and could not find where they got in so I just laid down several of the sticky traps where they traveled along the walls and took care of them quickly. It also worked well on scorpions that frequent this area. I still keep a couple of these sticky traps out but have not had mice in several years now. To keep this on topic it also works well in garage & sheds where we keep out old cars & parts. Good luck, Jimmie
My friends & I used to go to a remote fly-in fishing cabins once a year. They almost always had mice & they would get into the cutlery drawers etc. Dirty little buggers. We packed a half dozen mouse traps and usually had cleaned them within a couple days. Mice travel along the baseboards. We set the traps with peanut butter along the baseboards then set boxes or coolers on the diagonal with a corner near the trap. The boxes & coolers funnel the mice from either direction.
I have had Mice for awhile until I was told to Use Pepermint Oil on a few Cotton Ball in your Shop or Your Car & they will get Out.! and It Work's Great. Just my 3.5 cents Live Learn & Die a Fool
Hey E, If anyone lives near a sloping hillside or has a overgrown shrub backyard, that is perfect for mice, even in contemporary tract homes. Almost every neighborhood has mice everywhere, it is just how to accept and treat them. We have been dealing with mice over the long history in So Cal. Having tried all sorts of home remedies and commercial products the final choice has been electronics. The ultrasound devices sold everywhere work and work well. It does not kill them, but makes them find refuge somewhere else, like a neighbor's yard. Our neighbor has mice running in the ceiling, roof tops and in their yard. We used to have the same problem, but with the varying different ultrasonic devices plugged in in different locations, we don't have a problem with mice or rats. they stay outside of our house, which is natural order of things. Our neighbor has something against these ultrasonic devices. So, he reverts to the wire snap traps. Jnaki It is not hot rods, but if the devices are plugged into any outlets in the garage, your hot rods are protected to a point. But, if the garage is stuffed full of crapola, then the cause is lost. A clean garage, clean house, ultrasonic devices, equal clean hot rods. So, give them a try. Those wire traps work, but take a lot of time and energy, let alone looking into the dead eyes of the poor hungry mouse and disposal. (These Ultrasonic devices do not affect our little dog, so we are ok with changing different frequencies to cover all bases.) YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHANGE THE TITLE TO INCLUDE HOT RODS IN THE WORDING.
I do all of the above, I have a sonic thing, spring traps, glue traps, mice pellets and the mint bags you can sometimes find at home depot. Never had a mouse int he traps, so I am assuming the mint and the sonic is working.
I have had good luck with mothballs for the garage. I have two cats in the house and knock on wood I haven't seen any in there for a while.
If they are the 2 legged type that hang out in the state capitols,well lotsa luck with that problem. Good luck.Have fun.Be safe. Leo
They use them for nesting material, can't be that bad. Dryer sheets aren't even any good for clothes or the dryer.
I set one in my Alto sax case, got rid of that 'old, musty' smell in 2 days. Stayed nice and fresh after removing the drier sheet, too. Mice haven't moved into my sax case, as yet...but there was some mouse poop inside my imported Barcelona flamenco guitar case! I hates those meeces to pieces!
I accidently left a little anti freeze in a drain pan one night, had a dead mouse the next morning. They love the stuff.
Rubber snakes from Wal-Mart thrown around the area, just remember which ones are rubber and real. Also plastic owl in the corner up high enough to easily see it. Works in the shop
I drug in old setting and Rotting vehicles. and got not only mice but those wood rats , pack Rats. They chewed everything. I tried traps. DCon nothing was working. D con don't work on warfarin resistant rats, Then I got some JUST ONE BITE II BAR at the feed store. The active ingredient is Bromadione. A box contains 8 one pound bars. cost $30. you break the bars up and place them in places where the critters are. And it works. We have been fighting the rodents for several years. and we have wiped the infestation out. We continue to keep the poison bait out. The last setting and rotting vehicle I bought was a 60 Pontiac and I seen it had vermin evidence. So immediately after I bought it at the auction. I went to my truck and got some one bite bar and placed in it. Didn't want to take a chance of bringing any home.
A guy gave me a bunch of old vehicles some worth getting and many just scrap. I had to take it all. and many of those where full of blackberry canes horse turds and general debris the rats had fill them up with. They has this mother cat with half grown kittens. They tried to give me some kittens. told me what great rat and mouse killers they where. Im thinking not by the evidence in the vehicles. It was almost dark and the guys wife put out some cat food. As soon as she left rats bigger that the kittens came out and began filling their cheeks with cat food. the cats just set there and watched them. Cats hunt song birds. cats destroy the eggs of ouail turkey and other ground nesting birds. cats kill the baby rabbits in the nest. Cats carry diseases back to the home. Menningitis is carried by cats. cats shed hair in you home. house cats are not native to the Americas. A free roaming house cat is a menace varmit. If you have a cat you need to keep it on your property. preferably indoors. Ive had neighbors cats come into my chicken house and eat eggs during the day. Once we had a goose setting on a nest of eggs. every night something was bothering her. So I fixed a cage around her. set steel traps around the outside. And caught two trophy sized cats. Big gray nutered and declawed. and our nearest neighbor lived a mile away.
D-Con was defanged a few years back, maybe EPA iirc. Went to look for some on eBay and there was strong bidding on the stuff, saw a 4 pack at $60+, couldn't figure it out?? The old and not improved D-con was what was up for bid. Nobody wants to buy stuff that doesn't work, people are weird that way.
Rats & mice need two things food & habitat. They have the food here. there are a dozen horses in the pasture next to our corner. folks feed the horses sweet grain. and the rats gather the dried manure and it makes a tasty treat. then there are plant seeds to eat. and they like to nest where hawks and owls cant see them. old cars have that protection as well a nesting material from the interiors. My only option is to poison them.
I never put food in traps that are in the garage/house. I put the food outside in traps to draw them out. I found the food only attracted them in and it never ends.
You can trap mice and rats. It requires a bit of know how. a fresh new trap works great the very first time. However the other vermin smell the blood and it hardly ever works again. so you must boil the trap to remove the scent. same with steel traps after a successful catch . you boil the trap and have melted wax on the water when you withdraw the trap it gets coated with wax, then you place the trap in a funnel area suspend the bait above the trap and cover the trap with tissue paper. Its time consuming and I cant maintain traps in over a hundred vehicles. But I can keep a hundred or more chunks of one bite in those vehicles.
The sticky traps will definitely catch more than one mouse, so it's not the dead 'uns that bother 'em. I'm kind of a softy, I hate the little bastards don't get me wrong but I don't really like any critter to suffer needlessly. So dead-right-there is best. Poisons or sticky traps aren't my first choice, but they work great. If there are cracks where they are getting in, seal them up by stuffing with steel wool.
They outlawed poison in the UK. afread that some pet or barn owl will ger secondary poison by eating a dead rat. as a result populations exploded where there was food and habitat. They are videos on UTube of people using dogs little jack russells ect. to catch and kill rats. some times they get several hundred in one day. very entertaining.
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