A mouse in the house

THERE'S AN ELECTRIC RAT-KILLER?? Holy fucking technology, that would have CHANGED MY LIFE at my last apartment.

It rules, you just hear this BZZZZZZZZZT noise from the cupboard, then just go and tip the mouse in the bin, reset it, and back in the cupboard.

You need a smellier cat! (xxxpost)

That would have saved my roommate having to beat a rat to death on the bathroom floor.

cats are great for mice since they like to toy with them for hours before going in for the kill which means you can usually snatch up the mouse while theyre holding its tail and let it go outside relatively unharmed.

But I fear the actual solution is as said above, to block wherever they're coming in. We can't actually do this, since we're just renting. We'd have to tear out the cupboards/floor to get to where they're coming in I think.

xpost I had to kill a few mice before we got it, cos the cats just carry them around for a bit til they get bored then let them go.

if you're renting, your landlord is responsible for taking care of pests.

Well yeah, he paid for the electric rat trap.

mice are ppl too

yes! ppl who steal food and leave shit in what they don't eat and keep you awake at night with scuffling noises at all hours and never move away voluntarily or learn more polite habits. iow, the kind of ppl you want to strangle with your bare hands and nail their carcass to your door as a warning to others of their kind.

there was a mouse (and then about 5) in my house a few months back. someone (who doesnt like mice) killed all 4 with a brush. but then we saw one that somehow escaped the next day and it was so out of it it didnt seem to know what it was doing at all so i managed to capture it in a jar and then took it to the park. i wonder what happened to it. i dont hate mice, i just dont want them anywhere near me.

A biologist friend of mine once referred to mice as "Nature's popcorn".

Tracer you sucker, the humane traps don't work. If you eat meat, surely you can kill a mouse.

DOWN IN ONE

Humane traps work just fine, but positioning is critical. You folks are just meanies.

mice are quite clever at avoiding them too

Houses need to breathe?

I've never felt the classic snap-close mouse traps were too inhumane, the damn things die in less time than it takes to say 'dead mouse.' They do go through a more hellish experience dying while getting batted around endlessly by the capricious killing machine known as the domesticated kittycat.

Mice in my house once ate some of my oil paints and part of a bar of Ivory soap. If you ever see mice blowing colored bubbles, you know they've had a slumber party at my pad.

I just totally killed a mouse in the MOST GRISLY MANNER. Opening the basement door, I saw a mouse. It was running toward the door jamb. Because I am me, I screamed at the top of my lungs, freaked out, and shut the door ON THE MOUSE. Half of it was inside and the other half was outside. OMG. I killed the fuck out of that mouse.

Eeee that's grisly all right.

On one hand, I'm horrified by what I've done (even though I did it accidentally). On the other hand, bisecting the mouse in the door jamb was swift, decisive, and effective at removing the mouse. Today, I am a killer of mice.

Well, hopefully just one.

MOUSE KILLAH

No mercy. NONE.

Sphincter-less freeloaders unwelcome in my house, whatever the species. None for ages - I hope the mouse grapevine is full of news about the many perilous glue traps to be found in my flat, should one of their number ever cross my threshold.

ratatouille

>>> A cat still works too. Even a lazy cat drives them away with pheromones or something.

This is definitely not true.

What did seem to work was being infested with rats instead. Regular mouse invasions stopped dead after that one. Happily about a year ago my landlord decided to replace my kitchen cupboards and while the old ones were ripped out the workmen blocked up all the holes the bastards were getting in through so we haven't had either kind of vermin since then.

i've been slaying mosquitoes, or at least trying to. they have a weird ability to be squashed 'neath hand and then spring up unaffected

have sworn off killing any other species for now, even if they do sit athwart a particularly exposed branch

haha

On one hand, I'm horrified by what I've done (even though I did it accidentally). On the other hand, bisecting the mouse in the door jamb was swift, decisive, and effective at removing the mouse. Today, I am a killer of mice.

― no fomo (La Lechera), Saturday, August 17, 2013 6:14 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is awesome. I applaud you on the dwindling mouse population in your home.

I tried the bisection method with a shovel when I had to put a severely injured hamster out of its misery last fall (posts on this somewhere in the parenting board). A shovel is NOT a good tool for swiftly and decisively bisecting small mammals and everybody would have been much better off if I had just smashed its head with a hammer.

I can definitely say with absolute certainty that if I had to mercy kill a small mammal, I would call Jesse and have him come over and do it for me.

He wouldn't like it and we'd probably have to undergo couples counseling after, but he's one of the few people I know with enough pragmatism and steely reserve to get the job done swiftly and humanely.

It's definitely not easy. I was a teenager he first time a cat of mine half-killed a mouse, and I waited like 15 minutes with it just twitching and dying in a bucket for my dad to get home to do it. He was quick and decisive and effective about it. Got some mouse guts on my shirt though. <3 you dad.

I am the master of dealing with small critters in the house without mercy or squeamishness. Cockroach in the sink making my daughter scream? I'll take care of it. Cricket in the laundry hamper? No problem. This past spring a baby squirrel ran into my daughter's room when she had her door open to take advantage of pleasant temps. I cornered it in her closet and crushed its little skull with one poke of a walking stick. If I can eat a bacon cheeseburger knowing what I know about factory farming, now's not the time to go all faint with a rodent in the house.

you are a good person to have around! now that i've met you, i can confirm that you have a thorough mastery of calm during chaotic circumstances.

My call to action is usually the sound of a stinkbug on patrol somewhere over our heads after we've turned out all the lights.

I emailed Jesse to tell him I was talking about him on this thread and why and he responded (posted w/ permission):

But you're WRONG - I WOULD like it. I would like it so much that I don't know if I could stop killing, and the factors of mercy, swiftness, and humaneness would soon become unimportant.

So basically it's all on you to protect us from this madman by killing the mice your own damn self.

The last time Jeff and I had a mouse in our house, we trapped it in a measuring cup and released it outside by the dumpsters. I am not a reliable killer of anything I might possibly find even remotely cute. I don't even like killing bugs.

My preference for killing small mammals when necessary is to gas them. IMO it's far and away the easiest way to go. Last time I had to do it was a few years ago. My cat had maimed this adorable little mouselet (if he hadn't been hurt, I'd have released him down the street), so I put him in a jar and sprayed butane from a canister I bought to refill my BBQ lighter. He went to sleep and it was very easy and peaceful.

When I was in high school I had pet rats and one of them was dying, so I put him in a plastic bag and filled it with propane from my dad's homemade flame thrower (for burning one of our horses' and mules' grazing areas before winter).

omg

i was wondering why no one suffocates unwanted animal intruders though, so who am i to talk

I caught a rat in a pair of overalls once.

on hols in spain a few months back i had to hold a cockroach down while my mate throttled it, it was that big srsly

i go to great lengths to let other creatures live tbh

are you sure it wasn't a british expatriate?

Cockroach news of cockroack britain

feel like drowning is also a good option

8 years ago I opened up one of the drawers in our hutch and a little mouse stared up at me all 'SUP'

Without thinking I bolted to the front of the house, opened the front door, stood on the porch and then hollered to Mr Veg (still inside the house) that there was a mouse and could he please get rid of it

I never thought I was afraid of them but, wow hey turns out I am weee :(

Let me amend my previous statement. I would lose my shit and also gleefully take a shovel/boot/rocket launcher to a rat if I found a rat in our house.

http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/food1.jpg

L to R: Rats, me

I don't have anything against your garden variety Norway rat trundling down an alley or slinking in and out of dumpsters, and I am all for fancy rats as pets kept contained in the house, but a Norway rat in my house and it's war.

one time a giant rat or possibly a possum was staring at me through my open barred basement bedroom window and the only thing i could think of to do when i opened my eyes and saw its disgusting red eyes staring back at me is to hiss and scowl and tell it to get away from my bedroom window.
it did!

Did it introduce itself as Jody?