Mice/Rats - What to do?

[Haui]

My fiance and I are leasing a nice home in north Addison. A couple of weeks ago we heard critters in the walls. At the time, I went to Lowes and picked up a new device that sends out a pulse that annoys them and they leave.

I am a sucker.


Needless to say, they are back. Besides setting snap-traps and calling a terminator, what else can I do?

 

[MrChad]

Install some air conditioners. They'll pop right out.

 

[amdskip]

I'd call in a pro if they are back already.

 

[apac]

Have your landlord take care of it? If you're leasing you're in no way responsible for this.

edit: or you could always take The Fifth Element flamethrower route.

 

[Vonkhan]

cat

i has mouse

 

[FoBoT]

get the owner to put out lots of poison

poison is the best for rodents

 

[JulesMaximus]

Get a couple of cats. Problem solved!

 

[Haui]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
get the owner to put out lots of poison

poison is the best for rodents

I dont want this fucking things dying in the walls and smelling up the house.

We also have two cats next door that are always out.....so I dont think cats will take care of them.

 

[tw1164]

Are they eating stuff from your house?

 

[Modelworks]

The first thing to do is find out how they are getting into the house and correct the problem.
Then I would use live capture traps.
They are usually metal or plastic boxes that you bait and a door that traps the mouse.

The reason I don't use poison is because you have no control over where the mouse dies.
If a mouse eats the poison , crawls back in a corner behind a appliance and dies , your going to have fun locating that awful smell

The trap I like the most:
http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/repeater.jpg

You can reuse it forever.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Get a cat.

If you can't get a cat get the landlord to deal with it if it's up to him/her.

If up to you read below:
Poison will result in 2 weeks of funky smells you can't find the source of.

I've had the second best luck with sticky traps with small mice as sometimes they have picky tastes. (best with cats, but the healthy one died last year and the current one is 18 years old and going senile)

Remove all sources of water and food if possible.

Place traps along walls and the most likely high traffic areas, for snap traps place the trigger end pointing at the wall.

I have had no luck with live traps.

If all else fails hire a professional exterminator.

-edit-
If it's rats, you got a bigger problem. Took a month to get one that was living in my basement, it would lick the penut butter off the trigger of the traps, had to resort to poison, found one stiff and smelly rat a week later.

You can tell if it's a rat if it has droppings almost the size of a peanuts (not the shells), mice leave droppings the size of a grain of rice.

Also wear a good dust mask when cleaning up rodent droppings because you can get serious diseases from the dust created when disturbing dry droppings.

-edit-

 

[FoBoT]

the inside of your walls is dry
so dead mice mummify, they don't rot/smell

use the poison

 

[Engraver]

Put out those D-con no mess traps. I think they do kill the rats, but they snap shut so you don't have to see/smell anything. After that you just throw the whole thing away.

Description from their website:

d-CON® No View, No Touch? (Truly, a better mouse trap!)
? 2 traps per package.
? Safer than traditional traps.
? Kills mouse instantly.
? Never see a mouse again.
? Easy baiting, setting, disposal.
? Prevents future problems.


When I had a couple of mice I found peanut butter worked best as bait.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
the inside of your walls is dry
so dead mice mummify, they don't rot/smell

use the poison

True with mice.

Rats however are another story.

 

[Haui]

Originally posted by: Engraver
Put out those D-con no mess traps. I think they do kill the rats, but they snap shut so you don't have to see/smell anything. After that you just throw the whole thing away.

Description from their website:

d-CON® No View, No Touch? (Truly, a better mouse trap!)
? 2 traps per package.
? Safer than traditional traps.
? Kills mouse instantly.
? Never see a mouse again.
? Easy baiting, setting, disposal.
? Prevents future problems.


When I had a couple of mice I found peanut butter worked best as bait.

Can you tell me where I can find these at? The website seems to be out of stock. So does WalGreens site.