Let me preface with: I HATE MICE. THEY ARE YUCKY, DISEASE CARRYING BEASTS AND SHOULDN’T EXIST
So I have mice in my kitchen cabinets. Making me the opposite of these people who want all lower cabinets – I want them all out of reach of both creatures and children. After soaking the contents in bleach solution and pitching the other stuff, I want cabinets that are mouse-proof. I told my husband that we were going to buy a bunch of old refridgerators and turn them into cabinets, but then I talked to a friend that had a mouse problem. The little rodents actually ate a hole into the bottom of her fridge so they could get to the contents. The new plan is to glue poison to the carcasses of the cabinets. How thick should I make a 30 year supply? 🙂
Replies
not to sound ignorant, but wouldn't a call to the exterminator be a simpler solution, and find out where they are gaining access to the house?
That said when my parents lived in Houston they were warned against cockroaches, and told to keep everything open, such as cereal, pasta's, flour, chips, etc in tupper-ware containers, I wonder if that would work against mice or if they would simply chew through it?
I've tried exterminators. Exclusion IS the best way, but they never seem to find the way that mice are getting in. Plus, if the little bastids would chew through a metal fridge to get in, my little wooden house isn't going to keep them out.
Edited to add: it isn't just the food. They walk across your dishes peeing out hanta virus the entire trip. The cabinets we've found them in had no food and haven't had any for the last 8 years. Even so, plastic is nothing to a mouse. And my parents literally watched rats eating through concrete (around the water pipe) to get into the house.
Edited 2/12/2007 3:07 pm by aimless
by the kids a pellet gun?
I thought I had the mouse/chipmunk/squirrel scene all attended to.
Then I awaken and hear a tiny munching sound inside the cathedral roof's coldroof air space and foamboard insulation and wonder what the hey now. :o0
So I climb on the roof looking for footprint evidence, walk around the house using various house detective techniques and trying to see what's going on here.
Small little hole on a soon to be torn down side porch roofline like 20some feet away from the munch.
So I fill it and days later hear a late night munch out on that side porch and put down mousetraps.
Caught ma and pa mole. Friggin' frozen dead of winter and moles!
be giving me a break! :o)
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
We hae always had the ocasional mouse, but always in the cellar, where DW keeps - and spills - her bird feed. We have some good cats worth having, so it has been at an acceptable level.
About a week ago, I could here scratching sounds from the suspended ceiling downhere in the cellar, and the cat was studying it, looking up and getting himself agitated....
So I gave cat a boost carrying and inserting around the corner so he could run around on the ceiling and have fun.
LOL, about two minutes later he pounced, and three ceiling panels, a cat, a mouse, and some seed stored there all came tumbling down around my head!
Have fun!
Meanwhile back at the OK Corral.... I would be thining about magnetic seal strips on metal cabinets if you reallyneed to go that far.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Poison'em, and they're gonna crawl somewhere and stink. Set up some traps and catch'em as they come in.
Much more organic... ;-)
Traps are the best answer for termination, but only exclusion will really work.
I've heard from a friend that the ultrasonic repellers actually work, but they are highly directional and can only work in open areas since the high frequencies do not penetrate solid objects. An exterminator told me the mice will get used to the noise over time anyway.
I've had field mice in my attic for at least two years now. Never heard them until the attic was finished. Of course, they're on the inaccessible side of a knee wall and only get active at night. The little nasties occasionally get stuck at the bottom of a cathedral ceiling section that, of course, is directly over my side of the bed. The scratching as they try to climb back up is maddening!
I've laid traps in the part of the attic I can access, and have caught 9 mice over the last 6 months. Caught two a day for the first week. Now they seem to have tapered off and I have yet to catch (or hear) one in the last month even though it's been 0 degrees and you'd think they'd come inside.
I filled on some holes under concrete front steps (with concrete) and suspect they were crawling up to the attic behind the brick on the front of the house. Hopefully they have found somewhere else to sleep.
Finding the entrance will be your biggest hassle. A mouse only needs a 1/4 crack to get in.
Hey aimless,
Perhaps stock up on some galvanized chimney flashing and just step-flash the cabinet cases up to mouse chewing height? :^)
They certainly are vile little plague-bearers! When I bought my house, it had been vacant for two years, and it was just thoroughly infested. I have a walk-out basement, and I had to pull all the insulation because they'd mangled it so badly.
I did call in the professionals, and it got the job done; but after flashing and patching the holes they'd been entering in, I left a packet of pro-grade poison in each stud bay before re-insulating, just in case--by gawd, if they didn't eat the stuff and die, they'd trip over it and break their necks! :^)
Fortunately hantavirus isn't prevalent in my locale, but the little buggers do spread fleas. Guess how I figured that one out! :^/
Good luck!
soj
nothing like the sweet castanet-like sound of snap traps a-snappin' . . .