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Has anybody any tips on how to ‘rodent-proof’ a house? We’re starting a renovation of a country property by having to remove the drywall and insulation due to the enormous number of mouse nests – great work on hot, humid days!
Nic
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Has anybody any tips on how to ‘rodent-proof’ a house? We’re starting a renovation of a country property by having to remove the drywall and insulation due to the enormous number of mouse nests – great work on hot, humid days!
Nic
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Replies
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Check out "hantavirus" on the Net before proceeding! People in my area have died from exposure to the virus in the mouse feces, which acts very quickly on the lungs causing death in a matter of days if not treated immediately.
Rat poison is attractive to animals. I bought a house where the owners preferred industrial quantities of D-Con to tightening the envelope. I missed one container that my dog ate. He lived, but there was turquoise poop and he was not a happy camper for several hours. It usually kills by hemorrhage--i don't know why he isn't dead.
*No real guarantee that the rodents will leave the house "in search of water"!!!!! I'd use traps placed so you don't trap birds by accident. That way you will know for sure where they died....HTB1
*Willie and two other brats Licked up all the Rough-on-Rats. Father said, when mother cried "Never mind, They'll die outside."
*If you do a search on http://www.google.com or any other search engine, you will find a lot of info on house mice (however, most of the advice is pretty much the same.) Some typical sites are:http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7483.htmlhttp://www.pestweb.com/ipca/housemouse.htmlhttp://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/pchousemouse.htmhttp://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/pest/mouse.htm(Actually, the last one doesn't say that much, but I liked their mouse graphic...)
*Splinter is right on about the disease possibilities in the feces. Wear a proper resperator (not just a dust mask). In my experience you can't keep them out of the house 100%. I prefer snap traps to bait for the reasons suggested above (for some reason my tenants didn't like thursty mice crawling half way accross their living room and dieing, go figure). Peanut butter is a sure thing for trap bait. The best prevention for reinfestation (besides filling any obvious holes around the pereimeter of the house) is to eliminate as much food source as possible. One bag of bird seed kept in the basement is enough for a good size population for the winter! Trash cans, dry goods, etc... should always be kept sealed in containers. Good luck.
*As stray says, peanut butter is a great bait for the snap traps. Place them along walls - the little guys stay near cover when they move. If the mouse traps aren't working, you may need the ones for extra-large mice (a.k.a. rats).
*Strawberry jam is THE BEST bait for a mouse trap.Make sure you get a little piece of strawberry stuck real good into the hole on the tripper thingy.
*For bunging up holes use fine wire mesh, anything else and the little buggers chew through it. mice can squeeze through holes smaller than a pencil too..............For baiting traps I found 'minties'worked best. (these are chewy mint flavoured candy) , warm it up a little and mould it onto the tripper thingy. little beggars cant suck it off then. works like a charm.also...........get a cat. all our neighbours have mices inside at the moment eating stuff in the cupboards. not us though, we got 2 cats. heh heh heh.
*Get a snake. I posted about mice issues earlier in the year. Yesterday I found a 5' snake in my basement workshop. I guess it was a black snake, but the way it raised its head at my approach, it coulda been a freakin COBRA! Used two mahogany scraps to throw it outside. But hey, no more mice!Jim
*Cloud, I bet the old spincher muscle tighten at the unexpected sight.
*I have 3 cats. All of them great mousers. They do it just for fun. There is never a day that I step outside and don't find a mouse, mole, vole, or rat laying on the path somewhere. Presents.One day I went out and found a huge grey rat. Bigger than my foot. Not including the tail, just the body of the thing was that big. (River rat. I live right on the river.) The next day, I went out and found it's mate. Smaller, but not by much, and very dark. I'm pretty sure that my smallest cat was the one to bring these things down. Scrappy little bugger she is. Smartest cat I have ever seen, too.
*Jack Russel Terriers are also very good mousers. Mine just kills them, does not eat them. I stopped using D-Con because of the dog and snakes in the yard. Black snakes are very good mousers, but not good house pets! Keep them outside. Hawks are good also for keeping yard pests in check.Frank DuVal
*- Plug all holes you can find with steel wool or balled up tin foil.- If and when that fails here is a great trap. By the way, mice are great for controlling roaches if you live in the city. Just don't leave food around to encourage too big a population. A few mice will eat the roach nests/eggs.
*Somehow mice eating roaches as a solution doesn't appeal to me. But hey, that's just me...
*Some additional information on controlling mouses:http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hanta/hps/noframes/prevent2.htmAlso a link to a good discussion of hanta virus:http://www.hantavirus.net/info1.htmlWhile I tend to like most little fuzzy critters, I have to say that I could certainly do without being up close and personal with the mice on my place. I do have to admire their ability however. I bought some some new protective sleeves for wearing while welding and put them in a two lb. coffee can (without lid) on the top shelf of my upright metal Greenlee locking cabinet. Somehow a mouse managed to wend its way up five feet of painted steel shelving, jumped up into the coffee can, chewed up one of the sleeves and urinated all over the other one... Must have worked its way up in the 1/4" between the closed metal door and the shelf supports like a rock climber going up a chimney... Fortunately, we appear to have the regular house mouses rather than the deer mice that is primarily implicated as a carrier of hanta virus. I think there has been one case of hanta virus in our county, however. Hard to do anything in any outbuilding around here without coming into contact with mouse droppings. While I guess there is a remote chance that even our house mouses could carry hanta, wearning a respirator and bio-hazard suit in 100+ temperatures to work around here is something that would require even more than my level of paranoia...
*The training I got on the hantavirus, was that it was only a problem in fresh mouse droppings. The way to eliminate most of the danger was to spray the area with a bleach solution to kill the virus, keep airborne particles down (the suspected virus source), and wear a respirator. Also cats help keep the numbers down.
*We have 4 cats - and the occasional mouse. They left us one dead as a present. Once my wife woke me up ("Honey, help, Pig's got a mouse!"), I grabbed the cat (Pig), he dropped the mouse, it ran off and disappeared. A couple of weeks ago, Pig was sort of sitting on one. I managed to shoo it into a box, took it outside. The thing ran right up a tree, got 15 feet up, stopped, turned around, and glared at me. I didn't know mice climbed trees...did
*Rodent and cat notes:Had a squirrel chew straight thru the wall - 2X4 edgewise, 1/2 ashphalt insul board, 3/8 plywood, siding, and 1/2 drywall - and made a nest inside stored Christmas storage box that had wool fireplace stockings. Have seen'em chew thru aluminum. We throw our food scraps into the back yard for the stray cats, haven't had a mouse in the house since we started that, the wild cats are sure good mousers, but the 'coons and possums come around for the scraps too.Had a bunch of signs in the neighborhood about people missing light gray or white cats. Found head and paws behind the barn, all gone the next day. Seems the occasional eagle that comes around loves cats for dinner, the house cats go out to "prowl" at dusk, the light ones are prime eagle fodder.
*Art: I know you have some eagles in Seattle, I used to live there, but we have A LOT of them up here. A friend with a tiny white RF (Rat F@&k) dog worries a lot about eagles and owls. Has motion detector lights on all corners of her house. I'm not sure if that keeps the owls away or just lets them see what's for dinner. -David
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Has anybody any tips on how to 'rodent-proof' a house? We're starting a renovation of a country property by having to remove the drywall and insulation due to the enormous number of mouse nests - great work on hot, humid days!
Nic