Mice- Or the reason I lie awake at night

This little guy was living in the old chicken coop before I gutted it for off-season storage.  The next day he was in our house.

You know one thing I never really had to deal with before moving out here?

Mice.

Sure, I'd known people who had mouse problems in their house, but it was always a funny story to me since how can someone be freaked out by such a cute little animal?  What harm can they be?  Set a couple traps and they'll immediately get caught.

Mice are actually pretty sly.    They pee literally all the time since they have no bladder control and seem to poop just as much.  They'll eat your yummy just baked cookies as well as munch on some wires, so they're pyromaniacs too.  

It was about 6 months after we first moved in that we had our first guest.  Ahem, guests.  Since where there is one you see there are usually multiple you don't see.  They moved in on the perfect day, too, since it was the day that our toddler left a banana hidden in her play kitchen.  They ate- and pooped- well that night.  Going into her playroom the next day I thought she had gotten into the chocolate sprinkles, but no.  I was horrified when I figured out what I saw.  I almost torched the whole room, but Jon talked me out if it so I just bleached everything.  Twice.  It's still traumatizing to think about.

From that point forward, it was on.  We had no clue what to do so we did what any other person in our shoes would do.  Buy a whole bunch of things to get rid of mice and prayed something worked.  Some poison and a couple snap traps later, the mice were gone.  

Look, I'm as animal friendly as anyone, but harboring a disease-infested rodent in my home is not on my wish list.  I want them out as quickly as possible.  Between the toddler and the dog one of them is bound to eat something I'd rather not think about- ever.

Here's what we do to make sure our house is as rodent-unfriendly as possible.

1.) Figure out how they're coming in.  Mice can fit through spaces as small as a dime.   They're tiny contortionists on a mission.  Our first floor is pretty well sealed up, but we have two access doors to the basement that aren't.  We sealed those up as best as we could and cleaned up anything around that they could use as a nest or as nesting material.  Last spring I discovered a towel I left out on the deck was used for a time as a cozy mouse house.  Where's that blow torch again?

2.) Pick your poison. Again, I hate killing spiders and often relocate them outside but mice have no home in our house, so we use traps.  I often joke if it were just me by myself the mice would become my friends but the thought that they could make my family sick makes the choice easy that the best way to prevent more mice from coming in is making sure there are no mice around to make baby mice.  (There are a bunch of no-kill options out there that catch them and allow you to release them to torment someone else if that's your thing, though I won't be discussing them.) 

Here's a rundown of what we use:

This design hasn't been updated because it works.

Snap traps-  The OG wood ones are a classic for a reason- they work.  The key is to smear a tiny amount of peanut butter or raw bacon on the trigger to get them to really work at it.  Too much and they can get their fill and not set off the trap.  Buy a jar of cheap peanut butter just for setting traps- no cross contamination when you go to reset them.  Want to keep it cleaner?  Place the set trap in a paper bag and when you catch one, it's easy disposal.  Mice can't see well and usually run along walls so place multiple traps along places you know they frequent.  Want to be extra sneaky?  Leave a couple traps baited but not set when you first put them out.  This gets the mice used to eating off the traps, then set it to catch them.

We also have used the plastic reusable snap traps but I'm not as big of a fan.  We caught one once and thought it looked dead it sprang alive when I went to release the body.  It actually shrieked and went on its hind legs into a fighting stance- no joke.  So not only did I then have to change my pants, but I had to punch my husband AND we still had a live mouse to deal with.

Poison- We place a lot of childproof bait stations around in our house.  We buy the single use ones that can't be opened and the poison can only be accessed by a little rodent that can fit in the small maze inside.  We still keep them out of reach of where our daughter and dog goes, but it's extra peace of mind knowing they can't touch the stuff.  

We didn't have any mice in our house last year because, unbeknownst to us, they were using the accessible bird seed in the garage as a buffet.  So now we also keep a bunch of bait stations out there, plus we keep the bird seed in a plastic container they can't get in.  Once we took away their food supply and filled some bait stations, the problem disappeared.

Dancing while cleaning is always optional, but strongly suggested.

3.) Keep your house clean.  Easier said then done, I know.  Ever since that first incident with a banana left in the playroom, I closely monitor any food that's brought out of the kitchen.  But mice live off crumbs so sweep the kitchen regularly and think about switching to plastic containers in the pantry.  I use these (LINK) and I think they're awesome in their own right.

4.) Keep up with the routine. It's easy to stop filling the bait blocks, or putting fresh peanut butter on the traps when there hasn't been signs of any activity, but keep at it.  You never know when a mouse is going to find its way inside.  

I can't decide if Tola would be more afraid of a mouse or if she would just snuggle it.

5.) Get a cat.  We're more of a dog family, but everyone keeps telling us to get a barn cat.  These are semi-feral cats that don't/can't live indoors that love to hunt for creepy crawlies.  There are some barn cats around our property that our neighbor feeds and she swears by them.  Indoor cats can work, too, but be aware that not all cats are "mousers" and some might even make friends with them instead.  Oops! 

We have only had one visitor so far this year and caught him pretty quickly.  As soon as a saw a couple droppings around, I reset the traps and made sure the bait stations were filled in case that we were ready for any more uninvited guests. 

And I sanitized everything the mouse may have touched.  Twice.