apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

2 Humane traps, all dry goods are now in plastic or glass 'chew proof' containers, and I stuffed steel wool in all the gaps under the base boards. (use gloves!!)

I've had two mice "episodes" in the past 8 years in my kitchen area and I have done most of what you described.

Regular old mousetraps with peanut butter nabbed the ones I saw and tinfoil shoved into the openings around the water pipes prevented any more.

The worst part for me was that I live in a loft where my upstairs bedroom is open to the kitchen/living room below. I'd be in bed and I could hear the mice scurrying around downstairs. It was horrible.

Cats!

I didn't try to get rid of mine; I fed him candy necklaces (I was 8). Our mouse used to watch Saturday morning cartoons with me every week until the dog got him. Poor little guy.

The first time it happened I had no idea what was going on--I noticed that my bag of rice had fallen open and was scattered about the floor so I cleaned it up---only to have it happen again. Anyway what I did was find the entry at a pried up board in the closet and seal it off with aluminum foil and packing tape---same basic principal as steel wool. Then all of the rice/grain typr products got moved from open storage to a set of plastic filing cabinets on casters. This made them easy to clean behind and the mice didn't seem to get into the sturdy plastic. Then there were traps. The problem was over for two years, then I got a bird and they were attracted to her seed and found new entry route by the radiator piping ---foil and duct tape solved that although they came back every so often and you could hear them chewing. Traps went only into closets where my bird could not get. One of the most useful ways of insuring your place is mouse free is to sprinkle baby powder where you've seen them run----they leave little tracks if they are still around, its a good to know if you have pets and want to put the traps away for good.

Haven't had any and don't expect to. With 3 cats and a dog roaming loose, anything that moves doesn't for very long!

We pretty much never see any living vermin. Occasionally we find evidence that our "Verminators" have been on the job the night before (they kill 'the bugs, but don't eat them), but I haven't seen a living bug bigger than an ant since forever!

I can only imagine if they found a mouse. Poor little thing would be in a world of hurt!

Haven't ever had mice in my adult life but as kids we did often in the kitchen (cute little teeny tiny mice) and my dad came up with a foolproof mice bait (which over the years I've heard other of using): a mouse trap and on the trap part a thick mix of peanut butter, crushed up dog bones (like milkbones) and tiny bird seed (like millet) he'd smear it on there and the next morning, all the traps were full.

As far as a no-kill way to do it, I've yet to see an effective one short of calling an exterminator.

you're doing all the right things, faith. i had one last fall/winter in my chicago apartment (vintage, no condo for me) -- turns out the former pantry which now holds the heater had a huge gap in the wall which is i think where he was coming in. plus the same gap where the gas pipe came in behind the stove. had to help the landlord drywall the former pantry and around the stove...

mice will get EVERYWHERE, too, so check your closets if you have a lot of stuff in them, spare rooms... yuck. yeah, mice are gross, they poop everywhere, too.

I freaked out the first time I saw him on my kitchen counter. I grew up in the country with lots of critters, so I wasn't scared, he just surprised me.

The second time, I just stared him in the eyes and said "I am giving you one warning. If I ever see you again, I will get traps."

He bailed. Maybe it was a coincidence or maybe he appreciated being treated with respect.

No amount of country living or my Dr. Doolittle fantasies prepared me for the rat in my friend's toilet last night.

"No amount of country living or my Dr. Doolittle fantasies prepared me for the rat in my friend's toilet last night."

Wait, what?!?! You just described perhaps my worst nightmare. You weren't sitting down, were you?

My cats work like a charm.

I had some problems last year; I live in SF, but next to some nice open space. I put all my food in containers (some of which still bear tiny scratch marks), set traps, etc. It helped, but they were still around. Then I got Jack, my cat, and within a month caught one (and left it in the middle of the living room for me). And then they were GONE. There hasn't been a trace of a mouse in the eight months I've had him.

Steel wool packed tightly into holes along the walls and in cupboards will prevent mice from entering a room. It's one of the only materials that they find too sharp to poke their noses through. Buy it in bulk and stuff liberally and tightly (use a pair of scissors to help pack it in).

In the year that we lived in a shack in the country, we had traps, exterminators and cats. While the cats caught the mice at first, the only thing that kept the mice out for good was the steel wool.

I lived four floors above a restaurant on the Lower East Side for four years. That is how I learned my cat Zach is an extremely good mouser -- he's so good that other friends have in the past asked to BORROW him for a week or so when they had their own mouse problems.

The kitchen I'm in now doesn't seem to have any issues, which is good because Zach is 16 years old and thus in his dotage.

Steel wool in the holes and then seal them with an expanding caulk or foam. Mice can eventually get through the steel wool and foam so you'll have to replace it over time.

We had a mouse this winter. My cat did not care either. So...after a few attempts at a humane trap (that mouse got out of) we did an old fashioned kill trap set with peanut butter. I was a little conflicted but it's not like mice are an endangered species.

Here's a link from strobist.com where a mouse invaded the house of an inventive photographer:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-better-mousetrap.html

it's hilarious.

I have 2 cats and 2 dogs. Mice stay out of my house for their own safety.

Mice tend to come in during certain times of the year, so aside from preventing them entering in the first place, just keep placing traps. Graham cracker plus peanut butter is a good bait.

When I had mice, I didn't have the luxury of being able to deal with how they were getting in, so I just put out lots of traps and kept emptying until we weren't catching any more. To make the kitchen less attractive, we were very fastidious about cleaning up and I bought large glass jars to store all the dry goods.

Squirrely, the rat was dead.

Which I think means he crawled into the toilet & drowned (probably dehydrated from poison & looking for water) as opposed to swimming up the sewer pipe (possible, but in which case he probably would have been strong enough to get out of the toilet).

There is no upside to this story. Both versions are beyond super raunchy.

We had them in our pantry! Poop everywhere! We pulled out everything, anything in boxes or not 100% sealed containers was tossed/composted. Found the entry hole and filled it with expandable foam. Tried traps, got 1, tried glue, got 0, cats didn't help too much. They were living in the insulation. Finally we bought poison. Blocked off that whole section of the house from cats for 6 months. Replaced all shelving and walls, painted and scrubbed every other surface. We haven't had a problem since and it's been over 2 years.

cats = no mice, few bugs (at least at cat-reach levels)

i agree with the cat thing. We had a horrible mouse problem at my parents. We were catching 3 at a time per trap, several times a day. My kitteh just a kitten, but started catching the little mice. Soon as he caught a few, they left. Never came back.

Be AGGRESSIVE at the first sign of trouble. The time between finding the first poop and dealing with a full-blown infestation is short. I tried 3 types of humane traps before resorting to kill traps.

How did I deal with it? I moved.

As others have said, steel wool works wonders! Put it in every small corner you can think of. We found a dead mice in our sink; he drowned because we left water in it and another one was hiding under the stove. We put steel wool there too. Also, peanut butter on the mousetrap (as others have said) and cotton balls dipped in peppermint oil. Mice hate the smell.

Shortly after we got a cat, but only because our friend was moving and couldn't take her cat with her and we couldn't stand the thought of her cat being homeless, but I understand that cats aren't for everyone.

This is so timely. I had been seeing warning signs (dog food bag gnawed at the corners, dogs suddenly bolting across room in tandem, etc.) but no droppings and denial was working for me. Then last night I heard scurrying when I turned on a light and saw a tail disappear down a hole I have been meaning to fix by the fireplace. The tail unfortunately looked too long to be a mouse. I shudder thinking about it. Did the steel wool and caulk trick in the hole and replaced a little piece of molding that has been missing since I bought the house. Got up this morning and AGAIN saw gnaw marks on the dog food bag that was intact when I went to bed! This is war.

Eeek! I had literally just finished the cleaning portion of the Kitchen Cure when I watched a mouse run across my newly scrubbed countertops. He then proceeded to taunt me by licking the peanut butter off my traps for two days until finally he was caught. Three days later I saw another one, who taunted me as well. I don't like how these mice are getting so sneaky with the PB... I'll have to try the graham cracker trick someone above mentioned.

We'd previously had problems with mice in our apt. and stuffed the holes under the cabinets with steel wool but I'm guessing some holes may have opened up in the interim. I'll have to try the mint tip. I wish my roommate wasn't allergic to cats, because I'd definitely love to have a mouser around.

My mice seem to come and go. I did two things:

1) Invested in a Rat Zapper - www.ratzapper.com - it is humane in that it kills them immediately and you don't have to see or touch any dead mice.

2) Stopped keeping any food items outside of the fridge. Everything is in my refridgerator - rice, pasta, etc. My dog's food bowl goes in there at the end of the night too. Keeping pet food out is basically the same as having mice for pets!

That cut down on mice dramatically. My mom kept all this food in her basement for when she would have guests. Her grocery store had a sale on pasta and she must have bought 20 bags/boxes. By the time she actually SAW a mouse, they had eaten two full pounds of her pasta!

Mint! I mixed peppermint essential oil (NOT extract) and some cheap vodka in a spray bottle and doused where the mice hung out - under the kitchen counter. I had to re-spray about... every four months or so? And I vacuumed up any poop every time I did this, so I'd a) know exactly what the mouse traffic was, and b) make it look, to the mouse, like a not-so-mouse-friendly place.

I also hung some long mint sprigs under the counter to dry, and that helped a lot too. For some reason, the little buggers just hate mint.

When we moved in our house was vacant for 5 months, They were tearing up the corn field behind our house and winter was coming. We had a ton of mice and a 3 year old so the humane traps weren't an option because there were too many mice and our child's health to think about so the glue traps worked great also the the dog loved to get the mice too. we tried the spring traps but they would be set off with no mice trapped. the glue traps sucked but once again poop in our pantry wasn't safe either the mice in our childs room.

I purchased something like this at a local hardware store. Unfortunately, I've had to use it several times. Just put a little peanut butter in the middle and you'll catch one very quickly. Then I drive them a few minutes away and let them go.

http://lawn-and-garden.hardwarestore.com/79-504-animal-traps/havahart-live-animal-trap-508098.aspx

I second the suggestion of a cat. I lived in a 140-year old home in Holland, where the settling sand base dropped the floor of the kitchen 2 inched below the bottom of the wall! Talk about having a hard time sealing the gap! Even when I did that, the mice would break in - luckily I kept most everything in plastic containers and hidden away in suspended cabinets (thanks Ikea). The only real solution was to get a cat - which offered company and pleasure, as well as the occasional dead mouse body that they'd toss about after the catch. My girlfriend, who grew up on a farm, always insisted that the cat be allowed to catch, play with and then dispose of the mouse. Yes, the cat ate the mouse...let nature be, as we say...

We've been battling mice for over a year now. I keep every kind of food item we have in glass jars or hanging from baskets from the ceiling. We've set every kind of trap imaginable and haven't caught a single damn mouse. Our house is old and neglected (yay renting!) and I suspect it would be impossible to block every point of entrance, though that is definitely my next thought. It has been a nightmare. The mice are making us feel like they are smarter than us, what with managing to avoid all of our traps while still eating our food. Sigh. :-)

I have the ultimate hair raising rodent story. Flashback 12 years and I was living in my first apartment by myself in a historic shot-gun flat a few blocks from the mighty Mississip. I had just pitched my first failed attempt at baking a turkey into the trashcan underneath the sink. A few minutes later I hear a sound like the trashbag had fallen off the container. I open the cabinet and indeed it had, so I reach my hand in and pull out the bag and a RAT(!!!) climbs up my arm. I of course freak out as this giant rat is scurrying around the room trying to find someplace to escape. It finally does and later the building manager finally poisons the beast. Which leads to another intereting story about terrible odors coming from inside plaster walls...

I agree with the cat solution. My 16 year old cat is still a great mouser! But we never had a mouse problem in our old place, built in 1929, plenty of holes and old pipes, etc. But our new place, built 1970? First, mouse poop all over the kitchen when we moved in, to the point that I had to demand a whole new stove because I couldn't stand to cook on the existing one, even if it was cleaned. It was literally all over the inside of the stove. They took up residence in the place during the year or so the house was for sale. Then we were fine for a while until winter came and the mice and voles started getting into the crawl space, and chewed an opening in a wall in the basement bathroom, which connected to the crawl space. Here's another horror story for you: one evening we heard a strange sreeching and realized that our cat was torturing a vole that was trying to get back in through the bathroom opening. We saw a little blood on the wall and then the screeching stopped, though we never saw the body, which usually our cat delivers proudly to the living room for us to praise. I can only assume the little thing crawled off and bled to death somewhere. Yeah, peanut butter on the traps and my husband destroys the evidence before our 6 year old discovers them, and the cat takes care of the rest. Good times.

I too have a 100 year old house, and had been doing twice yearly battles with the mice (fall and spring). I essentially relinquished the basement, setting traps but not expecting to hold that ground. The turf I was fighting for was the Kitchen. During one evening I saw a mouse run across and then into my stove just after I had bleached the surface for the night (I was doing twice daily bleaching of the whole place).

When I pulled back the stove I discovered that the rehabbers had misdrilled the first set of holes up from the basement (for the gas lines) and instead of closing them up just left about a 1 and 1/2" hole straight into the basement, and of course the area was rife with mouse "evidence." A trip to Home Depot later I filled the hole with steel wool and latex combo, then to prevent them from climbing (perhaps in my crazy mind) metal sheeted the whole area around my stove (the cabinet back sides essentially). No mouse evidence in the kitchen since then. I still have traps out in common areas just in case, but no catches and no signs of life.

I am sure they are still in the basement, but for now I can live with that. Now, when I get my wine cellar . . .

Lots of good suggestions here.

We lived in an old farmhouse in the country for a while, and it was a constant battle to keep the field mice out of the kitchen. I hated to kill them, so we adopted a 2-strike strategy. We placed no-kill traps along walls (mice will almost always run along a wall instead of through the center of a room). When we caught one, we took him way out in the field and spray painted his tail red. If we caught a mouse in the house again with a red tail, we put down some snap traps.

We also filled every nook and cranny with steel wool, which seems to be the best way to stop them. And we moved most dry goods to the refrigerator and only used the pantry for mouse-proof canned goods. A sealed tupperware bin will also keep them out.

Finally, wipe down your kitchen counter and stove really well every day. There are probably food bits or drips that you don't see but that a mouse will certainly smell.

When we stayed in Philadelphia in University city we had mice trouble in the fall. Since I am really scared of them , I was determined to get rid of them. I informed the landlord and we set about plugging all the holes with steel wool.
Then I threw out all the food items which looked tampered with. We set up traps , with peanut butter. This helped us get rid of a lot of mice. I dint go about humane traps, since I consider them vermin to be got rid of. Glue traps worked well for me, and when it caught one my husband would get rid of it for me.

Mice can jump over the traps. A great tip we picked up from Family Handyman (great magazine) is to use two traps, taping them back to back on a piece of cardboard. Place them along the edges of walls. The mouse jumps over one and lands on the other. Far more effective.

Another vote for the Rat Zapper. We've had two mice incidents in three years in our apartment. The most important thing is to seal off any points of entry, or nothing you do will cure the problem. Once they're "in" sometimes the only way to get rid of them is to trap them. Since we live in the city, we don't really have anywhere to take live mice where they won't be a nuisance, so the Rat Zapper is the most humane & clean way to dispatch the buggers.

I have 3 cats. I always felt any mouse coming into that environment would have to be suicidal, but in my last apartment we had at least 4 mouse "episodes". One cat wasn't around at the time, one was a pathetic mouser (he finally caught a mouse once, but as soon as it moved, he dropped it), but the other cat was a great mouser. I felt bad for the mice, but... nature at work. (although I was ridiculously relieved he didn't eat them after the kill... *shudder* I don't need to come across that mess)

I have never had mice, but my best friend's house is swarming with them (and raccoons..) Her old cat did wonders, it was old and declawed but could still catch mice and eat them. Their new cat doesn't really catch them so much, but it tries. The mice in her house go after food on counters sometimes, but usually go after food in storage and will chew through plastic containers, so having tougher containers is really important. Also, they try to steal spoons, but can't get them through their mouse holes so spoons end up on the floor.

I once lived in a really old, beat-up apartment on a block filled with restaurants in Philly. It was infested with mice when I moved in. My roommate and I did the steel wool thing, as well as being vigilant about storing food in places where the mice couldn't get to them (or putting them in containers that were hard to chew through) and keeping things as clean as possible.

Unfortunately, that only helped a little bit (our other roommate was a big slob so she sort of negated our efforts). We eventually ended up adopting a shelter cat. After a few months of getting mice away from a growling cat and disposing of them, we had no more problems with mice.

We had a problem one winter, we tried tons of humane traps...nothing.

As soon as we set a kill trap with peanut butter it took 40 minutes to get the mouse.

Then we got a cat, no mice have been seen since.

I live in Queens, NY. Its very interesting to read all these stories. I know that in NY its hard to not deal with the whole Mice problem. However, I have a HUUUUGE, phobia to mice. So there is no choice for me or my husband (poor guy) to have to try and keep them out. From what I've read here you are all doing the right thing. Before moving to a new place I always inspect any open gaps or holes, especially behind the fridge or stove. Make sure not to leave food lying around, crumbs or splatters in the kitchen. Make sure you clean the lid under the stove top. That is a #1 feeding ground for them.

My husband (my hero) usually gets peanut butter traps and lines them up between doorways and that's how we've caught them.

Hope this is helpful. :)

I live in a 2-family house and we began having a mouse problem from our downstairs tenant (they were coming through the heat vents). d-CON No View, No Touch Mouse Trap worked right away, but we learned a trick. We put butter, not peanut butter as suggested--they weren't eating the peanut butter but they ate a half a stick of butter I forgot on the counter! As soon as we loaded them with butter, we caught all SIX of them within 24 hours! You just fill them, twist them to set it, and it swings shut once the mouse is inside. The outside of it will say "Caught" and you won't have to see or touch it. Just pick up the trap and toss it in the trash.

Good luck!
Tricia
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I got one of those things that plug in to the wall and emit a noise that should deter mice. After that Mr. McMouserson didn't make a comeback.

I have only ever had one mouse in the house who was ably dealt with by our cat. My mother had an infestation however. She had an exterminator out who told her that she had multiple entry points for the mice and needed a carpenter.

Right about the same time, she got a cat. The mice vacated the house even though she (the cat) was too obese even to waddle after them effectively. She thinks it was the cat's odor that chased them away.

Our 1890's SF Edwardian has never had a rodent problem (THANK GOD!) but it is good to know the steel wool trick. I hope I never have to use it.

My husband and I used to live in a hole-ridden 140 year old farmhouse in upstate NY. We had a snake that lived under the fridge... he just moved in. I only almost stepped on him twice in 4 years, so that was ok. He kept us mouse free, and freaked the hell out of the cat periodically.
Miss that house, miss that snake, miss that cat.

We had a huge mouse problem in my current apartment in Brooklyn when we moved in...tried everything- humane traps (total joke, it just doesn't work), steel wool (works, but hard to find EVERY hole), hardening-expanding-foamy-stuff (same thing), mint oil (saw no difference really, but the place smelled good)- but the only thing that seems to have completely gotten rid of them was the building two doors down (all attached or separated by inches) burned down (under suspicious circumstances!) on election night. Not a mouse since (cross fingers). We're guessing they must have had a nest in there, and who knows where the survivors went.
So I guess my only suggestion is arson :-/

Our dog just ignored the mice for the most part...if they ever come back we're getting/borrowing a cat!

poison administered by a professional. it's not green. it's not PC. if administered properly, however, professional-grade poison is extremely effective; this is especially true if you insist that your professional close up the critters' access holes.

there, i said it.

one word - Cat. I am ashamed to say that if I saw her with one that was still alive, I would do my best to rescue it and put it back where it came from. They were tiny and cute, I couldn't help it!

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i also live in a really old house that has been split up into apartments. my one bedroom was ridden with all sorts of pests when i moved in last summer: ants, roaches, mice but the worst of all for me was fleas!! i couldn't sleep at night because they'd bite me all night long! i made the landlord hire an exterminator and they bombed and sprayed the house...twice! that seemed to get rid of everything that moved. i know it's not exactly "safe" from a chemical perspective, but it worked! now, for the first time since living here, i noticed mouse dropping in the drawer where i store my chewing gum. then the other day the gum had been chewed up! THEN the other night i woke up because i heard a crinkly noise. i turned on my lamp and saw a little brown mouse was sitting inside my trash can right next to my bed! he ran out (it's wicker) and hurried through my apartment straight into the kitchen and under the stove! my boyfriend and i spent the next few hours chasing his out with a broom handle, but he was fast! he'd run from the stove to the fridge before we could stop him. i'm moving in two weeks so i've decided to just let the little guy bother the next tenant! but i have already made plans to have my new apartment exterminated before i move anything in. the residue will last up to six months, so anything i might bring with me (scary thought!) will die in the new place. oh, and one last note: don't poison rats or mice! they will die in your walls and stink up your house for weeks or even months depending how big they are, and most likely attract all sorts of other unappealing bugs and rodents. ewwww!

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