OMG, there was a MOUSE in my pantry!!!!

[JTsMom]

:47::eek::dizzy:

I have never seen a wild mouse before in my life- could you hear me screaming across the US? DH tried to catch it, but it was too quick, and now we can't find it anywhere. WTH am I supposed to do now? He thinks we can just get glue traps, and that will take care of it. I'm ready to call the moving van today. (We're supposed to move after New Years Day).

We live in a newer neighborhood that hasn't been totally built out yet, and there is a vacant lot behind our house where all kinds of critters hang out. Our neighbor found a mouse about a year ago, and I've been praying we wouldn't since I heard that, but I guess our luck ran out. :( Since we've lived in this house, I've dealt with every creepy spider known to man and I thought that was bad.

[MamaMolly]

Eeeew. Mice are icky. And believe me BTDT where there is one his little nasty friends are there too. They've come in out of the cold and discovered your bountiful harvest (pantry). Lots of threads on this in the BP, but to sum up my experience *****get an exterminator NOW*****. I think there is one very brave poster who said the traps worked for her (maybe they were snaps?) but Eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww I can't do the cleaning up mousie brains thing. YICK! I'm a total wimp when ti comes to critter guts. Either an exterminator or a cat that is a proven mouser. Good luck!!!

[KathyN115]

BTDT unfortunately. And I agree - YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (on so many levels)

This is the second house we have had them in.:crying: We had just moved in, and saw the little critter. We used traps ourselves, and caught 2 mice. No more since then - knock on wood. If you are moving out soon, I would just try to get rid of them myself. We used these plastic traps, they snap down and kill them but no blood or anything. You can actually reuse them once you "dispose" of the mouse - haha, yeah right. I put on these big rubber gloves and used BBQ tongs to pick them up, probably looked hysterical. And it is a good idea to store your food so that it is inaccessible - such as in your fridge or oven, or a plastic bin. They also sell plug-in mouse repellers, which we have but I don't know if they work or not.

:grouphug: So sorry! :grouphug:

[hardysmom]

The idea of your husband trying to catch a mouse cracked me up.

We live in the country/woods and seem to have mice visit pretty frequently. Enough that I am more-or-less used to them.

The idea of chemical exterminators freaks me out more than the mice.

We keep our boxed food either where they can't get or it or in sealed plastic containers.

Use old-fashioned mouse traps, not the glue things... the ones with glue are too inhumane and don't work any better. If you only have a couple, you'll get them pretty quickly.

Stephanie

[reissgirl]

We have had two mice - yick - and I know the sinking feeling that you just want to move and get away from them.

As far as catching them, we had pretty good success with the snap traps. Put some peanut butter on them (not cheese) and that should do the trick. We tried the glue traps, although that sounded horrible to me, and the first mouse was able to walk on them without getting trapped (we saw footprints). I also put5 the tiniest bit of peanut butter on the snap traps so that they realy had to step on to the trap to get to the food. Otherwise, if it's a smart mouse - haha, then it can eat from the side without setting off the trap.

Can you figure out where it's coming from? Did you see where it ran to? Are you finding droppings? Use those clues to figure out where to set the traps. Of course, with DC at home, you may have to set them out only at night. I put the traps on top of brown paper shopping bags so that there was no mess to clean up off the floor - gross. Then, without looking, I threw a cloth on top of the mouse and had my husband dispose of it (I disposed of the brid that flew into our house and landed on our car).

If you can figure out its entry/exit point then you can plug up that hole with steelwool. I now have all of my dry goods in airtight bins. I haven't seen a mouse since we fixed the hole we think they were coming from, but I still feel better with the hope that our pantry's plastic boxes are not as exciting as the neighbor's pantry. I don't know where you live, but I found some fairly inexpensive airtight bins at Storables (my favorite store). I read online that mice can chew through Ziploc bags so I don't think those would be helpful.

Good luck!

[Cam&Clay]

I posted a few months ago about this. We had them in the garage and in the pantry. We set out a few snap traps with peanut butter and caught 2 in less than 24 hours. We left them out and never caught another. They seem to be gone.

I won't do glue traps. I can't stand the thought of them.

Oh, and I don't reuse the snap traps. They are so cheap that the mouse and trap get thrown out together!

[shawnandangel]

You think a mouse is bad? Do you know what I saw in MY KITCHEN 2 nights ago?

A RAT! A BIG HUGE UGLY FAT RAT! It ran down underneath the basement door. DH put rat/mouse poison in the basement yesterday. Hopefully he ate a belly full and is dead. We have a dirt basement and both rats and mice get in sometimes. We put down poison in the winter and usually don't get any. This year, we have Orkin service and they were supposed to put down the poison but now I'm thinking they didn't.

I do think the glue strips are inhumane and cruel. I think snap traps or poison pebbles are the way to go.

[hellokitty]

Lol, not to make light of your situation. However, we have found some mice in our basement in the past month (catching them with snap traps) and my 4 yr old's advice is that we get a tarantula and let it catch the mice! :eek: I told him we are NOT getting a (huge ass spider) tarantula, b/c it will scare me to death. I'd rather encounter a mouse than a tarantula in our basement. Too bad we can't send our dog. She's a ratter, but she's senile now.

[frgsnlzrds]

I just posted about finding a mouse in my kitchen last week! We bought some plastic clip traps, and caught him within 5 days. We baited them with peanut butter, and DH took care to not let me see it. Good luck!

[KathyN115]

You think a mouse is bad? Do you know what I saw in MY KITCHEN 2 nights ago?

A RAT! A BIG HUGE UGLY FAT RAT! It ran down underneath the basement door. DH put rat/mouse poison in the basement yesterday. Hopefully he ate a belly full and is dead. We have a dirt basement and both rats and mice get in sometimes. We put down poison in the winter and usually don't get any. This year, we have Orkin service and they were supposed to put down the poison but now I'm thinking they didn't.

I do think the glue strips are inhumane and cruel. I think snap traps or poison pebbles are the way to go.

O-M-G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

I would have to move.

[LarsMal]

EWWWW...yeah, BTDT, last winter- pregnant and all alone. I was hiding in the pantry sneaking chocolate so the kids wouldn't see me when I realized the Ziploc bag I was getting the kisses out of had a hole in the bottom corner. Then I found the poop in the pantry..then I wanted to vomit!!!! Talk about freaking out.

We tried glue traps, snap traps, and a tunnel trap thing. That sucker was SMART! We did finally catch him on a glue trap and it was terrible. It was supposed to have an anesthesizer (if that's a word!) to knock it out, but the tiny thing didn't get it's head on the glue so it was still awake and trying to get off when we woke up one morning. SO glad DH was home that morning! Gives me the heebie jeebies thinking about it. It's snap traps from now on.

Bleh...hope you catch it soon!

Oh...and they seem to like spray cheese!

[Globetrotter]

BTDT! UGH

We used electronic traps with a little peanut butter and got one. About six weeks later dd said she saw another one :( This time I think it got discouraged because we have organized the pantry since and all my food is sealed! I haven't seen evidence since, but you never know. I know that awful feeling of wanting to run away from the critters!