Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[stabbymcstabstab]

One way to keep mice out is to cover cracks in your foundation with tin foil. I use to have quite a bit of trouble with mice till I did that, they don't mess with the stuff for some reason.

[Seriyu]

Sure, here's a quote from one of several sources about how to block off rodent access points.

Chances are you'll find several entry points in your walls, foundation or soffits. Fortunately, these gaps and cracks are easy to seal. For those smaller than 1/4 in. wide, acrylic latex caulk is a good filler because it's inexpensive, paintable and easy to apply (Photo 4). But acrylic caulk won't last long in wider gaps. For gaps and cracks 1/4 in. up to 1/2 in. wide, use polyurethane caulk. Polyurethane is gooey and more difficult to use than acrylic caulk, but you can smooth and paint it for a neat-looking job. Keep a rag and mineral spirits handy to clean up accidents.

Expanding foam is a fast, convenient filler for anything wider or for areas where appearance doesn't matter. It can fill gaps of any size but doesn't leave a smooth, neat-looking patch. And rodents can gnaw right through foam, so it's smart to stuff gaps with copper mesh before you add the foam (Photo 6). Conventional steel wool can eventually rust away. If you only have a few gaps to fill, buy a box of Chore Boy copper scrubbing pads from a hardware store or online. If you have holes galore, it may be cheaper to purchase a professional copper mesh product like CopperBlocker, which is available online. For most cracks, “minimal expanding” foam is the easiest to use (standard foam expands too much, flows out of the crack and makes a mess). A little overflow is no problem, since you can slice off the excess (Photo 7). For large or hollow cavities, standard full-expansion foam is the best (Photo 5).

http://www.familyhandyman.com/pest-control/how-to-keep-pests-out-of-your-house/step-by-step#step2

Thank you, this is very helpful! I'll pass it by the people that actually pay for this stuff around here.

I suggest taming them, train them in the arts of war, and pit fight them with people around the world! You my friend will obtain riches beyong imaging from these pit fights.

I would do this so fast if it was practical.

Are you using only glue-boards and that live-capture thingies?
Try using standard smasher mousetraps, loaded with something like peanut butter. I had problems with mice in house, so I bought one such trap and loaded it with bacon and left it in basement. BAM, after two weeks of use it had caught 12 mice. Well spent 50 cents.
Now I dont really have a problem with mice .

Bigger apartments and flats around here use rat poison for dealing with rodents.

I'll bring the smashers up, and we don't use mouse poison as we don't want them rotting in the walls/preventing the dog from getting into a poisoned mouse corpse out in the open. Although the rot isl ooking like an inevitability at this point.

One way to keep mice out is to cover cracks in your foundation with tin foil. I use to have quite a bit of trouble with mice till I did that, they don't mess with the stuff for some reason.

That's... actually very neat. I'll run it by too.

Thanks again everyone! I keep forgetting the thread exists. And yeah we don't replace the dog because it's a pet, and also fairly large. Also feeding and vaccinating two dogs is notably more expensive then feeding one.

[Imp]

One way to keep mice out is to cover cracks in your foundation with tin foil. I use to have quite a bit of trouble with mice till I did that, they don't mess with the stuff for some reason.

That's... actually very neat. I'll run it by too.

Thanks again everyone! I keep forgetting the thread exists. And yeah we don't replace the dog because it's a pet, and also fairly large. Also feeding and vaccinating two dogs is notably more expensive then feeding one.

Note that's a good answer only if you are sure your problem is limited to mice - rats are perfectly happy to chew through metal foils.

[nenjin]

I'm sort of surprised foil stops field mice.

[stabbymcstabstab]

From what I seen they don't like how it feels and the crinkling is fairly loud so they avoid it like the plague.

[sackhead]

i will leave this here because it could be worse.
Poison is always brutally effective but you have said you don't want them rotting in your walls, the smell last about 10 days by the way.
you could always burn the house and collect insurance money

[Neonivek]

i will leave this here because it could be worse.
Poison is always brutally effective but you have said you don't want them rotting in your walls, the smell last about 10 days by the way.
you could always burn the house and collect insurance money

And yet that STILL isn't the worst plague they ever had.

[Grey Goo]

Kerosene or whatever oil is used with those lamps. Catch one mouse alive, rub some oil on it, release. At least it works for rats so why not for mouses? As they move around with stuff on them, they rub it everywhere and makes everything smell bad for them. Or that I heard from my parents...

[Imp]

Kerosene or whatever oil is used with those lamps. Catch one mouse alive, rub some oil on it, release. At least it works for rats so why not for mouses? As they move around with stuff on them, they rub it everywhere and makes everything smell bad for them. Or that I heard from my parents...

To what goal?  If that kills the critter, it's a really slow death, if it doesn't kill it the critter will suffer pretty bad health problems most of the rest of its life.  That stuff's flammable and toxic, you really want it dribbled all over your home?  It's not going to stop them from coming in (gotta block the entrances they use to do that), its not going to drive the ones already inside away or kill them (unless your whole house burns down or something) and its volatile - evaporates into the air.  In a few weeks, there's no trace of it left - so a net gain of nothing useful for your purposes.

[Grey Goo]

Either it was kerosene or other kind of oil. Anyway, forget to mention that it drives them away. Like with cats or snakes. Still good step as there is no reason for example start to blocking entrances if mouses are still inside. They just creates new one. Through if that stuff sounds too nasty, there is probably other stuff too. Key however is to use something which smells bad, tastes ever worser, makes anything mouse sized feels nauseated and spreads well...