Morning folks..

Once again, I'm awake at 3:30 am listening to mice move around under the floor of my 1980's single wide. My cat doesn't even like being inside and hides under curtains when she's sleeping, looking over her shoulder when moving around. I love this quiet hilltop property and Ive spent the last year out here working on the home after I retired while my son moves into my town house. I installed a new roof down to the rafters alone and am on my last piece of fascia wrap and have a gutter guy wanting to install them, but I keep wondering why I'm trying to save this pile of crap with all the water damage under most windows and the mice.. I crawled around under the home last fall patching all the holes in the black under belly rodent barrier from the previous owners repairs, only to continue to hear and smell them. I found one hole I missed this spring and as soon as I patched it, they chewed a hole through the siding to get out. I thought maybe I had em on the run, but if they can get out, they can get in apparently. Maybe I should pipe the exhaust of my car to the underbelly area like I eliminated some ground squirrels tunneling in town and move out for a few days? lol.

Anyway, I hate to give up and throw the towel in, but I think I'm whooped. The only thing going for me now is I do have some money. My taxable investment account is actually larger now then when I walked out of my job a year and a half ago bc of Don.

Suggestions?

Thanks!



















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poison. dcon dried them up into little nonstinking mummies so of course its banned. take away their food source helps a bunch

Looks like I bought these Jan of 23. I got like four of them. Never took the lid off. Cut a one inch hole in the side near the bottom... on two sides of the bucket. Then I set the buckets around in the barn along the wall where theyd be. They run into the bucket, skirt it to go around, pass the hole, go in and eat. As they eat the bait falls down like a feeder. Its big block chunks so its not like the pellets spill out.

So basically I made these bait stations. Put a few in the barn and a few in the shed. They just sit out all the time and now when I do see a mouse I find a dead mouse in a couple weeks.

With it just being a 1" hole in a bucket I don't have to worry about the house dog getting the barn and eating it like i would if the bags of pellets were laying around.

Actually I used the first one and did that with the green blocks and my brother said he started using this yellow one and leaves his feed out on skids in the barn and never has a mouse in his feed.

So as you can see I had bought my green, put it out, and then bought his a few months later thinking it was going to be the ticket after the green didn't work but its just been sitting on the work bench and I haven't done anything with it so the green worked fine for me.

My camper sits in my barn and would always get mice in the winter. Once I kept this stuff out full time in the barn I havent had a mousy camper since.

I think they come in the barn and think they found a new home and stumble across this free food and think they stumbled into the hilton. They mostly must make it outside but I find a dead one here and there too.

Anyway thats what I did. Oh if you google mouse opening sizes vs rat opening sizes... I think I looked at a few bait stations on line to come up with the hole size and just used a hole saw.

Trap them, poison them, try and exclude them..but do you ever get the smell of an infestation out?

Had a camper on my hunting property that wasn't in great condition, mice moved in, then the snakes and wasps....opened the door and said to my son, nope! not sleeping in there!

the farmer next property had a local kid helping with haying, I offered it to him for free and he was happy as a flea on a dog. dragged it to his folks place and used it for a love nest!
I often wonder what kind of girl would crawl into bed in that hantavirus heaven...??

The really, really fun kind.

They're fun!, till they're not... . LOL

Need a resident Short tail weasel. I house one in my garage every winter ! No more acorns blowing out of my Harley pipes come spring . They don’t even make you clean their litter box.

All I can do is offer my sympathy, here's my latest trailer house project, they seem never ending. As far as throwing in the towel, we just priced building a new house, repairs shall continue on the old one. My friend who builds houses recommended looking into a "shouse", much cheaper than traditional house

If you go with poison don’t leave out water make them leave to look for the water so they die elsewhere and not stink up the place. Our deer camp was infested one year worse than other years so we set snaps traps and kept count on the wall 22 in a few days. Try a 1600 multiple mouse trap that you can find on YouTube they are a blast t mess with birdshot with a backing is fun also.

If they are in your duck work you can remove your registers and set snap traps in them. Drill a hole in each wooden trap base and tie a cord or small piece of wire so you can recover the traps if a catch is made, make sure you tie them off well on to one of the louvers in the register.


I wouldnt recommend rodenticide baits. If they are in the duct work, once they die that odor will be putrid for some time until they all gas off which can take weeks for that odor to dissipate. Gas off odor always rises so trapping is your best choice in my experience.

For under buildings, appliances and furniture I put a screw through the trap into a wood lath to keep the traps from disappearing from cats a tail catches.

45 years old and sounds like no one took care of it. Buy a new one and get it sealed up after set up. Sounds like a health issue waiting to happen with your current one.

Russ

Thanks everyone, no I don't think they are in the ductwork, but between the black tarp underbelly and the floor where I cant get to them. They were in my attic, but I trapped that one until one finds it's way back.

I think I need to take all the skirting off again and patch more holes that they created, but after seeing a hole they chewed through just below my facsia board to escape, the hole could be under the vinyl siding where I cant see it yet.

I smell them mostly from one bathroom where the repair guy didn't tape the patch and there's a big hole in the floor for the drain. But when the wind blows I can smell it everywhere, and it gets windy on my hill top.

I did catch a few under the stove.. Victor traps with peanut butter mixed with Q-tip fuz bait. I also bent the catch left to make it more sensitive.

This place needs windows doors drywall everything is why It might be better to build a new house, but the trailer would have to be moved out bc it sits on the walk-out spot and I'd have to move back to town 45 minutes away..

Do you have a link? I'm not finding a "1600 multiple mouse trap"

Put out some mouse poison. I’d sprinkle it all around the house outside too.

Look it up this popped up when I did a search. It’s like a mini power snare.

I've used Tom Kat before. It seems to work fine initially, but now after about five years the mice seem to largely ignore it.

Here’s the one I made just a little upgraded version.