MaryMo

I like that sunflower pail suggestion. Wonder if that would take care of more than one at a time? or do they figure a way out? The mouse or mice at my house have learned to move the traps out of their way .... under the refrigerator so the traps can't snap and to avoid the live traps for the most part. Wish I could find a way to make the sunflower suggestion work for squirrels too. Both are so pesky!!!

Chester the bunny

MaryMo-- It does work for more than one mouse at a time and they will not be able to get out because the sides of the pail are too slippery. Only thing is you need to check the pail every day because you don't want the mice to be in there together too long because they could be mean to each other ....I know it sounds crazy but I've seen more than one in the pail and usually they are just ignoring the other but once, one of the mice had hurt the other one. Made me feel bad but the alternatives were worse. Just look at my avatar.

Kat Sews

When you release rodents outside they are likely to come back unless you take them far away. Some types will travel several miles to get back to their (your) home.

quilter1

Interesting-- last week I went to the garage to get bird seed for the feeders. A little brown mouse was happily eating away inside the seed pail. The little guy had pushed the lid off and jumped right in. DH took him to the back of our property and let him loose. And don't bring your friends!! Maybe the garter snake got him.

2manyhobbies

Arggghh. That's right up there with a swarm of silverfish.

ptquilts

I have had to deal with a baby mouse nest inside as well, thankfully not in the quilting supplies!! I took them outside and didn't care what ate them. I have no mercy on them if they are inside my house. I would not release any either, snap traps and they are done in.

IrishgalfromNJ

This thread was very educational. I love the 5 gal. pail with seeds in it idea for catching mice, but I also believe that once released near the property they will be back, so I would have to be inhumane and go with the snap traps if I every saw any mice in my house. I have two cats, but they have never seen a mouse, so I don't think they would even know that they are supposed to hunt it down for me.

maviskw

I once brought a 5-gallon pail of food waste home from a community dinner. I was going to dispose of it, but let it set in the old (100years) garage for a few days. When I found it, there were about 5 mice in it, and they had all drowned. I don't let mice free.

We have cats and a cat door into the breezeway. Our male cat often brought in birds, some not dead yet, and there were feathers all over the place.

And once, when we were away on a trip, the female cat brought a full sized rabbit through that door. The rabbit was not dead yet either. So the cat played with it for quite a while. I mean: blood and guts all over everything. Even half way up the walls. The lady who lives upstairs takes care of our house when we are away and she found the mess. She cleaned up as much as she could, but this was December, and it was cold out there. I felt so sorry for her. I still feel bad about that. Later I had the carpet cleaned by professional cleaners, and they said the blood was no problem. They got it all up.
But a while before that happened, we forgot about a bag of milk out there, and the cats got into that. The cleaners had a much harder time with that. It took several years of cleaning to get rid of that. (I usually get that carpet cleaned once a year.)
I can't imagine having a cat door that would let the cat come directly into the house, but I know some people have them.

tessagin

I got a lot of flack from some neighbors. Told them they could handle mice their way and I would handle it my way. I will not let them procreate in my home. Totally agree. Snap traps, done finite.

Sewnoma

We are in a suburb that abuts farm land, there is a hay farm directly across the street from us, and every year when they harvest the field we get an influx of mice in our garage. We have (indoor only) cats so we never see any trace of them inside, but they like to try to find homes in our garage. Now when we see them ramping up to harvest, we start putting the cats in the garage at night and that pretty much handles it. I think just the smells of the cats keeps the mice from coming in; we don't usually find any "presents".

We did have some mice getting into our crawlspace for awhile; turns out they were crawling up the inside of our downspouts and getting in through the exterior. We had the access spot plugged and put screens over all the downspouts and that took care of that.

I won't put poison out because I have cats and dogs and I just don't trust them not to figure out a way to get at mouse poison even if it's "dog/cat proof". I don't like traps either...most of them are gross and/or cruel and I'm squeamish even about the humane ones. I prefer to just keep the beasties out in the first place if I possibly can.