Before you all ask-I keep our house clean. The problem is in the pantry where all sorts of peanuts,cashews,brasil etc are kept - in tupperware containers. However this little darling ( or all the brood ) have eaten through the top of the containers & this can happen overnight. Tupperware is not cheap as you know &I am running out of them now. We have tried traps to catch them with all known recommendations found on the web site but they keep coming back. Funnily though we never see them - just find the evidence. We live in the hills area in Perth so have lots of bushland around.Any suggestions? - I am so sick of taking out & cleaning my pantry from the debris left. Don't seem to beable to stop them & no idea how they got in.
How to stop unwanted rodents in the house?
goosegog on 05/11/2013 - 14:02
Comments
Thanks Stephi but have done that - have caught a few but for some reason they won't go in the traps anymore - seem to prefer my containers!We don't use the traps that kill them ( too soft probably )just the ones they get into but can't get out again then release them miles away up the local park. Do they have a homing device or something !!?!
You sound like me, my wife thinks I'm mad taking a mouse for a drive in the humane trap to drop them off miles from home rather than just poisoning them :)
Have you tried Sunflower Seeds? Peanut butter didn't work for us but they found Sunflower Seeds irresistible.
Thanks Martyn - will give sunflower seeds a try. Pleased to hear we're not the only ones with caring hearts - even though we don't want these non paying,food eaters in the house!!
Don't use Tupperware plastic containers that they can eat through. Use glass screwtop jars with metal lids!
Is there a way you can seal up the pantry? ie: fill in any gaps they use to access it, use magnetic closers to keep the door shut
If you remove their food source, they'll move on after a while
get a bucket. a 300 ml coke bottle. a stick/pole 60 cms long. a piece of wood 50 cms long. peanut butter.
drink the coke, then cut a round hole in the bottom of the bottle. push the stick through the bottle. the bottle should be able to spin freely. put the stick across the centre of the bucket. tape it down/super glue. put peanut butter in the middle of the bottle all the way around. rest the piece of wood against the bucket (like a rodent ladder).
when the rodent climbs onto the bottle to get the peanut butter then the bottle spins, the rodent has no grip and falls into the bucket.
place some rodent poison in the bottom of the bucket
put the bucket on the kitchen floor over nght.
wait.
dispose of rodent carcass.or buy a cat.
Thanks Altomic - can see this idea would work - however we have dogs who come into the kitchen to drink water & don't want them near it for obvious reasons. Could try it in the pantry though. Still not sure if we want to kill the little critters -just prevent their unwanted presence ( not the dogs)
if they are a non-native pest then they should be destroyed.
if they are hanging around and obtaining an food relatively easily then they will breed and then things will get worse.
you could always put a lid on the bucket. go for a 10 minute drive and dump. but if they are a pest then have them destroyed.
Lots of creatures are quite capable of backtracking to their original homes…. especially if they know the area contains food. So you might have to 'permanently' get rid of the rodents if you want to have your food say intact or….. like suggested previously buy the glass containers with the snap down metal lids. :)
I can understand your comments - may have to become harder to rid of these pesky mice. Thank you for your time & suggestions
P.S. Any ideas for possums in the roof? Oh dear- it sounds as if we're infestated which isn't the case - just a very annoying situation. Have had a trap in the roof before & caught them - then took them on a long journey to the park to meet the mice previously re-homed.Unfortunately all their relies keep reappearing (growl)
You need to find their entry point into the roof. Once you're absolutely certain they are not inside there you need to seal it up so they can't get back in again.
possums- some counsels will provide free possum traps. set it up in your roof. put some apple in it. catch the possum. then take it for a long long drive to a forest area(try to cross over a stream or creek) on the way. release. take a nice bootle of chilled white wine and a picnic and enjoy the day.
possums will slip through the smallest cracks to get in to your roof.
Find Dame Edna Everage she like possums :)
Ha!Ha! - love your sense of humour.
Had this problem in Canberra and the trapping "solution" is useless. You're only allowed to let them free a certain distance from the house over there, and they always come back or are replaced by other possums within days. The only way to stop it is to find and block their entry points. This is definitely worth the hassle if you have what sounds like a possum loudly digging into your ceiling above your bed all night, like we did LOL.
buy a cat
Well that would certainly take care of any pesky birds that might try to visit.
Pesky birds are yet another problem - covered our mandarin tree with netting & hung old c.d.'s off it ( no please don't ask me which ones !!) to keep the parrots off - does work but makes it hard to get to the mandarins. Could set up an old stereo system down there I suppose & blast them with the c.d.'s with something like the 1812 overture - the cannons should send them flying ! Oh the joys of living in the hills ( still wouldn't move though)
that cd's on a string
the reflection and movement usually scares them
Got enough of those visiting from neighbours too !!
Mouse bate, sometimes works for us, although I have kids and we live in the 'Great Aussie bush' and they sneak inside unseen… don't seem to know how to sneak out again.. very annoying…. had a possum in the roof for years, had a whole family for a while… thinking I have not heard it lately, so hoping it moved house.. Mice are a huge problem, don't want to kill them but don't want them in the house either… bate them
They say that mice can live just on the small scraps that fall onto the floor unseen so if they have access to other goods, they will go on and on.
Poison/bait is an unpleasant route to take. They die a very slow horrible death with poison (definitely not overnight) and they won't necessarily do that where you can't see them and then you have to physically kill them yourself. Yuk. If another animal then eats them (cats or owls) because the mice are so slow, they also get the poison. This is senseless.
We would get mice every winter when it got cold. We also live near bush. I would make sure what they're currently eating is secured - glass jars or they simply can't get access into the cupboard and keep all food off the bench. It really improves how you keep crumbs cleaned up. Ours loved eating out of the toaster. The young ones I can catch in a normal live trap but the older ones are smarter so I use a large bin (they can't jump out of) and a cardboard roll (out of a paper towel roll). Put peanut butter in one end and then balance it on the end of the bench over the bin. They go in, can't turn around and fall into the bin. Then i take them somewhere else. Didn't get any this year.
Set a mouse trap with lots of peanut butter or chocolate (or both if desperate!) works every time! Our dumb cat brings them in to show us & then looses them, leaving the problem to us.