Rodent Abatement: What's Your Preferred Method?

[Servant King]

Thought I'd be a smartass and try one of those high pitched frequencies on YouTube designed to flush out rodents nesting in the walls. I'll never do that again! It worked TOO well. Got 'em all riled up, and one of them came INSIDE! What a tremendous pain in the ass that was, but I managed to slap a plastic container on it and get it the hell out of here. The only upside to the experience was that we found a couple more gaps to be sealed. Blocking them all, one by one. But yeah...never again. I'm a musician, I should know better!

I gotta build one of those owl roosts...

 

[Brendan]

I haven't had to do this, but because I live in the country I've seen people set up buckets of water with dowel across the top smeared with butter or whatever greasy stuff you prefer.
Especially effective for plague proportion mice when they are travelling too quick too notice, until it's too late and they either drown or freeze.
Middle of last year the East Coast of Australia had an epic mouse plague and you couldn't buy traps, baits or poison for weeks - people were buying up PVC pipe and caps etc making their own water traps.
Steel wool is also very effective for plugging small gaps.

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

Just don't confuse horse apples with road apples!

 

[prairiedruid]

Mama and her 2 grown kittens take care of our rodent issues. Living in a old farmhouse plenty of mice move in when it starts to get cold out. That's when the 3 way soccer games start with the mouse "volunteering" to be the ball.

 

[jewman22]

I used steel wool to plug up any possible entry point, little furry bastards still get in every so often.

 

[Servant King]

Mouse problem solved! All I can say is...this stuff works:


What a relief!

 

[briarbuck]

 

[mso489]

I'm glad to hear dachshunds still hunt. I didn't know if that had been bred out of them, because that was the original intent, hunting small game in burrows. They are unusually smart dogs, figure out their people quickly, and often get their way or downright rule. They have active minds and social skills, political skills. A friend had a dachshund that always insisted on stopping at the bank drive-through that gave the dogs in cars treats. She, the dog, knew which branch bank it was.

 

[PoplarWight]

I wish I knew. See, unlike normal people with mice problems, we have a groundhog problem.

It started with one. Wife thought he was a cute fella Lived under our shed in the backyard. Well, later that spring we started noticing 2 or 3 more, coming from the woods behind the house.

Fast forward 2 years, there is a burrow under the barn. The woods are full of burrows. Theres an attempted burrow under the carport (apparently they gave up after hitting gravel under the slab).

I kept a shotgun by the backdoor, for a while everytime I saw one, I would run outside and try to get a bead on em, but the little b*****ds are too fast. I've tried varmint cages, they somehow eat all the food and escape.

I won't use poison, because I don't want rotting groundhound in holes under the buildings.

At this point, I might just as accept the fact that I'm eventually going to fall through the ground and get buried alive in one of their tunnels.

 

[CoffeeAndBourbon]

We have a healthy owl population here. I let nature handle it.

 

[daveinlax]

We’ve had a bad year for pests. In AZ we were away for a month without putting out lights under the car and pack rats infested the engine compartment of our car. We got very lucky that they only chewed up some plastic covered insulation and not wires. We trapped them and have bait boxes out. In WI besides the usual mole damage to our yard we had beavers chewing on our trees last fall. I don’t mind them chewing little trees on the waterline but this time they came up the slope and were damaging trees near our house. I wrapped the trees in chicken wire and my neighbor had a friend trap 5 of them.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

I wish I knew. See, unlike normal people with mice problems, we have a groundhog problem.

It started with one. Wife thought he was a cute fella Lived under our shed in the backyard. Well, later that spring we started noticing 2 or 3 more, coming from the woods behind the house.

Fast forward 2 years, there is a burrow under the barn. The woods are full of burrows. Theres an attempted burrow under the carport (apparently they gave up after hitting gravel under the slab).

I kept a shotgun by the backdoor, for a while everytime I saw one, I would run outside and try to get a bead on em, but the little b*****ds are too fast. I've tried varmint cages, they somehow eat all the food and escape.

I won't use poison, because I don't want rotting groundhound in holes under the buildings.

At this point, I might just as accept the fact that I'm eventually going to fall through the ground and get buried alive in one of their tunnels.

Nope, you'll scream and wish for death as the groundhog family nibbles here and there as their solution to, "what will we eat the month of March?" Sounds like a movie!

 

[SmokeRings79]

For mice I found that swing traps work best. Not sure if the term is right, that's a translation from Hebrew. After catching them I put the trap with the little fu**er in a bucket and fill it with water. I also feed some stray cats, which is also good for snakes.

 

[aquadoc]

Our mouse issue was mostly solved with traps but a least weasel moved into the bottom floor for a short time and our mouse problem disappeared like magic. I have not seen him in the house since December but he does hang out in the stacked wood. We have seen no mice since he arrived either. But it is a bit disconcerting to be on a conference call and have the weasel run across your feet.

 

[anotherbob]

Our mouse issue was mostly solved with traps but a least weasel moved into the bottom floor for a short time and our mouse problem disappeared like magic. I have not seen him in the house since December but he does hang out in the stacked wood. We have seen no mice since he arrived either. But it is a bit disconcerting to be on a conference call and have the weasel run across your feet.

don't know sounds like a typical business conference call. Well usually weasels not weasel

 

[Brendan]

Ahh weasels aren't that bad, kinda reminds me of my Kindergarten teacher and his pet ferret.
Kinda the same beast.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

A little warmer weather, then cold and snow, and seeing some little trails in the side yard pushing the snow up, lol.

Our motto is extermination, not relocation. Strategies formulated.

 

[canucklehead]

 

[Derby]

View attachment 132133

That looks like a mouse catcher to me. Pretty cat.

 

[anotherbob]

View attachment 132133

the only mouse trap you should cuddle with.