Mouse

A little brown mouse has moved into my house. Family opinion is that I should get rid of it but I'd like to know whether we could co-exist without too much trouble. I have no previous experience of mice so I'm at a loss what to do.

Depends on the mouse. I once had a beloved "pet" mouse named Miss Jangles. Reason why "pet" is in quotation marks is because like your situation, I didn't consciously adopt Miss Jangles. I saw him, her—pronouns don't matter, love's what counts—scurry around every now and then, and yes, she did leave a little bit of a mess around—if that concerns you—but she didn't spread any disease to me, and I had some pleasant dreams in which she gave me visions of what to do next on Second Life.

One day, she died (sad image). And that was all... until Miss Jangles III came along.

Depending on the area you live in, if mice are known to be "cute cohabitants or "dangerous vermin", will help you decide what to do next. Temperament of the mouse is an important thing... some mice are reported to chew through wires and turn your household into a disaster zone. I never had such problems, just the comforting sight of watchin' a mouse scurry on by, living her life as I lived mine. And I'll always miss Miss Jangles.

I'm assuming that your family's opinion of "get rid of it" = "kill", right?

If you want, there should be no-harm traps available that will allow you to capture the mouse and then allow you to free it or keep as a pet.

Free range rodents aren't a good thing. They can get into food stocks and contaminate them with feces and the like, or open them up and make a mess.

Living in the woods, field mice seeking warmer havens when the weather turns always drives one or two indoors. Wild mice will make a mess of things as noted above, but you might want to spare yourself a "no kill" trap. In all likelihood, if you cast that live mouse back whence it came, it shall quickly become raptor bird-food: such is the destiny of field mice. If you don't toss it far enough, it may be back tomorrow, if you toss it further, you may have just given your pest to someone else.

Since my child induced me to get a cat (think field mouse but larger and toothier but less intelligent) we now think of the mice as seasonal cat-toys. Boy, does that cat look disappointed when the toy stops playing back.

Tain't no accident that cats and agricultural humans go way back together.

Mice rarely travel alone.

I found the "humane" traps to be worthless. Get the whack em, kill em traps and finish the job quickly.

I had one mouse that was very smart. I couldn't catch him at all. One day I saw him go behind a piece of furniture. I put some books down to close off one end and placed a trap on the other end.

The next morning I hear a noise coming from the direction of the trap. I look over and the mouse is carefully pushing the trap out of the way and then walks to the middle of the room and stares at me.

Mice have a reputation for being smart for a reason!

Watch out for infrastructure. They usually gnaw themselves tunnels interconnecting the rooms of your house. Get yourself some polyfilla and have a hole blitzing day. If you start to shut the house down for the mouse, it will start to be less comfy there right away.

I had a horrible mouse problem last year. Started with one mouse --turned into an infestation.

I got a cat. The mere presence of which keeps the mice away. Most humane thing you can do is let the mice know they aren't welcome.

plus --I wuv my Sammy. He's so cuddly wuddly.

You should have ran him over w/ your bike.

The cat option is by far the best. But not just any cat; an intelligent and friendly one. I would suggest conducting interviews.

From that, yes, you can deduce my stance is that the mouse must go. Such relationships never work out.

http://www.asofterworld.com/soft_mar14_2003.htm

sufferin succotash!!!!!

Ah .. a cat, yes. Thank you all for your suggestions. I think the cat is the way to go. A nice, solid British Blue, perhaps.

I would also try to catch it with this kind of trap.

Garnet, I used to have around 30 Gerbils in cages ... but then I decided to allow no more baby mice and they died off after some time. As long as I had them it was much fun to watch them.

Mel

Garnet

I feel your pain, we live in my old grandparents house, attached to the back is a dozen fields, so they used to get over run all the time with mice.

Since moving in over 2 yrs ago we haven't had this problem, until now. We saw it staring up at us in the outhouses, its SO tiny and SO cute that my mum and I told dad if he put a trap down, he died, so he wandered off mumbling about small cute mice turning into big ones. WELL, not only do they turn into big ones, they mulitply like buggery.

Last time I went get the rabbit cage disinfectant I found four mice in a box and promptly set them free in the field, for them to be eaten by a cat!

We have a few more left in one of the outhouses and yes my dad had to set traps cos the lil buggers are eating everything in sight, up until now they keep getting the food out of the trap without losing their heads!

Anyways there is no point to my story, the outhouse does smell tho, and having mice run over your feet when you go to get a soda in the middle of the night doesn't please the neighbours.

Buy a ferret.

You can't go wrong with a British Blue, they're born hunters.

My Uncle has a house in the country, and he's got three British Blues. They're always catching stuff.

I have a half tabby/maine coon.

20lbs of lean mean mouse terrorizing machine.

Piccie please!

I also heard just the scent of the cat will keep the mice away. I had friends that would just "borrow" a friend's cat for the day to get the scent in the apartment.

I am allergic to cats so that wasn't an option for me.

have to wait till I get home. I have no pic of my Sammykins at work

If you keep the mouse just make sure the raisins in the raisin bread actually are.

This is my Samwise!

What a wonderful face. An expression of "I've just woken up and haven't decided whether to be cute or mean"

We have had field mice in the house 3 times already this year. We get them every year when the weather starts to turn cold, as per what Malachi said. We had one tonight.

I always know when Socks has one, because he makes so much damned noise while playing with them. Before he bites their heads off and eats them that is, which he usually vomits up a bit later...

I generally try to take the mouse away from him before he decapitates it. If I can catch it alive, I walk it a ways out into the field/woods out back and let it go. Otherwise, I finish Socks' job myself, with a shoe. I don't enjoy doing that. Either way, Socks gets pissed off at me for taking away his fun.

Socks is 1/2 siamese and 1/2 silver tabby. He is a very vocal cat and quite active for his age - 8 or 9 years old now I reckon. Maybe I will look for a picture of him in the morning.

I know people will probably tell me off but I put out some chestnuts on the floor last night for the mouse and they were eaten. I've seen it scampering about a bit though it's very wary of me still. I'm sorry but I can't bring myself to do harm to such a creature. It leaps wonderfully

My grandmother used to do that because it was just 'one' mouse she saw scampering in the kitchen. Turned out there was whole extended families in the basement and a ton of books, papers, and clothes were completely ruined due to holes and mice feces.

The presence of cat doesn't deter many mice even if the cat's a hunter. They will just take alternate routes through your house or apartment.

I don't like watching them get eaten or played with by the cat but after finding feces in things.. I thought better of it and got the quick kill traps.