Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Getting Rid Of Mouse- Easy Style

Last night I went to get a drink of water before heading to bed. I walked into the kitchen, flipped on the light and poured myself the beverage. As I went to close the fridge a sudden movement startled me as a mouse ran across the top of my stove and leaped behind the fridge. I did not scream like a pansy-ass, but I did sort of give a garbled muffled shriek as I levitated backwards about 3 feet.

I am not afraid of mice. But I do not approve of them being in my home. Last fall Darcel had the same problem and I received a frantic late night call on the subject. I walked her through my mother's patented method of mouse capture and disposal and she was thrilled. Since I have to do the same thing tonight I figured I would go ahead and post a little anti-mouse tutorial. With pictures.

I know, you're excited, brace yourself!

Here are the items you need: Any kind of paper bag- a lunch sac is great, a mouse trap of the snap variety, peanut butter and a knife.


1. Get your snap style mouse trap (although I suppose other varieties could be used).2. Put a smudge of peanut butter on the trigger. In this case the trigger is a plastic piece that looks like cheese, but sometimes it's just a little metal tray.
3. Set the trap. Watch your fingers, this is the dangerous moment. I had a piece fly loose on one of these today and do some damage to my thumb. It didn't snap on me, thank God, but it inflicted some hurtin' anyway. They aren't exactly the most high quality product every made.
4. Open lunch sac/brown paper bag.
5. Holding the sides of the mouse trap with all fingers and palms well way from the potentially snapping trap, gently place the mouse trap in the bag. Just half way in is enough.
6. Using a knife, gently push the trap into the middle of the bag.
7. Carefully pick up the bag with two hands, keeping it level and put wherever you want to try and catch the mousey.
8. Check the bag in the morning and if you have caught your mouse, then pick up the bag, fold over the top and take it out to the trash.

The beauty of this method is that you never have to touch, or even really look directly at the dead mouse. At $1.47 for four traps I am more than happy to just chuck the trap out with the mouse still in it. The paper bag does not scare or deter the mouse at all, they walk right in and go for the peanut butter, so don't worry about that. The other advantage to the bag method is that you won't accidentally trigger it with your foot or forget that it is there and it can keep dumb dogs and curious cats out in most cases.

OK, so go on and catch any pesky mice that have wandered into your abode. I hope that I can catch mine tonight!

1 comment:

~Molly~ said...

Oh My Gosh!!! We have a worse problem in some ways. Ours are RATS and they are huge! Thankfully they only live outside and in our attic, but they visit our garage regularly and one ran across my foot late one night.

Your method is wonderful, I hate seeing the dead ones in the traps.

A friend of mine suggested that we come catch the corn snake that lives in her chicken coop and turn it loose in the garage. I'm seriously considering it.

Molly