woke up this morning.............

[Jena]

to difficult child trying to pull 2 mice off the trap the exterminator set yesterday. easy child thought it was funny, yet boyfriend and i just looked at eachother and said ok when does the stress end just for a little while?

so, i went downstairs, he got up to drive easy child to work so i could deal with-difficult child and the mice.

difficult child is sitting on the floor with my rubber gloves on has pulled the mouse trap out from behind the cabinet and is feeding 2 mice cheese as their stuck on trap crying. one of those sticky traps.

so he goes to drop easy child and get us breakfast and me some COFFEE. soo need that and i sit there with-difficult child crying to save them.

needless to say boyfriend had to take shower and get to work so he carried glue trap to backyard. we didnt' know what else to do at that point. if we pulled them off it would rip their legs off, i'm not up to racing to vet i'm totally exhausted.

so difficult child's dad came to take her tried Occupational Therapist (OT) help me calm her down and he took them put them in a bag and put themin the woods.

how horrible. i hate to kill anything and this house is a nightmare. just had to share that with-all of you. i'm sure later i'll laugh about this yet umm not yet

i text landlord this a.m. and said ok we have to talk. i saw a listing for a house rental cheaper than this and i'm calling them today to go look

 

[Andy]

I would have taken easy child and left boyfriend with the mice!

It does sound so sweet though - too bad it was mice! Poor difficult child! She is a little too old to believe, "We will leave them here and their dad and uncles and big brothers will know how to free them."

 

[Jena]

hi

yea but we had no choice. bottom line is we shouldnt' be living somewhere that is infested with-mice which place must be.

in 3 days we have gotten 3 mice. im really disappointed in this place.

 

[Jena]

we found mouse traps in the upstairs laundry room when i looked around which means this has been an ongoing problem and they lied yet again. crazy right? i saw a listing today for 500 cheaper a mos. 3 bedroom house rental full backyard, pool, etc. i called and left a message.

although i do not think moving difficult child at this point is the "right" thing to do due to her issues I do believe that if we continue to experience stress from this place whether it be mice, or carpenter ants that have taken over our den, or a backyard filled with ppl that difficult child wont' want to use it now the stress will lap over onto her?

 

[Abbey]

Mice are a problem. I used a no-kill method, but it is tedious. In the end it worked. There are traps that just contain the mice, not kill them. I don't think I could handle that. You just have to take them FAR away and release them. Ugh. I don't think I could see a living anything in a trap.

Abbey

 

[Jena]

i was almost in tears abbey literally. i coaxed the other mouse out of the den the other day with bread. we have a dwarf hamster upstairs we love, i love animals. this was bad all around. especially for a kid with BiPolar (BP).

me, i was upset boyfriend was upset my ex didn't even know what to do. difficult child was like at least i gave them cheese to help them before they died.

stupid exterminator put down these bad traps if i had known there was one that would catch and not hurt i totally would of done it. i would have no problem taking them into woods and releasing them so that they woudl be ok

 

[ML]

I confess I am one who used the snap traps. We had this problem about a year ago and it took patience but finally we seem to have gotten them all. I mean I know they're everywhere but we eliminated their entrance and made sure to close off any food source. Manster got a kitten (spike) and I think that helped too.

 

[donna723]

Take it from someone who has lived through several mouse invasions ... once they're stuck on the sticky traps, they're goners! I hated to use them but nothing else worked, and after a while of trying to be nice, it came down to where it was them or me!

Trying to pry them off will just rip their feet off, tear their skin, or torture them in some other way. I slid the traps in plastic bags, tied up the bags, and threw them (mouse attached) into the trash can outside, then tried to forget that they were out there! Still, using sticky traps is better than the other ways. If you put out poisons, they will eat it and maybe crawl off into the walls and die - and smell! Or, if you have pets, the mice can scatter the poison pellets where the pets might find them and eat them, or the mice can eat the poison and then the pets might catch the mice and be exposed to the poisons. Neither is good.

 

[Abbey]

Ugh. I still get the creepy crawlies at thinking about a live animal in a trap. That would be like me being in a straight jacket with electric shocks poked every now and then. There is no earthy way I could remove a somewhat living creature out of that. (I really do have a sensitive side. Really...I do.)

I just targeted areas they would visit, then placed the traps. I tried different foods to lure them in, but in the it was simply cracker crumbs. The old cheese thing didn't pan out. I'd drive them a good 5 miles away from the house and release them. Find a new home, guys. It took probably 6 months or so, but they were finally gone.

Guys? Now they'll smash them down with a hammer in a heartbeat.

Abbey

 

[Andy]

Since difficult child has no fear of handling the mice, I would be very concerned about a mouse biting her (even if she wears gloves those little sharp teeth can break through the gloves or bite her elsewhere) and then comes a whole new set of medical issues.

Get out of that house now!

No polls necessary - I haven't heard one person say you should stay.

 

[hearts and roses]

You may recall we had a mouse problem last Fall. It was bad. We caught about 42 mice total, then figured that many of those mice were probably duplicates because we were using the humane traps and H was just walking down the road a bit and dropping them in the woods....needless to say, they found their way back to OUR home! LOL. Then, as winter and cold hit, I would just place the traps outdoors overnight and the mice would freeze to death. Horrible, I know. But I just got so sick of cleaning out mice carp from my cabinets and drawers. I actually replaced all the liners finally and scrubbed everything down with bleach. To my dismay, they don't mind new or bleach.

As much as I hate the thought of killing an animal, I have to say, in the case of mice crawling over my flatware and dishes, I have no problem with their untimely deaths. Seriously. Same with the ants, dammit. We had the ant problem, called the exterminator, saw a few demented stragglers, but now they are back. I have to wait one week before I can call the exterminator and make them come back and do it again for FREE. I'm not happy about this. I've gotten so cold hearted that I crush the little ant bodies with my bare fingers. Ugh. How gross.

Jen, if you can't reason with your landlady, which I believe you will not be able to do, then it's certainly time to move. difficult child will survive it. Really. There comes a time when the majority overrules the minority and this is one of those cases - everyone will be happier not paying through the nose for an apt with partial use of the yard and supplying strangers with heat and hot water, putting up with mice, etc.

 

[WhymeMom?]

Just as a point of reference, I was watching one of the reality shows on A&E about exterminators and they were saying if you put oil (thinking liquid vegetable oil) on the mouse in the glue traps they can be released........

I'm not so forgiving when mice invade my home....... I would not grease them down and let them go, but everyone makes their own decision about what needs to be done........