Mouse Problems

Anyone else encountering mice a lot?

10 Comments

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Does anyone not?

Jul 14, 2021 at 8:16am

I've never lived anywhere that didn't at some point have a mouse problem. Rats too. They'll probably live on after we all do ourselves in.

5 2Rating: +3

Um, Yes

Jul 14, 2021 at 12:46pm

I live in the basement suite of a relatively new house. A mouse infestation started a couple years ago. We had those common, dark grey mice but also deer mice. They leave droppings everywhere which is gross and can make you sick! . We have no idea where they came from and how they got into the house. The owners wouldn't call an exterminator so I had to deal with it myself.
Some advice: you need to go ALL OUT with traps from the start. I put out some poison pellets at first but that wasn't enough and more came. Eventually, they were running around my bedroom when I went to bed at night. To this day, I have snap traps, glue traps, and electric traps all over the suite. I've also seen huge rats around the neighborhood and nearby businesses. I'm just praying those little bastards don't get in because a rat bite is my nightmare.

9 2Rating: +7

Natural predators

Jul 14, 2021 at 5:49pm

I did so I got some kittens and then had cats for the next 18 years.

11 3Rating: +8

Terriers

Jul 15, 2021 at 8:38am

Get one of those. Better hunters than cats. People used to borrow my Westie to help get rid of mice. He lived to get 'em.

5 4Rating: +1

@Um yes

Jul 15, 2021 at 11:45am

If you’re a tenant then it’s the landlord’s responsibility to address any rodent infestation. It’s a health hazard and they don’t have the option to just decide not to call pest control. Call the RT Branch.

9 2Rating: +7

TL;DR: Traps

Jul 15, 2021 at 12:10pm

Don't use bait, as it causes the rodents to seek out water sources, which can cause huge damage.

Years ago, my assigned spot in the underground carpark of my building in East Van was right next to a rat bait station. I worked crazy long hours, often coming home in the wee hours (when the rodents are out and about) with a dripping wet car. After about eight months of this I took my car in for servicing and they found a dead rat under the engine block.

Even worse: right now I have a house near the ocean that was plumbed with crappy type of pipe that was discontinued some time in the 80s. About a year after I bought it I was having a problem with carpenter ants, so put out some bait for them. It turned out that some deer mice in the woods next door consumed the bait, found their way into my crawl space, then chewed into one of the pipes, causing a huge amount of water damage.

In the process of replacing the water-damaged subfloor in four separate rooms I uncovered not only a huge amount of mouse and rat droppings in the insulation (which meant that they had probably been infesting the crawl space for years) but also a nest of baby mice!

After drowning the mice in a bucket I made the mistake of just throwing them in the garbage, which meant that one of the local bears got into it and I woke up one morning to garbage strewn all over my yard.

So stick to snap traps if you can (the mice learn to avoid glue traps). I've manage to mouse-proof the crawl space, which prevented their ingress, but the only way to get rid of the ones that were still there was to set snap traps (cheese-flavoured rice puffs are a great bait, btw), check them every morning, then stop setting them if you go a week without catching any (turns out in my case that there were only four of them altogether).

You have to make sure that you seal up your living space first. If you have a suite with hot water heat, it's usually the holes around the water pipes into the baseboard heaters that they come into. Otherwise, check the pipes under your sinks, and all your baseboards for holes and seal them up. Use steel wool and either duct tape or spray foam.

If you have a free-standing house, use hardware cloth around the crawl space and extend it into a 12-16" trench around the house. Include some broken glass into the fill of the trench if you want (if you don't have pets, that is).

9 3Rating: +6

Year round

Jul 15, 2021 at 7:10pm

I keep a small pile in the bottom of my garden filled with cheapo birdseed, mostly cracked corn. My mouse problem was over.

9 3Rating: +6

lotsa mice

Jul 17, 2021 at 1:00am

i trap and kill about 4 critters every week in mount pleasant area..about 90 apartments in my building so hmm...90 x 4= 360 mice per week..gad !!

3 3Rating: 0

Anonymous

Jul 18, 2021 at 2:06pm

No, snakes.

3 2Rating: +1

Anonymous

Jul 19, 2021 at 1:00am

I have to exact same trouble with Zombies, won't stay out of my yard :)

2 2Rating: 0

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