Mice also love gumdrops. Honestly! I read this tip years ago. They seem to
like the color and taste. The advantage is that the gumdrops last. They don't
dry up and fall off like cheese.

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton
wrote:

I had a mouse.

He was living in my kitchen for a week or so.
snip

Caught the little bugger twice, actually.

But not without some tweaking.

snip
So I reset the traps, with Stilton, hoping that unlike the
mild Asadero it would have the aroma of rot and depth that
a mouse would seek out.
snip

Left me standing, agape, trap and book in hand.

Damn.

There I named him. Zippy the Wonder Mouse.

I refilled the traps with store-brand cheddar (still
experimenting rather than just going with what works),
and this morning, one of the traps was sprung but empty.
I'd left the rather large chunks of cheddar an inch or
so from the back of the trap, so as to avoid having them
simply tilt themselves, but clearly, that was a mistake.
He'd reached in and got the bait, then had room to get
out without the lid dropping far enough to lock shut.

Bugger.

No more mister nice mouser.

snip
Boshemoi! He'd walked right past the traps!

You sure it wasn't a baby rat? Rats are smarter than mice.

I use regular "kill 'em dead" traps on mice and bait them
with (drum roll) Jarlesberg... I've tried cheddar etc, and
even peanut butter, but I seem to have gourmet mice when
they decide to hang out at my house.

Fortunately, I haven't had to trap mice in years - due to
good mousers who make sure they don't step foot in my house.


Practice safe eating - always use condiments

Nancree wrote:
Mice also love gumdrops. Honestly! I read this tip years ago.
They seem to like the color and taste. The advantage is that the
gumdrops last. They don't dry up and fall off like cheese.

Uh, are you trying to trap them or feed them treats?! LOL

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:51:02 -0600, "jmcquown"
wrote:
True, your regular mouse trap is a tad messy.
And after hearing the thing snap shut and emptying it about 6 times in an
hour I decided perhaps poison bait would be better. Put it well behind the
refrigerator so as not to allow the pets access. They ate it, gluttons that
they are, then wandered off to wherever they go when you can't find them and
were not seen or heard from again.

The problem is you can SMELL them! I'd rather empty my
traps 14 times in an hour (yes, I've done that in the past)
than smell them for a week while they decompose.


Practice safe eating - always use condiments

anna maria wrote:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:
I had a mouse.

He was living in my kitchen for a week or so.

[snip]

your story reminds me of a catch my cat did when i was living in an
apartament on the ground floor. he chased inside what seemed to be an
extremely large rat. We were watchig tv in the evening and i saw with
the side of my eyes a large mouse-like figure entering from the open
window, followed by my cat in a evident state of agitation.

i tought screaming very loud and repeatedly was the best thing to do
at the moment. my husband (scared as hell) didn't think so....
anyway, he chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he
discovered it was a young opossum. he captured the thing and freed
him in the garden outside with great disappointment of my cat. the
next day i saw the creature hanging by the tail from a plant outside
eating the flowers. looked at me and ... well was not that ugly
afterall....

ciao, anna maria

That's too funny!! Opossums are odd looking creatures, but not really ugly.
I wouldn't want one in my house, though.

Jill

jmcquown wrote:

anna maria wrote:

anyway, he chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he
discovered it was a young opossum. he captured the thing and freed
him in the garden outside with great disappointment of my cat. the
next day i saw the creature hanging by the tail from a plant outside
eating the flowers. looked at me and ... well was not that ugly
afterall....

That's too funny!! Opossums are odd looking creatures, but not really ugly.
I wouldn't want one in my house, though.

My dog caught an opposum once. Big whoop, the thing just froze in
its tracks, what's to catching it? This maneuver totally confused
my dog as she was not interested in actually catching it, she just
wanted to chase it. Thing didn't move for hours.

nancy

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:44:34 GMT, Margaret Suran
wrote:

Tandoora, my cat, acted like a true
feline, at least an apartment kitty: As long as she suspected there
might be a mouse in the kitchen, she hid in my bedroom.

LOL1 She doesn't like wild animals in your house any more
than you do.

snip

I live on the 20th floor of an apartment building. Exterminators come
every week to make sure that no kind of creepy crawly things live in the
building, yet I have had mice several times before. At those times, I
had three cats living with me. The cats would actually catch the mouse,
play with it for a while and then let it go. Not once did one of them
kill a mouse.

According to what I've heard/read, cats need to be trained
by their mothers to catch and kill mice. Otherwise mice are
interesting playthings to them.

Tandoora is still staying out of the kitchen.

LOL! Let's face it, NYC mice are brazen and don't scare
easily.


Practice safe eating - always use condiments

jmcquown wrote:

wrote:
Margaret Suran wrote:

Melba's Jammin' wrote:
In article , Blair P.
Houghton wrote:


I had a mouse.


(hilarious story snipped)


My daughter just had a baby. The cat took a liking for the crib when
the baby was not there. After having to wash the crib linens once too
many times we did just what I described. No more cat problems.

Bert

Why not simply close the door? No need to scare the poor cat to death. The
child will outgrow the crib eventually. You're going to make the cat
terrified to even go into the room with the kid.

Jill

The cat is very fast and will outrun anyone to get to a barely open door. My
daughter has to keep the door open to hear the baby (he is less than two
months old) who is in an on-demand breast feeding schedule. It is best to
train the cat.

The cat, by the way, is an outside cat. She goes in and out whenever the
outside doors get open. She does not get terrified easily at almost anything.

Bert

In article .net,
Margaret Suran wrote:

Melba's Jammin' wrote:
Or maybe not.
"Here, kittykitty; here, kittykitty."

I had a mouse. I saw it on Friday and told the Handyman to come and do
something. He put out several glue traps and the next day, yesterday, I
found its corpse.

I hope that this was the only one. Tandoora, my cat, acted like a true
feline, at least an apartment kitty: As long as she suspected there
might be a mouse in the kitchen, she hid in my bedroom.

Once again proving her place on this earth. :-0)

Barbara, remember the sound you heard while you were here?

I do.

Maybe it was the mouse and not the alarm in the radiator or in the
smoke alarm. Debbie heard it, too, but now it is gone.

Don't know. Do mousies sound like chirping smoke alarms? I never heard
what I would describe as the pitter patter of little feet.

I live on the 20th floor of an apartment building. Exterminators come
every week to make sure that no kind of creepy crawly things live in the
building, yet I have had mice several times before. At those times, I
had three cats living with me. The cats would actually catch the mouse,
play with it for a while and then let it go. Not once did one of them
kill a mouse.

Those weren't real cats. They were PETA members in cats' clothing. You
needed Ma Cat, one of the country's finest mousers of the '50s. A
self-respecting girl. Ma Cat made mouncemeat out of more than one
little critter on our farm. Her ne'er do well son, Whitey, though,
wouldn't have known what to do with a mousie if it opened his jaws and
walked right in! The lout!

This morning, I called one of the building's porters, to check on the
traps that are still here. They were empty and I hope that they stay
that way. Tandoora is still staying out of the kitchen.

What a chickenshit! LOL!!!
Love to eat them mouseys
Mouseys what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet.
-The Kliban Kat
--
-Barb
12-23-03: Tourtiere pictures and recipe have been
added to my site: www.jamlady.eboard.com
"If you're ever in a jam, here I am."

Nancree wrote:

Mice also love gumdrops. Honestly! I read this tip years ago. They seem to
like the color and taste. The advantage is that the gumdrops last. They don't
dry up and fall off like cheese.

In my experience, Resse's Peanut Butter Cups are beloved
as trap bait by both rats and mice.

Unfortunately, squirrels seem not to care for them a bit.
Still working on that squirrel in my attic.

Mark Thorson wrote:
Nancree wrote:

Mice also love gumdrops. Honestly! I read this tip years ago.
They seem to like the color and taste. The advantage is that the
gumdrops last. They don't dry up and fall off like cheese.

In my experience, Resse's Peanut Butter Cups are beloved
as trap bait by both rats and mice.

Unfortunately, squirrels seem not to care for them a bit.
Still working on that squirrel in my attic.

Raw peanuts in the shell, Mark!

Jill

Nancy Young wrote:
jmcquown wrote:

anna maria wrote:

anyway, he chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he
discovered it was a young opossum. he captured the thing and freed
him in the garden outside with great disappointment of my cat. the
next day i saw the creature hanging by the tail from a plant outside
eating the flowers. looked at me and ... well was not that ugly
afterall....

That's too funny!! Opossums are odd looking creatures, but not
really ugly. I wouldn't want one in my house, though.

My dog caught an opposum once. Big whoop, the thing just froze in
its tracks, what's to catching it? This maneuver totally confused
my dog as she was not interested in actually catching it, she just
wanted to chase it. Thing didn't move for hours.

nancy

Hence the phrase, "playing 'possum"

Jill

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton wrote:
I had a mouse. - He was living in my kitchen for a week or so. snip

For many years I've lived at the edge of a desert residential area, with
no homes immediately across the street. There used to be just a burned
out cabin foundation directly across, but one day a big tractor-sort
cleared that away, in preparation for a pre-fab home being put there
now. Until the initial cleaaring came about, I had never experienced a
need for mousing anywhere I've lived.

Hah! One evening I thought I saw what I supposed was a dried up
cottonwood leaf blow in through the security screen that I have an 8x10"
section cut out of for the pup, though no leaf was to be seen about.
Some minutes later there was a wee mouse scampering across the room to
get behind the television. I had nothing at home to use, so I went to
the hardware store and chose those "sticky plates" to set at each side
of the TV's back for catching the little buggar.

Caught the pest, I did, but what to do next? I was some afraid of being
also stuck to, or even bitten while carrying the mouse-laden tray out,
and again, what would I do with the now screeching thing next? I
wrapped kitchen tong ends into paper towels (so the sticky would not, to
them) and successfully collected the papered tray into the garage trash
barrel. I figured a kinder gesture for the unwanted about me pest would
be among the local dump's terrain.

During the two days wait for trash pick-up, that wee mouse reminded me
he was there with scampering about the trash barrel noises each time I
passed by, and my little pooch didn't at all understand my trying to
tell him nothing of interest to him or of any danger to his mamma was
outside the home....

=A0=A0=A0Picky ~JA~

sf wrote:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:44:34 GMT, Margaret Suran
wrote:


Tandoora, my cat, acted like a true
feline, at least an apartment kitty: As long as she suspected there
might be a mouse in the kitchen, she hid in my bedroom.


LOL1 She doesn't like wild animals in your house any more
than you do.

snip


I live on the 20th floor of an apartment building. Exterminators come
every week to make sure that no kind of creepy crawly things live in the
building, yet I have had mice several times before. At those times, I
had three cats living with me. The cats would actually catch the mouse,
play with it for a while and then let it go. Not once did one of them
kill a mouse.


According to what I've heard/read, cats need to be trained
by their mothers to catch and kill mice. Otherwise mice are
interesting playthings to them.


Tandoora is still staying out of the kitchen.


LOL! Let's face it, NYC mice are brazen and don't scare
easily.



The mouse wasn't brazen, Tandoora either does not know that she is a
cat or she knows that she will get something tastier if she comes to me
and tells me to feed her. )

Ajax, a cat I had many years ago, would catch flies. She would catch
them between her two front paws, then open them in order to see whether
the little insect was really caught. Of course her prey would fly away
and Ajax would scream with rage. Ajax was my best hunter, so you can
imagine how good the other six were.

sf wrote:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:51:02 -0600, "jmcquown"
wrote:
True, your regular mouse trap is a tad messy.
And after hearing the thing snap shut and emptying it about 6 times
in an hour I decided perhaps poison bait would be better. Put it
well behind the refrigerator so as not to allow the pets access.
They ate it, gluttons that they are, then wandered off to wherever
they go when you can't find them and were not seen or heard from
again.

The problem is you can SMELL them!

Nope... I never had that dead mouse scent in my house. I don't know if the
walls were particularly thick or well insulated or if the critters dragged
themselves outside to die. Never had that smell problem.

Jill