Mice in my furniture

Here is a question I get pretty often. Can mice live in a sofa or puffy chair? The answer is yes they can. If you tip your couch over you will see a dust cloth stapled to the bottom. Mice can get through this and burrow in the stuffing, settling into a pretty posh environment. Get a strong flash light and start to explore if you think this could be the case, or set up traps and place some bait in the area of the sofa. Tamper proof bait station are required and safety is your best friend. Good luck and happy hunting.

The best to keep mice out.

The best way to solve a mouse problem is never to have gotten one in the first place. So what is the best kind of product out there to keep mice out of your home or garage? Door sweeps and weather stripping is your first like of defense against mice. You'd be surprised how a small gap under your garage door can invite a mouse or rat in for a long winters nap. The nest is sealing gaps. Using products like stuf-fit, a copper wool product, or regular old steel wool will do the trick (steel wool will rust though ). Any kind of expanding foam product to keep mice out will also do wonders or even some good old fashioned caulk. Won't the mice just eat through the foam like a piece of bread? No. Mice are lazy and will look for the next easiest route of entry.

Mice in cold weather

Mice and rodents in general are not big fans of the cold, in fact, most start looking for shelter when the first signs of the frigid cold start to show. As many of us know the shelter they seek is often times our very homes. They sneak in, usually through a crack or crevice, and set up shop in our kitchens. Aside from catching them once they are in, one was to help raise the chances of catching them is to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them. If they are getting a constant meal of crumbs every night and water that is left in a cup in the sink, then why would they go after the bait you are setting for them on the traps? Make sure your kitchen and living areas are barren waste lands. Keep the landscape bare and that will usually increase the chances of bait acceptance on snap traps or poison bait in general. Happy Hunting.

Catch Mice

People seem to think that the only way to catch a mouse is to slap some peanut butter on the trigger of a mouse trap or squeeze some cheese on there. Mice love to eat anything, and the more choices you give a mouse the better the chances will be that you catch them. Chocolate syrup is popular, string tied to the trigger or a piece of cotton ball for nesting is another. If you notice the mice are chewing through your cereal boxes, then give them what they want and attached some cereal to the trigger. Bacon, bread, and beans are good. Try mixing chocolate and peanut butter together. Be creative as trapping and catching mice is an art. If you get good at it then you will be rewarded with a mouse free home.

Signs of a mouse probelm

How do you know if you have a mouse problem? What kind of signs should you look for? First and fore most would be droppings. If black specks start to show up in areas then it could be mouse droppings. They look like skinny tic tacks with points ends. Another sign is holes in boxes or other food products. The next would be gnawing. The last would be simply sighting them. Sometimes unusual activity from a cat or dog can alert you to a problem as well. If you suspect a mouse problem then buy some product to start the elimination process of call a professional, as mice can get out of hand quite quickly. Happy Hunting!

Mice in cold weather

I'm going to start to angle the blog posts to mice, rats, and other rodents as we are all brought into the colder months. Ever wonder how mice know your house is warm and decide to come in and set up shop for the winter? It's a simple as shutting off the lights in your garage during the daytime and look as how many areas light is still coming in. These are all perfect areas for mice to enter. Same goes for your own front door. How's that weather stripping? Missing? If mice are scurrying along and suddenly feel heat escaping from under the door, they come right in. Heat escapes from space around pipes and wires that are coming into your home. Heat escapes under doors. Heat escapes and mice love. So the best way to prevent mice from coming in is to seal off all these kinds of holes and gaps to the best of your ability. Regular old foam will work, or a product called Stuf-fit, even caulk. Just plug up the holes.

Electric mouse killer

Building a better mouse trap has long been a goal for men to strive for. After all, the US patent office has thousands and thousands of patents filed for mouse traps. One traps that has come down the pike is an electric mouse traps and an electric rat trap. These traps basically kills the mouse or rat with an electric shock, making more humane than a snap trap. The drawback to these traps is that they are expensive and they require batteries to maintain them, adding to the expense. With the cold weather finally hitting the east coast, the questions and concerns about mouse and rat control start to ramp up as people search for was to keep mice out and catch the mice they already have. Tis the season.

Mice Rats Rodents

Winter time is here and with it brings the potential of a mouse infestation. Why to be proactive by winterizing your home so to speak by using a popular monitoring tool, the glue board. Your garage is an easy access point for mice as is your basement. These areas often times have openings or pipes and wires that enter with gaps where mice can enter. Step number one would be to seal these gaps. Next I would say to place out these glue traps under and behind things. Check them often to see if anything was caught. The best thing to do is to pick up a bulk pack from your local pest control supply shop or online at a do it yourself web site. They come in boxes of seventy two. Catchmaster and Victor are two good brands.

Baiting for Mice

Baiting for mice with poison has always been a questionable practice in my opinion, especially in a household environment for a few reasons. One thing is of course safety. Poison can be deadly and the average homeowner is not always the best at reading directions let alone a label. I see visions of mouse bait packs being tossed behind fridges and sofas and every which way. This is not good. The next reason is once the mice get into this tasty treat then they die. They die inside. The old wives tale where they run outside to look for water is not true. The last time I looked we all had a pretty good supply of water in our own homes. Mice will die behind your walls, under stoves, in your sofa. They will die anywhere. Then they smell, and depending on what time of year it is you will also wind up with a bad fly problem. I think you can have just as good a result if not better in trapping the mice with glue traps and snap traps. You have more flexibility with these items and they are much safer. Once you catch the mice you can toss the trap and count your dead. Happy Hunting.

catching and trapping mice

Mice can nest in furniture, bedding, sofas, and chairs. Mice can get in via the slightest crack or gap and once they are in they make themselves at home. I've heard of stories of mice who clear out a hole in the stuffing of sofa cushions and drive homeowners crazy as they try to figure out where they are hiding. The fact is, unless you are extremely lucky, finding a mouse nest can be impossible. The best defense is a good offence. So at the first signs of mice, which will usually be droppings or food destruction, make a list of products that you will order on your friendly "do it yourself" pest control products website or to pick up at your local home store. To save and buy in bulk I recommend the websites. Keeping the safety of children and pets in mind, you will want to pick up snap traps and glue traps. Mice are curious creatures, so you should have no trouble trapping them all if you set up and follow a good trapping program. If you actually see a mouse scurry across the floor, then I would place glue traps in that area. Next you will want to identify areas of heavy mouse poop. IN this area set up many snap traps. Use an assortment of attractants on the triggers. Chocolate syrup, cheese, peanut butter, and cotton are great ones. A product called Provoke by a company called Bell is formulated specifically for mice and works wonders. The trick to a trapping program is not to be greedy. Place out alot of traps. It might look ugly for a while, but it will increase your success rate. If after a few days you only have caught a few mice, then the next step is to clean up the mouse droppings with bleach water (wear gloves), and take the traps up. Look for more signs of droppings. If more occur then start the process over. If there are alot of droppings in an area you will want to consult a professional for cleanup as massive amounts of droppings can be harmful.

Provoking Mice with Provoke

There is a great product on the market that can assist you in luring mice to your snap traps and other mechanical traps. It is called Provoke and it is formulated by Bell Labs and it has been working like a charm. I used to get frustrated when I placed out all these traps in an account that clearly was being over run with mice and caught only one, and that was if I was lucky. I did find that my success rate increased big time when I started using Provoke and so I thought it would be a good idea to put it out there. Most professionals already have heard of this product, but many homeowners have not. If you currently have been having a rodent problem and you have a pest control professional treating the situation you can ask him (delicately) if he or she has tried provoke or if you are trying to trap the mice yourself then you can look for the product online or at an over the counter pest control product store. Either way, it is a useful tool to have in the battle.

A better mouse trap

Is there really a better mouse trap out there? Can mice ever be stopped? We can do our best to exclude them from our living space and when they do invade, we can do our best to get rid of them. Electronic mouse repellers only work for a short time if at all, all the others take patience and brain power. If you have a mouse problem the best advice is to buy an arsenal of mouse control products and throw everything at them. Don't be greedy. Buy alot of product and use it all. Don't be afraid of over kill. Use snap traps, glue traps, baits, mechanical traps. Use caution also. If children or pets are present. Be very careful. You'll never catch all the mice in your house with three snaps traps set under your sink. Go to town and happy hunting.

How do mice get in

Mice can basically nudge their little noses into the hole the width of a pencil. SO the battle to try to keep them out is long, but can be accomplished. Start with the obvious areas. Take a walk around your home and look for wires and pipe that enter your home. Can you notice any space around the wires or pipes? If so then you should caulk around these openings. Next place to look is the exhaust of your dryer. Often times lint props the flap open leaving a clear highway for rodents to enter your home. Others areas include under the garage door and entrance doors. If there are gaps then they can get in. Make sure all the weather stripping is in tact. Lastly, if you notice any cracks or holes in the foundation of your home along you outside perimeter then cement those areas up.
Happy fourth of July!!

Baiting for Mice

You can find mice in kitchens, closets, bathrooms, furniture, bedding, ceilings, they can get anywhere they want to it seems. Trapping mice requires the trapper to have two things, a good bait and lots of traps. Don't skimp on the traps and I would recommend snap traps because they can be tossed in the trash and you can count your progress. You can get a box of 72 traps on any do it yourself pest control products website. The next thing you need is a good bait. Traditionally people would use peanut butter or chocolate, but we now have something better. Offered to the professional pest control market, a product called PROVOKE is what's all the rage. PROVOKE was formulated by Bell Labs and has been doing fantastic in baiting and attracting mice to the trap for a few years now. Again, this is a professional product and would need to be bought off of a DIY pest control products website or maybe your exterminator would sell you a bottle. Happy hunting.

Getting rid of mice in sofas, beds, and furniture

Mice in my sofa! Are you kidding me? It's true and more common than you may think. Mice in sofas furniture, and beds occur because these items are perfect nesting sites for mice and rats. So how do you get rid of the mice once they infested your furniture? I would suggest first and foremost to eliminate any crumbs from the area. If you are a snack muncher I would stop this practice of eating on the couch to make a fast meal for the mouse impossible. Then you want to buy a bunch of snap traps. Why not just throw some bait packs under the sofa and hope for the best? Well the best reason not to do this is what if the mouse or rat dies in your sofa? Now you have to deal with a rotten odor and a carcass rotting under your butt. Mix up some peanut butter and chocolate syrup on a spoon and then put a smear of this on your trap to make the mouse have to work at getting a taste. This will optimize a catch. Then, at night before bed, take the cushions off of the sofa of chair, put a newspaper down to protect the upholstery, and place the snap traps on top of the paper. Put out many traps to optimize your chance of catching the mice. Also place the traps behind the sofa or chair and if the trap clears the underneath of the sofa I would place a few under there. You might not have success right away, you may have to repeat this process for a few nights, especially if you are dealing with rats. Be sure to always wipe off the trigger and place fresh peanut butter each night. Now if you are unfortunate enough to have the rodents infesting your bed I would recommend just placing a ton of traps under bed using the same process. Having said all this you will have to take some things into consideration. IF you have had a rodent infestation for a long time and the mice have been infesting your furniture for a long time then there is a chance that there are droppings in the sofa or bed area. If this is the case then you have to think about the dangers of the mouse droppings. It may be safer to throw away the furniture. If this is not an option than at least the mice are caught and the increase in mouse dropping will stop. So good luck with the trapping and happy hunting!

Why do mice come into my home

Here is a question that many people ask. Why did mice choose to come into my house? Am I dirty? Am I messy? The answer is yes and no. A mouse can be running by your house just as you are going in and hop in as your door is open. That mouse might be with children. Now there are many. Sometimes you have a hole or a gap under a garage door and the mouse feels the heat escaping and follows the heat into your house. You can have the cleanest house on the block. It won't stop mice from coming in. What a clean house will do is make it uncomfortable for mice to live in which will increase your chances of catching them. If you have a messy house with lots of clutter (hiding and nesting spaces) and lots of crumbs then you have made it welcoming to mice and they can survive easier. After all, if you had a choice between dried up peanut butter on a trap trigger or crumbs from a chocolate cookie that fell to your floor, which would you choose? Keep things tight and sealed and you will decrease chances of them entering in the first place.

Kill Mice and Kill Rats

Kill rodents the old fashioned way if you have mice or rats infesting your home. The good old snap trap can be your best defense against these intruders and using the old stand by peanut butter or cheese will work just fine. The trick is in the placement. I know folks who will put out a few snap traps in the kitchen when they saw it run across the living room wall, thinking that mice always will visit the kitchen. This is of course true, they have to eat, but if you see a mouse following a path across a certain wall or under a piece of furniture then you have to place that traps there. Another trick is to put out plenty of traps, not just two or three. Over kill is OK in these situations. Also be sure to place plenty of traps in areas where you find mouse droppings. This is an obvious area they visit.

Seal holes to keep mice out

Seal holes, seal cracks, seal around pipes, mouse proof your house! It's that simple. If you want to cut down on the possibility of mice entering your home during these cold days of winter, you have to seal them out. It takes an hour of your time and some leg power to walk around the outside of your home and search out and destroy any holes that are visible. Your weapons of choice can be steel wool, expanding foam in a can, copper stuff it, caulk, or plain old cement. Be especially aware of wires, pipes or cables entering the home. Be sure to seal around them. Also look for large gaps under the garage door and replace weather stripping where necessary.

Is it a Rat or Mouse?

Rats and mice are tow completely different beings aside from coming from the realm of rodents. Mice are friendly and come out in the open and rats are neophobic and rarely come out to play. You can tell you are experiencing a rat problem usually be the droppings you find. The dropping of a rat looks like a tick tac and is much lager than a mouse dropping.

Seal mice and rodents out of your home and garage

MOUSE PROOFING

Excluding mice and rats from even entering your property is the best defense against a rodent infestation. Gaps around your garage door or missing weather stripping under your doors can be an invitation for trouble. Pipes and wires that enter the building or home with openings around them can also be a conduit for entry. Sealing these holes in your garage or other areas that offer entry for mice can be the best thing for you to do. Products like stuf-fit, a copper product that allows you to stuff holes and gaps is a great product for this. Steel wool also works just a good but can rust. Great Stuff, an expandable foam, is a good product to seal around pipes and wires. The old stand by caulk is also excellent. Replace any worn or missing weather stripping around doors. Doing this will help you have a mouse proof season.