All of a sudden I have noticed that my apartment is infested with mice.  Evidently the apartment complex that I live in is having some financial problems and have no exterminator.  Is there a magic bullet out there that will run the little vermin out or am I stuck using traps and poisons to get rid of the nasty sumbitches?

Buy a cat!

Where's Fluffy when you need him?

most likley, your stuck with traps and such. i have another way. but thats a bit messy, and involves sevral lawnmowers.

Gluetraps work fairly well, but get lots of them to cover their travel paths.

Other than that, I got a buddy who has killed a few with his blowgun.

And actually, a six pack and a blowgun sound alot funner than gluetraps.

Get 2 cats. I had severe problems with mice. Nothing worked. So, I got 2 male cats, had them fixed, and no more mice. Get one of those electric litter boxes: they are worth it! Once they're fixed, you won't have any problems with them marking. Any problems with the cats are greatly outweighted by the damage mice can do (unless you're allergic).

Kill them!

Seriously, if you've got mice, they have to be coming in from somewhere.  All the traps and poison in the world isn't goint to help until you find our where they are coming in at.  

Mice are very adept as squeezing through a space that a fart couldn't get past. Really, they flatten out their bodies and can get thin easily.  The most likely places that they are coming in are , water supply pipes coming into your HW heater, Electrical service into the apartment, and drain/waste penetrations in the apartment. Now start caulking bigtime.

Check the weatherstripping on the doors and once you are sure that there's no possible way that a mouse is going to get in to your apt.  then set your traps in earnest.  6 or more, skip the cheese, use stiff chunky peanut butter and set them up next to baseboards in the kitchen, and utility rooms  as well anywhere else you've seen them.

Finally, good luck.  I've lived all over the country and have had mice only a few times (especially as the weather gets cooler) BUT you'll never get rid of them unless you plug the entry areas first.

and move when your lease is up!

Mice have poor vision and run along walls. Thats where you want to put your traps. I'd avoid poison: when you've had the experience of smelling them in your walls you'll understand why. You could try poison outside where children won't get into it. There are electronic traps that will electrocute them as well. Another countermeasure is an electronic noisemaker that they shouldn't like listening to but I have no experience with these. If you try plugging the holes, remember that they could be inside the walls or under/between your kitchen cabinets and the wall or floor. An effective plug is expanding foam you buy in a can at your hardware store.

I wouldn't waste good quality ammo on them either. At the ranges you will be shooting, accuracy won't be an issue but you have to get used to the sight offset since they are so high above the bore at very close ranges. Also, soft points will not have time to expand. See if you can get 40 gr bullets. You should tell your neighbors to put their heavy furniture and bookcases against the wall just in case. Arrange your furniture so that you can track a mouse against a wall long enough to get a bead. They can really move, especially when you miss the first shot. Toothpaste works well to fix the holes after the shooting. If you want to use a shotgun, I reccomend that you open the shells and pour out the powder and 3/4 of the shot. The primer will be enough to do the job and the neighbors won't complain as much.
When shooting indoors you especially want to use ear protection, but obviously you want to hear your stereo and tv. Since you will be snap shooting, you won't have time to put it on, so you can go either of two ways. Use regular earplugs and turn up the volume. You won't hear your neighbors banging on the walls and when you let one off, they will think its from the tv. Or your neighbors are onto you, or they are your friends and you have already told them what's going on, get the kind that only blocks impulsive noises.

Good luck and let us know how it works out.
                                                just kidding......

Phostoxin works wonders!

I had a problem a while back. I solved it with an air rifle. I shot a few holes in the walls, but I got the bugger. Since your in an apartment you'll want to use .22LR Shotshells. They do not penetrate walls, etc. But, they should stop the mouse. I placed a pellet through the rat's head. It took off his right ear and part of his head. The bugger managed to get about 10 feet before dropping dead. If you use a revolver you can place a quick follow-up, since shotshell do not cycle. You can also use Colibris which make almost no noise. But, these are a solid bullet and might cause excessive penetration.

BTW, I had a friend who tried this with a 12 Gauge Shotgun. He ended up replacing a portion of his floor and his stove which the buckshot blew away.

You gotta be joking! Shooting at mice in your house!

"Um, well officer. . . I know it's against the law to discharge a firearm in residential areas, but those damn damn mice won't leave me alone!"

Have been having the same problem myself with mice.  Cat got 2 of them, the wife ran one over with the dishwasher accidently (heh heh), and I got two with traps.  So far me and the cat are tied for 1st.

Had a mouse problem when I lived up in the Mountains.
Followed a buddy's advice and got a cat

Well hell if the fleabag didn't piss and shyt everywhere, and didn't get any mice.

So, here I am, with a washed up mouser and 10 mice having their way with my cabin.Finally got some traps and assorted mice repellents.
And, yeah..that lazy bastard cat is still around somewhere in Wrightwood.

I can't ever win [50]

Like some others said, don't poison them unless you want to put up with the stink (little suckers always climb to a bad spot to die), and if you use traps, put them into the corners and along walls (the already mentioned travel zones).

Cats are best, but alot of apartments don't allow them, and allergies might cause problems.  

I've never had the guts to shoot in my apartments (OK, maybe air gun once or twice), but a person could get into a sh*tload of trouble with your neighbors and the cops.

Call your landlord and ask for assistance.  It's just as much his problem as yours.  Unless he's a SLUMLORD, and there are a lot of 'em, he may offer to help.  If its a building-wide problem, maybe the local health dept. could have a little talk with him, mice carry a lot of disease.

I've always been told not to waste my time on ultrasonics.  The only person who told me otherwise said they work at first, and then the mice get used to it (similar to people getting used to everyday background noise).

Good luck!!

Unbelievable!  You guys actually SHOT mice in your house?  Dangerousdan....don't listen to them!  No way should you do that.  Have you guys ever heard of gun safety?  Sheesh!

My advice is to go with the cat(s).  Don't just go to the pound and get a cute little kitten or a formerly pampered house cat.  Check with friends or look in the paper.  You want a country cat....a barn cat.  An experienced mouser will rid your apartment of mice in a couple of weeks or less (depending on the severity of the infestation).  Just borrow one for a while if you don't want to be a cat owner.  It's the quickest, cleanest, most efficient way to get rid of them.  I speak from experience....guaranteed to work.

Let my wife come over and cook dinner for them....

The mice will starve to death.

Xanadu has it right.  He must be a pest control specialist or a Health Official.  I have been both.  Forget cats, most are too domesticated to do much good.  A mouse only needs 1/2 inch to enter a room, structure or apartment.  If you can put a pencil through a gap or crack, seal it up.  Metal works best. If you have holes in walls, steel wool or a metal pot scrubber, stuffed into it, with a flattened tin can nailed over it is a cheap effective barrier. Glue traps are good, use many.  BUT!! if the building is infested, total treatment is needed.  Call the local Health Dept. for assistance.  

Take an old five gallon pail and fill with a gallon of water. Then place near wall with a small board or slat leaning against the pail like a ramp. Place a small dab of peanut butter halfway up the board and inside the pail near where the ramp rests but make sure the bait in the pail is a couple of inches from the rim.
Mice go for food reach too far and drown, add salt to water for winter applications. Rinse and repeat as needed.

I agree on the point on getting counrty cats. All of mine were from my sister's friend who lives in the country. Now that I moved to the boonies in northern WI, I have soooooooooooo many cats it's unbelievable. When we just kept the place as hunting land (60 acres w/ stream running through it), we kept getting mice. They wrecked everything and nothing worked. . . except cats. It took two weeks for all (dozens) the mice to be killed. We used to shoot red squirrels all day, but now with all the cats outside we have not seen a single squirrel!

I caught 21 mice last year in a few days, used sticky traps and regular traps. One of the little bastards was caught by the ankle and dragging a trap across the kitchen floor once -- mice really splatter when you corner one and whack em with a baseball bat [stick]

You should kill them as fast as possible, and use a medium-strength CHLORINE BLEACH solution to scrub the place down with, both during and after.

Mouse piss can spread hantavirus, which is deadly.

If you get any "flu-like symptoms", go see a doctor.

Good to know.  Thanks 71

This really is a good way to do it!  Just a little twist to add on here if Dustdevil doesn't mind-

Take a wooden dowel & soda can.  Puncture the bottom of the can & run the dowel through the hole you made & the drinking hole.  Balance it across the middle of the pail & put the peanut butter on the can.  The mice will try to jump to the can for the bait & roll right into the pail.

Also, an exterminator once told me that sometimes mice will not touch anything unless they are used to seeing it for at least a day.  Let us know how you make out!

If you have a rifle chambered in .22 long then I suggest using .22 CB long bullets. These bullets are .22 caliber and the only  propellent is the primer. Clap your hands together and this is the only sound that the CB's make. Plus they do not penetrate walls.

I have Large Farms on 3 sides of my house.
There are several times a year when the buggers
make an exodus out of the fields to the houses.
Planting, Harvesting, And the first good freeze
of winter.

Peanut butter on the snap traps works better than anything else I have tried.

Plus you get that all important "Body Count".

If you set up 10 traps and kill 6\day you will see the progress and you will notice a rise or decline of that count sometimes daily.

And the buggers can smell the Peanut Butter from a distance and can not resist.

Good luck,

Del

BTW, I should have also said -- if you have any way to do so, MOVE OUT NOW.

You should be able to terminate your lease based on the rodent problem.  Dunno about Texas, but here in Seattle, it's easy to find an apartment without rats in it. [:D]

A cat is the best way to get rid of the little bastard. Or you could catch them and train them to perform circus acts.

I SAID I WAS KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!

NO SHOOTING INDOORS!!!!!!

When I was contemplating the idea I did a test.

.22 cal pistol- two inch barrel

.22 short

fired into a stack of drywall.

Results-over 3 inches of penetration.

That is 7 layers of 1/2" drywall laying on concrete.
The round damaged the bottom layer.
That is more resistance than you will get from layers of drywall-fiberglass-drywall-hair-skin-bone-brain!!!!!!!!!



I'm not kidding this time!!!!!!!!

NO SHOOTING INDOORS!!!!!!!!!!

Get the cats.  When you don't need them anymore, [i]then[/i] you can pull out the 12 Ga.

ARowner wrote:
Get the cats. When you don't need them anymore, then you can pull out the 12 Ga.



ARowner,

My cat happened to be in my lap reading the responses when I came to yours.  He told me to tell you to F*%# off.  Then he ran downstairs.  I guess I better go after him...

When I lived in Indy, the house I bought had mice.   I got two female cats.  (As we all know females are much much meaner than males, well in humans anyway [:D]).   When I moved in, the mice moved out!  I kinda like the cats though, so I'll keep my cats.  


For what it is worth, everyone down here in AZ keeps telling me cats are immune to scorpion stings.   So now I use them to kill scorpions.

Actually,  I have a Gamo target air pistol.  It only shoots 350 fps and won't even really dent drywall unless you fire straight at it.  It's HELL on mice.  We used to have some mice and I'd sit there and watch tv with the lights off and watch the baseboards.  Every once-in-a-while a mouse would run out and I'd shoot it.  It was awesome.  

Then some snakes moved into our yard and I haven't seen a mouse in over a year.  Those garter snakes are LOT more effecient than cats!

good luck.

crash

.22 Shorts are regular rounds. I was suggesting using a reduced power round such as Primer Only or shotshell ammo. I used Shotshells on a hard plastic bottle and it penetrated into but not through the bottle. I would say this wouldn't penetrate drywall. You may have to cover over some pellets though. These pellets are generally smaller than #8 birdshot. I would say they are more like #9 or #10 birdshot.