Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Mice that wouldn't take the bite
From: "Choise76Smu@EhOhEll.Net" 
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:44:14 -0500

Robobug  in
news:1180625345.382619.198210@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com: 

> On May 30, 8:50 pm, R Kannan  wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> We have a mouse (mice?) inhabiting our house that will not take
>> cheese as a bait in traps. We have seven traps all over the house
>> We have tried American and Pepperjack but nothing seems to be
>> working. 
>>
>> Any suggestions?
> 
> Mice can be extremely difficult to get under control.
> They prefer seeds and grain over dairy products. Though they will
> eat nearly anything.
> Baiting traps with various types of food may get better results.
> What are they eating inside of the house? That would be a choice
> for baits.
> Another type of bait isn't food at all, Mice use items found in
> their travels to build nests.String,cotton balls, thread, pet hair
> or human hair is an example of things they scavenge for. If they
> have a ready supply of food then they may not take to any food 
> placed as bait. Experiment with different items. It is also
> advised to place traps UNSET with items on them at first. Let them
> get used to the traps and begin to see them as a common household
> item. If a trap goes off without catching them, they may avoid the
> traps in the future. Thus mix up the area with glue boards. I have
> seen many mice caught on glue boards  they tend to not be as shy
> with them compared to snap traps.


mice are dumb. rats are smart. mice will continue to go for bait in snap traps. rats 
won't. rats prefer to eat food (indoors or outdoors) that they've found outdoors. 


i've seen both escape glue traps much more often than detained by glue traps.

best method is to use all methods simultaneously. cleanup indoors and outdoors, find 
the entry points (roof jacks, poor construction, etc) AGAIN (and again), set snaptraps 
with various baits (best to location where the trap is an attractive rare shelter along 
rats' route), leave poison in secure locations.

per usual recomm, i'd avoid the poisons if can "borrow" a psychokiller cat (which 
like most republicans, will kill a lot of birds before catching any rats), but i've never 
tried the psychocat method.