cant recall who posted it, but did the snake that went into the ductwork ever get caught? Slow day at work. Just curious.
any update on the snake in the ductwork?
- Thread starter Huskerfan2112
- Start date
I've found that putting the D-Con bait stations around the house once the nights turn cold is the only thing that kept the mice out of my house. I trapped like 14-16 of them the first winter we lived there with snap traps. Drove myself nuts trying to get rid of them.. Last winter I put the poison out. Had to refill the poison a decent amount, but I sure wasn't hosting walls full of mice.
It is that time of year when stuff starts trying to get in. I don't normally have an issue with mice, but also used the D-Con twist trap. The little sucker had chewed a hole in the 50lb dog food bag, so I placed it there and got him the next day. Felt bad for him, but the last thing you want is a house full of mice. They will eat through the walls and cause all kinds of problems.
My wife freaked out when a baby garter snake got into our home. She kept our cats away from the snake fearing for their safety. She screamed bloody murder and smashed the poor snake with one of my shoes. When I finished laughing I told her she over reacted and then flushed the snake down the toilet. She wouldn't go in that room for a week and made sure that she had her shoes on.
If you had one you'll have more. The weird part is they didn't get into the dog food or any of the stuff in the kitchen from what I could tell. Seemed like they were happy to live in my house and dine elsewhere.
I tore out some old insulation a while back and several pads had old nests in them. Between the mice and the chipmunks, something had chewed right through the wall under the porch and they had a little rodent highway right into the basement. From there it was up and around all through the walls.
I put bait in 3-4 places around the perimeter of the house and also a couple spots in the house where they like to appear. Wasn't perfect but it was sure better than the year before.
You know, they are pretty resilient. Who knows...maybe he'll survive and re-emerge? LOL
Actually if you have snakes around perimeter you won't have mice. I would prefer the snakes. Plus outdoor traps are the best prevention versus waiting till mice are inside. Also coyote urine works damn well as a deterrent. Mice don't like coyotes.
Garter snakes eat bugs. You gotta have big snakes for mice. We have coyotes in the area, but evidently they're not pissing on my house. The mice are not deterred, it seems, big regular ol' black lab piss.
And if anyone tells you to use peppermint oil, don't bother. My mother-in-law doused the area under our kitchen sink with peppermint oil. While it DOES help the dead mouse from stinking as much, the mice do not stay away from it. Basically now the smell of peppermint just reminds me of cleaning dead mice out of traps.
I'm actually considering breeding bull snakes and letting them go around my property to help control the rodent population. It's a complete joke come fall when the mice all start trying to come inside.
Had no problem last year, but this year I caught one in the garage, found another, and there's one in the house at the very least. Annoying to say the least. Hate mice, although not sure these sticky traps were the best idea.
OK long as we are on this mouse hunting deal. A possible house fix would be the smoke machines used by the insulation people. You set this thing up inside the place and they pull a draft with fans. The end result is where the smoke exits around entry points. aka mice entry points.
It's worth a try. Stuff it with steel wool if you find a gap, but it's a rare house where you can eliminate every space big enough for a mouse to enter. They can get through a hole the size of a dime. Pretty much if they live in the area, they're coming in to get warm.
We have skunks in our neighborhood, some hippie always wants to tell you that canine urine will scare them off. Let me promise you the skunks where we are don't give two shits about the dog itself, let alone its piss. Getting your dog skunked is a rite of passage in my town.
