# 1 Mouse + Vegetable Oil = Mess



## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

So we're dealing with a mouse infestation and my husband insisted on buying these horrible, inhumane sticky traps. You know the kind where the mouse gets stuck and can't be peeled off? Well, we caught our first victim tonight and I couldn't bear to let hubby "stomp" him, as he put it. 

So I put the little guy, trap and all, into my bathtub and bathed him in vegetable oil until the glue loosened up and he was able to separate himself from the trap. Now he's sitting in a box waiting until morning, when I'll drive him far away and release him into the wild. He's slick with vegetable oil but otherwise healthy. Meanwhile, I get to scrub out my bathtub.


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## tsilver (Aug 9, 2010)

The mouse gods will reward you for your kindness!  Should you be called a humanitarian?  I guess not since mice aren't human.  How about a mousetarian?


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

If I have bad dreams tonight about mice and vegetable oil I'm blaming you.
deb


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## Barbiedull (Jul 13, 2010)

You can buy traps they go into without being harmed. You can release them somewhere "safe". They
have some on Amazon....


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## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

Some years ago, I worked for a government organization which put those horribly inhumane traps in our warehouses.....in addition to mice, we "caught" birds, bats, lizards and an occasional government inspector.....

Dish soap and oddly enough WD-40 worked pretty good on freeing the poor critters. (We left the inspector).

I do not have a problem with exterminating a health hazard/pest; but be humane.....


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## GreenThumb (Mar 29, 2009)

Ugh, those sticky traps are just monstrous! We have a live trap like this one. It works really well.

Here's a story that happened to me few months ago. I was doing laundry early in the morning, before anybody else got up. I put the first load in the dryer, and went back to get the next load. I shut the lid on the washing machine, turned the knobs and got the water going, opened the lid, and there was a MOUSE RUNNING AROUND IN THERE!!!!! EEEEEEEEKKKKKKK!

How do you get a mouse out of a washing machine? And how did he get in there so fast?!

I shut the water off right away, and the poor little thing stopped running and sat all hunched over, wet and breathing hard. How the heck do I get him out of there without hurting him? I grabbed the great big suede gloves I use for loading wood in the wood stove. I tried to catch him, but he was freaking out and zipping around in there practically faster than the eye can track him.

Oh, and did you know mice can jump? Really high? Like nearly all the way to the top of the washing machine tub? But not quite high enough to rescue himself.

So I'm standing there, gloves up to my elbows, back door open so I can rush out once I've got him, freezing my butt off because the back door's open. We're studying each other, me looking down on the little guy, and him looking up at my Big Giant Head of Doom.

Then I got the idea of putting a box in there, and maybe he'll climb inside, or fall inside after one of his ill-fated leaps-for-freedom. I got a K-cup box, which is maybe 5" x 5" x 7". It was the smallest box I could find. The opening is small enough to clap a glove over. I put peanut butter inside, and threw in some dog food for good measure (because after I get him outside, I don't want him to starve, right?) I put it down inside the washing machine, and he realized that if he climbs up on top, he can jump higher, like right up into my face for example. Yeah, ask me how I discovered that.

He was absolutely not interested in food at this point. He was, however, interested in hiding under the box, which was big enough to leave a space below itself, because of the uneven shape of the tub.

I got a toilet paper tube out of the garbage and smeared peanut butter inside, removed the K-cup box, and put the tube down there instead. The mouse rushed inside immediately. I was so surprised it worked, I forgot to clap my gloved hands over the ends. Luckily, he stayed inside, and I did manage to clap my gloved hands to the open ends and took the tube outside.

I carefully set it down on the ground, stepped back, and he shot out of there like a rocket and right back into the laundry room. ACK! I have no idea where he is now, but I bet he won't get back into the washing machine at least!


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Barbiedull said:


> You can buy traps they go into without being harmed. You can release them somewhere "safe". They
> have some on Amazon....


I actually have two of these traps. They worked the first few times but now the mice seem wise to them and avoid them.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

GreenThumb said:


> Ugh, those sticky traps are just monstrous! We have a live trap like this one. It works really well.
> 
> Here's a story that happened to me few months ago. I was doing laundry early in the morning, before anybody else got up. I put the first load in the dryer, and went back to get the next load. I shut the lid on the washing machine, turned the knobs and got the water going, opened the lid, and there was a MOUSE RUNNING AROUND IN THERE!!!!! EEEEEEEEKKKKKKK!
> 
> ...


Hee hee. This is a hilarious story. It totally sounds like something that would happen to me. Hubby and I once took the whole washing machine apart trying to catch a mouse that'd crawled up inside it. We never did get him.


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## vsch (Mar 5, 2009)

We use sticky traps in the cottage. My dad decided to do the whole catch and release thing once. He peeled the mouse off the sticky trap and let the little guy go in the woods. The next day we found a mouse in the cottage in a  sticky trap.....he had leaves and twigs stuck to his butt. Yup...the mouse who got the second chance came back.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Funny how they'll do that, isn't it? You'd think they'd learn their lesson after being caught once.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

Dara England said:


> Funny how they'll do that, isn't it? You'd think they'd learn their lesson after being caught once.


No, they think of the space they're in as "their" home. So they try to get back to it unless you release them pretty far away.

One suggestion for the humane among us, try repulsion techniques. If you have a friend with a cat, get some used (but not too stinky) cat litter. Also mice are supposedly repulsed by peppermint oil.

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Mice-Naturally


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## leslieray (Mar 16, 2010)

drenee said:


> If I have bad dreams tonight about mice and vegetable oil I'm blaming you.
> deb


LOL!! Deb!!!


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## Tris (Oct 30, 2008)

I didn't know they were made for mice.  When I used to live in a first floor apartment, I got LOADS of bugs.  Don't know where and how they came in, and had to get the apartment managers to spray for them every month (it's what they usually do and you can request for them to come in to your place).  Well, one day after picking up my dog from a grooming appointment, I noticed those REALLY sticky pads here and there.  I was told they were non-toxic and my dog kept sniffing at them.  Lo and behold, all sorts of strange bugs (west coast bugs seem to be VERY different than east coast bugs) got caught.  Only the next day, I went out to get my mail...I swear I was gone for a second!  My dog ate the pad, I say pad, because he got bits and pieces stuck all over!  My poor dog had to sit thru me trying to cut and some pull bits off.  Sadly this wasn't the last time...dang dog, didn't know where he got them all. 

I can't imagine a poor mouse!  I would imagine it completely freaking out, how did you manage to get the oil and take it off?  I used to have hamsters and I'm sure if they were completely wild they would bite my fingers.  I remember seeing a show where a pet snake got stuck on one too...I absolutely hate snakes, but aw, man the poor snake with oil all over and it was SO stuck to it.

Tris


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## Karen (Feb 12, 2009)

I found a mouse in our washing machine once, tried to catch it.  They are really quick.  I gave up & put the cat in with it, closed the lid to keep the cat in.  Checked a few minutes later and both cat & mouse looked up at me like I was nuts.  So I let the cat out, got a mason jar & trapped the mouse in it.  I figured if the cat didn't eat the mouse it could live, so I released it into the woods.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

I have a friend who caught a mouse humanely in her house. She and her husband captured it, and took it out to a vacant field near their home. They set it free, watched it bound a few yards, then a hawk swooped down and snatched it up.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Dara England said:


> So we're dealing with a mouse infestation.


Dara, you are a very kind person to scrub down a little mouse with vegetable oil. But if you really have an _infestation_, you might need to buy a few more gallons of oil.... 

GreenThumb, what a great story. I would freak out if I had a mouse in the washing machine!



Karen said:


> Checked a few minutes later and both cat & mouse looked up at me like I was nuts.


LOL! I can just imagine this. These newfangled city cats, right?


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## caseyf6 (Mar 28, 2010)

Hilarious story...  I'd have screamed bloody murder if a mouse jumped at my face.  Then I'd have screamed at myself when the bugger ran back in the door I left open.

Ugh.

We've tried the sticky traps but ended up catching a pigeon, three lizards and a frog, but never the rodents.


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## kindlequeen (Sep 3, 2010)

Mouse vs Mousetrap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plz9JxsnhH4

I saw this yesterday and the thread totally made me think of it!!!!!!

Good luck Dara, honestly I don't think I could get past screaming if there was a poor helpless mouse stuck in my house. You're a brave soul for giving it a bath and sending it on its way.


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## cegrundler (Aug 16, 2010)

What is it with mice and washing machines? One morning I go down the basement with an armload of laundry. It's early so my glasses aren't on yet but I see what I figured was some lint or whatever in the bottom of the washer. I reach in to retrieve the mystery shape... and it runs and jumps! I'm not the least bit afraid of mice but I hadn't expected lint to move and I'll admit I let out a bit of a scream. That poor thing must have fallen in and spent the night trying to escape! Fortunately I had one of those neat little catch-and-release mouse traps on the shelf nearby. I put it in and the mouse gladly ran straight in, and I took it out to the yard and released it. And now the house rule is never to leave the washer open... I shudder to imagine what would have happened had I simply tossed the laundry in and hit start without checking! 

Greenthumb, you remind me of the time my husband brought home a tiny lizard he'd rescued from his job. He works in an industrial area of Queens, NY, but there's a tropical plant importer nearby and he thinks this lizard hitched a ride to NY on one of the plants. He comes home with a cardboard box taped closed, with a few small holes poked in it with a pen, and tells my daughter 'It's really quick.' Sure enough, as soon as she begins to lift one corner of the box it shoots out like a bullet and disappears through the tiniest gap below the dishwasher. Needless to say DH spent the night removing the dishwasher and two kitchen cabinets fruitlessly trying to retrieve the rapid reptile. For weeks there were random sightings throughout the house and our cats thought we'd brought them the best toy since the laser pointer.  Finally we were able to locate and retrieve our guest when one of the cats cornered it in my daughter's boot, and we brought it safely to a friend with several lizards.

Dara, it's actions like yours that restore my faith in humanity. Thank you for the happy story!


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## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

kindlequeen said:


> Mouse vs Mousetrap
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh ! Thank You for that ! Giggled out loud !!


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

cegrundler said:


> Greenthumb, you remind me of the time my husband brought home a tiny lizard he'd rescued from his job. He works in an industrial area of Queens, NY, but there's a tropical plant importer nearby and he thinks this lizard hitched a ride to NY on one of the plants.


My hubby once brought home a gecko from work. We don't have them in these parts so we think he rode in on one of the trucks (hubby works in a paper factory). We turned him loose outside but I have no idea if they can survive in our climate.


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

Hahaha, these stories are hilarious! We used to have mice in our old house and we used the old-fashioned snapping traps, but it was SO disgusting to open up the cupboard and see a mouse snapped in two. Ugggh! Those sticky traps sound pretty bad too.

I wouldn't recommend releasing exotic lizards though!! Any animal not native to the area has the potential to become an invasive species if they're able to survive and find others of their kind. A lot of the time, they won't have any natural predators because they're unusual to the area. 

I once was picking up some laundry and found a GIANT spider under it. I don't mind spiders, but it surprised me and looked an awful lot like a hobo spider. I smashed and smashed it with a textbook until I was sure it was dead (sorry, I don't mind sharing my house with a few spiders, but I don't like the dangerous sort!). We took it to school and looked at it under a microscope later and managed to identify it as a giant house spider, so when a few others showed up, we politely showed them to the outdoors instead of crushing them.

I actually, uh, took a picture of the spider before I crushed it (always the bug photographer at heart), but I'll just post a link so it doesn't terrify the arachnophobes! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v484/jess_photos/DSC_0002.jpg


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## Cathymw (May 27, 2010)

These are hilarious mousie stories.

I've never had mice in my laundry, but my mother often had crickets in the laundry she was about to load in the washer. I could always tell from the screaming.

Me, I've never had a mouse in the house (to the disappointment of my two cats) and don't have a problem with crickets either, since my cats think they are great toys too.


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## albianne (Jan 22, 2011)

Holy Mother of God, Jessica if I saw your house spider in my house I would have a heart attack on the spot, that is huge!


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## cegrundler (Aug 16, 2010)

That's some spider, Jessica!  

In my home we have a live and let live policy when it comes to spiders, and I'm constantly relocating them to outdoors before my cats discover them. My philosophy is this: spiders have never done me any harm, but they're happy to snack on things I've been bitten or stung by.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Yikes, that's a big spider Jessica. 

My hubby is always getting onto me for not killing spiders. Our house is full of fiddle-backs (brown recluses) and I have a tendency to just let them be. They're venomous so I really ought to squish them, I know...


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## Sienna_98 (Jan 26, 2009)

Just had my own run-in with a mouse (or maybe more?).  Never saw the sucker, but my car was acting up so I took it in.  Turns out a mouse had made a nest in the engine of my car (which never sits in the garage for more than 24 hours and is driven almost 80 miles every day).  Anyway, said mouse decided that the wiring in my car was tasty.  The mechanic was able to address all the visible wire damage, but the AC still isn't working (and we are already hitting 80 degree days), so that will probably require more digging around on his part.  In the meantime I purchased those plug-in rodent repellant doohickeys, plus toxic bait.  I'm not taking any chance that this guy or his friends are coming back for more!


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## rla1996 (Oct 28, 2008)

My mom uses those glue boards to catch mice whenever she had a problem at her house.  But she wages all out WAR and puts traps in every doorway of the house so that they can't move from room to room.  All in all this is not a bad idea, except for the fact that she also has little people running around the house all the time (my nieces and nephews).  The first time she used the boards the whole house was awakened at 3 AM to the sound of my 3 year old niece screaming.  She had gotten up to go to the bathroom and stepped on the trap... needless to say the traps came up from their bedroom doorway that night.  So here we are 8 years later and the traps are down again... this time its BROAD daylight and the same niece steps on the trap again... by the time she asks for help her entire sock is stuck to the trap and the trap is turned upside down and stuck to the tile floor.  It took us 2 hours, oil, Vasoline and WD-40 to get the dang thing off the floor.  We had to peel it up in pieces might I add.


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## julieannfelicity (Jun 28, 2010)

That's so sweet and I think what you did is so awesome! I would do the same thing. They have mouse traps that are like little **** traps. They're more humane, and they're a black box so the mouse doesn't panic and have a heart attack when they're trapped. You can bring it to the woods and release the opening, without the mouse seeing you or you seeing it.


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

You guys make me laugh.  

And I mean that in the kindest way.
However.....
vermin are vermin.
I take pains to make sure that my house is "sealed".
That being said....vermin - mice, rats, snakes, ants, crickets, stinkbugs, etc. that invade my house leave only one way - dead.
I do not want them coming back.  And they will.  And they reproduce.

One of the hardest things to get rid of is squirrels.  Trying to catch them is hard - period. And when trying to get to them humanely they will bite.  I have had luck getting them out of my attic by putting moth balls near them and they leave, taking their young with them.  Then I seal up the way they got in.  That was several years ago.  Then I trimmed the branches of the trees that provided a highway to my house.  No problems recently.
I do have a hav-a-heart trap for chipmonks.  I "relocate" about 10 of them each year.  Yes I take them to the park (over 5 miles away) and let them loose.  Any closer and I swear they just walk back to my house.
I love the hawks.  The deer, bunnies and squirrels eat more of my garden produce than I do.  So any predator is a friend of mine.

Sorry I know we were being all cuddly with the germ-infested mice.  But I like to keep my family safe first.


Just sayin.....


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

T.L. Haddix said:


> Snakes? Here in Indiana, we don't have much problem with them. Growing up in eastern Kentucky, however, different story. Rattlesnakes and copperheads abound down there, and when it is warm weather, every step you take outside you have to watch for a snake. I do not miss that.


Ooh I asked my boyfriend if we could move to Kentucky the other day (applying for every job I can find) and that is the EXACT reason why he said no. I told him just to not reach in rocky crevices and he told me that they just lay around everywhere. I like snakes, but I don't think I could handle that.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Sienna_98 said:


> Just had my own run-in with a mouse (or maybe more?). Never saw the sucker, but my car was acting up so I took it in. Turns out a mouse had made a nest in the engine of my car (which never sits in the garage for more than 24 hours and is driven almost 80 miles every day). Anyway, said mouse decided that the wiring in my car was tasty. The mechanic was able to address all the visible wire damage, but the AC still isn't working (and we are already hitting 80 degree days), so that will probably require more digging around on his part. In the meantime I purchased those plug-in rodent repellant doohickeys, plus toxic bait. I'm not taking any chance that this guy or his friends are coming back for more!


Wow, that would suck. I never knew mice would nest in your engine like that. Hope they never get into mine.


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## Sienna_98 (Jan 26, 2009)

All the years I parked my car outside it never happened.  For the last 7+ years it has been parked in the garage every night.  I never would have guessed a mouse would take up residence there, but my mechanic told me it's not uncommon.  We've had a relatively cold winter (for Central Texas) and I guess he liked to snuggle up to the warm engine.   So, I highly recommend the plug in repellent (they sell them at the big box hardware stores) which emits some kind of noise I think (but is safe to have around cats and dogs).


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

T.L. Haddix said:


> Hubby has had mice in his car two times that have created a problem, and both times, they destroyed his blower motor for the fan. Turn on the heat/air, and nothing happens. GRRRR....


Yikes! I _need_ my air conditioner!


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## swcleveland (Jun 6, 2010)

You can catch them live by:

Put peanut butter on the end of a ruler.  Balance the ruler on the edge of a desk, counter, etc. with a garbage can underneath (empty, no bag).  The mouse will walk onto the ruler after the bait, unbalance the ruler, and fall into the can.

From there you can free it, stomp it, feed it to your snake, or whatever.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

What a clever idea. I'd never even thought of it. Now I've gotta go buy a ruler...


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

kindlequeen said:


> Mouse vs Mousetrap
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plz9JxsnhH4
> 
> I saw this yesterday and the thread totally made me think of it!!!!!!


I watched this because of NapCat's comment.... but..... am I the only one who is disturbed by the thought of how this footage was produced?


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

I would think it was a funny video, except that I'm worried about the poor little mouse. Wish they'd shown him get away or something in the end.


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