Darn mice in my Vidmar cabinets

[pcmeiners]

Have a mouse problem in my shop. Placed all shorts of delicious poison around, sprayed garlic oil/peppermint spray around, but the mice are smarter than me. Biggest issue is they are using my Vidmar cabinets as condos. Nests are bad enough but they piss on everything in the Akrobins, which instantly rusts. They get into the drawers through the holes in the base of the cabinets. Looks like I will need to cut and glue thin metal plates over the holes; have 13 cabinets all with heavy materials in the bottom drawers. Un-needed work

 

[four.cycle]

mice hate Lavender

 

[supersaiyan93]

mice hate Lavender

I wish that worked on the mice here in Georgia. lol. The ones in my garage did not care about the lavender one bit. I ended up getting some poison boxes on Amazon and putting them around. Seems to have worked. The only type of mousetrap that conclusively caught any mice for me were unfortunately sticky traps. I monitored them very regularly to make sure any victims didn't suffer for long, but my sympathy doesn't last long once I see chewed wires on a car.

I spent the majority of my efforts on exclusion. I changed the bottom seal on the man door, and got some rodent exclusion products for the garage door. That, combined with the poison traps seems to have made the biggest difference.

 

[1Bad55Chevy]

Invest in a shop cat!

 

[woody 73]

I have mouse condos in my garage, just this week I put my hand in the bolt bin and pulled out a handful of sunflower seeds,lol. I'm not crazy about rats, had a big one smile at my wife and me, so we bonked it on its head with a broom, not hard just enough to shoo it away. Dog thought better of it and tried to eat it, that did the trick yuck.

 

[GrayFlattop]

Glue boards.

Yes, it’s cruel, but I’ve spent far too many hours over the years cleaning up mouse **** to care.

The other advantage of the glue boards is they aren’t going to crawl into a corner or under something and die - you know exactly where they are.

 

[RTM]

Looks like I will need to cut and glue thin metal plates over the holes; have 13 cabinets all with heavy materials in the bottom drawers.

When I’ve had to do **** jobs like heavy drawers, I’ve put a platform close to the height, so pull out, lift to disengage the lock, and that is the approx height of the platform, so minimal lifting, slide forward. Slow, but beats emptying each drawer.

 

[starlight_tools]

I went into one of my drawer units yesterday under the drill sharpening system and found a bunch of bird seed, LOL. That and squirrel tracks leading to the cabinet. Also found a walnut in the upper head raising slideway of the B&S #13.

We had rats move in a few years ago, so we got two cats, have not seen the rats since. Occasional mouse or vole, but cats have cornered, trapped and killed a few of them.

One word of caution, be really careful with rat and mouse poison. It takes a number of feeds for them to die, as the poison is not that concentrated as it was years ago. So they feed and go running around and if they get caught by an owl or a cat or whatever, now that animal has secondary poison.

We had an owl die on our deck that the raptor recovery group in our area determined was from eating poisoned prey. He was sitting on the railing, hardly moving, until he fell off the railing and bounced down the stairs. At this point we called the raptor recovery group and they sent out a recovery person. Before they arrived he started bleeding, and died shortly after. They said that another owl had died earlier in the year, same problem.

This summer a couple camping at the Provincial Park a few blocks from us had a cat escape from their tent. In spite of a massive search party at the time they did not find it. A few weeks later I noticed a cat in our back yard that looked like it. It took the couple a week, but they managed to catch their cat. When they took it of the vet, they were informed that it was showing signs of secondary poisoning! Last I talked to them, the cat will live, but they paid a fortune in vet bills to treat it.

Snap traps, sticky traps, live traps, cats, terriers, put up houses that encourage owls. Seal the place so they can't get in. Mice can squeeze through a hole about the size of a pencil and rats about the size of a quarter, but please no poison.

 

[Gangly]

That's a neat picture! Is that the owl that wound up dying from poisoning?

 

[Nutria]

Snap traps all day long. They kill instantly. Sealing is key if you can manage it. Once you get the mice cleared out, keep some traps set. That way you'll have an early warning if they come back. Once they get a population going, it's hard to clear them out.

 

[Tynee]

Snap traps all day long. They kill instantly. Sealing is key if you can manage it. Once you get the mice cleared out, keeps some traps set. That way you'll have an early warning if they come back. Once they get a population going, it's hard to clear them out.

I keep a couple of snap trap set all the time in my garage. Can't keep the mice out of the crawl space, which makes for easy access to the garage, so I just be sure tol have some tasty peanut butter available for the advance scouts.

 

[GaryM909]

A lot of people have put blue or red led lights under our RV's including myself at our resort. Blue is suppose to to the mice away and red is suppose to keep mice and squirrels away. I had a squirrel get into my RV basement compartment but since I put the red lights underneath I haven't had a problem. My neighbour across the road has both red and blue.
Might be worth a try.

 

[slowtwitch73]

Snap traps do not always kill instantly... where does this stuff come from?

Never caught a mouse by the tail or leg?

I'm no fan of catching mice with sticky traps, but they work well when things are 'code red'.

They can catch a traveling (escaping) mouse, not just an eating mouse. They can catch multiple mice (mom and babies), they work 100% of the time where a snap trap can sometimes be licked clean without triggering.

 

[Nutria]

Snap traps do not always kill instantly... where does this stuff come from?

Never caught a mouse by the tail or leg?

I'm no fan of catching mice with sticky traps, but they work well when things are 'code red'.

They can catch a traveling (escaping) mouse, not just an eating mouse. They can catch multiple mice (mom and babies), they work 100% of the time where a snap trap can sometimes be licked clean without triggering.

Sheesh, I try never to argue about online stuff (it's a really dumb thing to do), but I guess I have to make an exception in response to that comment.

"This stuff" comes from my personal lived experience with snap traps: a greater than 99% kill rate if the animal is caught. Occasionally the traps don't trigger, that is true, but triggering rate was not addressed in my comment.

You are talking apples and oranges: You question snap trap instantaeous kill rate and then veer into talking about catch rate with glue traps. If you want to keep apples with apples, then discuss the instantaneous kill rate with your glue traps-- which is notoriously poor, and the reason many of us avoid them. And instantaneous kill rate is what you were questioning, right?

Hanta is a concern here, as it may be for you, and it's important to get this right. Killing humanely is also important to me, so snap traps are the way to go for me. If you want to use glue traps, ok. You do you, and I'll do me.

 

[Steve_P]

Scents don't work anymore IME. yeah, coyote urine, etc, worked 20 years ago but it stopped working 10+ years ago for me when camping.

 

[gimpyrobb]

A bucket half full of antifreeze with a can suspended on a wire up top. Put some peanut-butter on the can and the mice can't resist. The can spins and they fall in the liquid to drown. I have yet to find a better method.

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[starlight_tools]

That's a neat picture! Is that the owl that wound up dying from poisoning?

Yes, this is the first time we've seen an owl in our yard. It was sitting on the fence post of the deck when we woke up, stayed there for quite awhile just sitting still, could walk right by it.

It wasn't till it fell off the post and rolled down the stairs that we figured something was wrong. Such a beautiful creature, was so sorry that it did not survive.

 

[slowtwitch73]

Poison is bad stuff... so much collateral damage.

 

[Tim in Indiana]

I had a problem with mice getting into some vidmars. They were coming in from the bottom through the holes you lag them to the floor or each other with.

I used electrical panel knock plugs to cover the holes. I think 1" conduit size if I remember correctly. They snap right in and completely cover the holes.

Once they were all plugged that was the end of mice in the cabinets.

 

[InStinuE]

I wiped out a huge infestation around my mother's chicken coup with DIY pet safe poison. Tons of salt, molasses, an egg and enough flour to make a stiff dough. Baked em like cookies and chucked them under and around everything. It took about two weeks and a few batches but absolutely decimated the population. Little to no risk of collateral damage and no real risk to her dogs. I was amazed at how effective it was.

 

[Kscardsfan]

Peanut butter on the old school mouse traps works great. It's nearly instant. I'd also find a feral cat that looks hungry. They'll work for their food better than a housecat.

 

[pcmeiners]

I used electrical panel knock plugs to cover the holes. I think 1" conduit size if I remember correctly. They snap right in and completely cover the holes.

Sounds good to me !

 

[SouthernIllinois]

Need ya some of these....lol

Jack and Diane - our two outside rodent killing machines.

 

[slowtwitch73]

^^^^ dragged it in from the outside lol.

 

[SouthernIllinois]

^^^^ dragged it in from the outside lol.

Distinct possibility.

I know you don't dare step out the back door barefoot.....lol

 

[texasprd]

Mothballs? Seemed to work for evicting raccoons from my parents attic years ago - might have also chased out mice/rats

 

[SouthernIllinois]

Mothballs? Seemed to work for evicting raccoons from my parents attic years ago - might have also chased out mice/rats

I wish I had gotten a picture of it......

We had a problem with ***** shitting on our porch.

Someone told me mothballs would keep them off the deck.

Bought some, cleaned the old **** up and tossed out a handful.
By sheer dumb luck as they landed they formed a nearly perfect circle.

The next morning I went to check the effectiveness and.....

They had crapped right in the middle of the circle - it's almost like it was a target...lol

A .30 cal M1 carbine proved more effective at keeping them off the porch.

 

[Mohawk Dave]

I have a bunch of Vidmars etc. I cut little pieces of lexan and hot glue them to all the dang holes in the very bottom of the cabinet. That way I can pop them loose if I ever need to.