So, I have an ethical problem. Last night, at two in the morning, Goldie emerged from the basement with yes, another mouse. This time both Gary and I were awake for the mouse presentation.
(It is really remarkable how little a broom affects a mouse, by the way. I wailed away on that thing, truly thought it was dead, and swept it out to the front porch this time. Gary checked on it later and it was standing on its back legs. He felt sorry for it. I was sorry he didn't step on it.)
At any rate, we had been puzzled by why Goldie seemed to be off his feed. Curled up in Gary's cervical collar. Disinterested in playing Kill the Catnip Banana. He must have been spending his nights down in the basement snacking on mice.
So Gary thinks we have a mouse problem, as we did in '87. He says: "We have a colony of mice in a nest in the basement. We must employ strategies to kill the mice. No poisons, just good old reliable glue traps. Never open the basement door again."
I say: "We have mouse visitors coming in to the basement through the dryer vent, crawling through an imaginary hole in the subfloor, then plummeting to the basement, where they poop on the storage drawers in one specific place. All we have to do is patch the imaginary hole, and till then, Goldie can be the mighty hunter."
Gary thinks I am deluded. What say you?
Hm. Colony vs. stream: could go either way, but never opening the basement door again seems like... not... a solution, so I'd put an anti-mouse something over the dryer vent (or leave the dryer door closed), and do a "what's going on" check, either by borrowing the outdoor feed cameras, or, if that would be inconvenient or, due to storage, unlikely to show much of the mice, then by running lines of baking soda from absolutely wall to wall in a few places (like a tic-tac-toe board focused on the area you suspect) in the garage and/or basement, without Goldie present, and see what you see. (if mice cross the line, then mouse tracks are visible on and a bit past the lines of baking soda; baking soda doesn't attract anything and can be swept up later. Large bugs and spiders also leave (different) tracks, so if you Don't Want To Know, then that is maybe not a good strategy.)(we used a fine-mesh sieve to put the lines down when we were assessing our mouse problem)
The baking soda method only tells you which lines they have crossed or not since you've put down baking soda, not how many mice there are (unless there are significant size differences), but there may be available deductions to be made about where the mice have been going (and not going!) in your spaces.
Good luck!
Posted by: KC | July 09, 2024 at 10:58 AM
KC - Lots of valuable information there! And very kind of you to fess up to having had mice. I don't feel particularly hygenic today, what with the mice topped off with pinkeye..
Posted by: theQueen | July 09, 2024 at 11:08 AM
Ohhhh we totally had mice. From what I gather from friends, almost everyone with a "fixer-upper" or an antique house has had at least one battle with mice and sometimes it's just a constant state of feuding; we had two separate episodes of Mouse Wars. If your home is adequately permeable (for us, the Mouse Residence was 1940s temporary student housing still in use 70 years later...) and conditions outdoors become particularly unpleasant for mice either via weather or predators at *just* the wrong times to chase mice into your home, you will acquire mice. I'd bet your mice visited because of the heat wave and stayed for the trail cam goodies, if those are in the garage, but there are many possibilities.
(duct-taping the gaps between the pipes and cupboard-backs finally did the trick for us with mouse deterrence; presumably they found some other unit that was easier to get into or decided to stay outdoors; garages have so many entrance possibilities, though...)
Posted by: KC | July 10, 2024 at 12:02 PM
(also sorry about the pinkeye. That sounds wildly unpleasant, but *also* is generally not due to a lack of hygiene. I can see how it'd feel that way, though!)
Posted by: KC | July 10, 2024 at 12:03 PM
KC - I heard we had mice because we built the house on land that had been a farmer's field just before. Gary has ordered traps; I am going to look into securing any holes. (I did see one of the slats leading from the outside to the dryer vent was standing open. It might be as simple as that.)
Posted by: theQueen | July 10, 2024 at 06:22 PM