Mal: And I never back down from a fight. Inara: Yes, you do! You do all the time!

'Shindig'


Natter 77: I miss my friends. I miss my enemies. I miss the people I talked to every day.  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Beverly - Dec 17, 2020 12:57:17 am PST #1198 of 30000
Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.

Peanut butter on snap traps, Vortex. It's the most humane way of disposing of them, it's almost always fast and painless, and the traps come a dozen to a pack and are cheap enough to just throw out with the trapee. My dad used poison, they'd die in the walls and stink for days. Glue traps are right out, and I won't have exterminators for less than actual rats. Also, if you can find and block where they're getting in, that would be good, and worth the exterminator appointment.


Calli - Dec 17, 2020 3:54:52 am PST #1199 of 30000
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs

Plus with poison they sometimes go outside to die and get caught and eaten by the local wildlife first. So the hawk or fox or cat ends up getting poisoned, too. So I second the something that’s not poison recommendation.


Topic!Cindy - Dec 17, 2020 6:54:01 am PST #1200 of 30000
What is even happening?

I'm a bad citizen of earth when it comes to mice. If there's one mouse, there are two. Baby mice reach sexual maturity in a couple of months. Mice gestate in a matter of weeks. An adult female can have up to 10 litters a year. A little mouse problem quickly becomes a big mouse problem. If you can swing it, I would call an exterminator.


lisah - Dec 17, 2020 6:59:34 am PST #1201 of 30000
Punishingly Intricate

Evidently my parents' mean old lady cat *was* doing something because when she passed away last month the mice showed up. We have a family friend who's an exterminator and he took care of the problem for them, thank goodness.


Volans - Dec 17, 2020 7:48:52 am PST #1202 of 30000
move out and draw fire

Mice are nature's protein - they are meant to be predated but too many humans and too much human stuff have shifted the playing field. It's not being a bad citizen of earth to exterminate them from your house.

We use snap traps with peanut butter - the traps are far more humane so I don't have a total meltdown when disposing of the body. We do have a cat, but the one time a mouse got into the house, the cat was like NOPE and headed to the top of the fridge.


Jessica - Dec 17, 2020 8:05:09 am PST #1203 of 30000
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset

Seconding snap traps with peanut butter. If you're squeamish (like me), there are covered snap traps (basically a snap trap in a box) so you don't actually have to see the dead mouse once they've done their job.


-t - Dec 17, 2020 8:10:43 am PST #1204 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

3 week stay-at-home starts tonight at midnight for my county. This is a relief, at this point, although it's triggered by ICU capacity thresholds which is troubling to think about. I may have to actually go grocery shopping rather than overuse DoorDash but that's the most impact it will have on my current lifestyle, I think.


Toddson - Dec 17, 2020 8:25:06 am PST #1205 of 30000
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

Chiming in to agree with the recommendation of snap traps baited with peanut butter. My sister had glue traps in her basement, but her (elderly, fat, one-eyed) cat got caught. They got her loose, but she had glue on her paws, so walking was an issue. She ended up calling an emergency number, having to pay, and was told to use vegetable oil to remove the glue.


JenP - Dec 17, 2020 9:07:03 am PST #1206 of 30000

We do have a cat, but the one time a mouse got into the house, the cat was like NOPE and headed to the top of the fridge.

Ha, ha! Yeah, I don't think my two cats would know what to do (they are fully indoor, and we live on the third floor of a well-maintained apartment building - they've never seen a mouse that isn't stuffed and requiring them to animate it at all.)

Fourthing or fifthing the peanut butter snap trap rec. When we lived in South Philly a couple years ago, we had a mouse issue. Mice. Our little fuckers were picky - we had to try things other than peanut butter at one point. I do not miss mice one bit.


Toddson - Dec 17, 2020 9:24:35 am PST #1207 of 30000
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

We've had a mouse issue in our office which, considering that one woman has a real phobia about mice, is a problem. The pest control guys come in to check the place the mice seemed to be using as a home base and we've been mouse free for a while. The placed snap traps with the plastic "cheese" for bait around the office, but I don't think they ever caught anything. They liked the area under the office kitchen sink, but the guy with the drawer full of food might have been an attraction.