Crap. Mice?

[housegeek]

I think we have mice in our attic. I've heard weird sounds in the ducts and the blown insulation has what looks like tiny, quarter sized tunnels (don't know if thats normal or not). No poops that i can see, but I haven't dug around. We're going to set some traps, but some issues with that is if we do have mice, they are just going to die and rot in the insulation (gag).
We just bought the house 3 months ago nearly to the day, is this something that the builder should have to cover? Or is it our first "part of owning a home" cost?
What would you do? Have you done? Help!

[simpsongal]

I would probably set one trap w/food in it to test if you have mice. Put it in a place you can access - check it every day (it probably won't take more than a day to catch one if you have 'em)

[glitterngold1014]

Is there any way you can get or borrow a cat? We have mice too and are thinking of borrowing my mom's friend's cat who is a good mouser and letting her roam our house for a week. I think this is just part of owning a home

[teeah22]

Nov 30, 2012 14:29:09 GMT -5 glitterngold1014 said:

Is there any way you can get or borrow a cat? We have mice too and are thinking of borrowing my mom's friend's cat who is a good mouser and letting her roam our house for a week. I think this is just part of owning a home

We have feral cats roaming our neighborhood for this reason. I guess the lady across the street actually trapped them, brought them to the vet, had them spayed/neutered and had their shots done, and then brought them back. I've seen at least 3 different cars stop to feed them. Apparently they're very effective mouse hunters and we were asked nicely not to mess with them when we moved in.

[housegeek]

I don't think I can put a cat in the attic :/ We do plan on adopting a couple mid next year though, for that reason.

[glitterngold1014]

Nov 30, 2012 14:39:12 GMT -5 teeah22 said:

Nov 30, 2012 14:29:09 GMT -5 glitterngold1014 said:

Is there any way you can get or borrow a cat? We have mice too and are thinking of borrowing my mom's friend's cat who is a good mouser and letting her roam our house for a week. I think this is just part of owning a home

We have feral cats roaming our neighborhood for this reason. I guess the lady across the street actually trapped them, brought them to the vet, had them spayed/neutered and had their shots done, and then brought them back. I've seen at least 3 different cars stop to feed them. Apparently they're very effective mouse hunters and we were asked nicely not to mess with them when we moved in.

Well that's a plus - should keep the mice down from the outside coming in! If they don't stick around your house specifically very often, if you feed them, they'll stick around your house more and keep the mice population down. My parents used to have a ton of outside wild cats that roamed their backyard (and were really friendly). They never had mice problems. Or snake problems either.

[kaylie]

I would call a professional exterminator. Mice are not something to mess around with since they reproduce quickly and can get out of control. We have a service that comes every 3 months and it's $100 each time. They treat for all pests (insects and rodents) the first time and then do maintenance applications following that. We had a lot of stink bugs, silverfish and carpenter ants when we moved in. The treatment took about a month to wipe everything out and we haven't seen bugs since.

[teeah22]

Nov 30, 2012 14:44:11 GMT -5 glitterngold1014 said:

Nov 30, 2012 14:39:12 GMT -5 teeah22 said:

We have feral cats roaming our neighborhood for this reason. I guess the lady across the street actually trapped them, brought them to the vet, had them spayed/neutered and had their shots done, and then brought them back. I've seen at least 3 different cars stop to feed them. Apparently they're very effective mouse hunters and we were asked nicely not to mess with them when we moved in.

Well that's a plus - should keep the mice down from the outside coming in! If they don't stick around your house specifically very often, if you feed them, they'll stick around your house more and keep the mice population down. My parents used to have a ton of outside wild cats that roamed their backyard (and were really friendly). They never had mice problems. Or snake problems either.

They tend to hang out across the street, but I've seen them around the man made "lake" that's behind our house (yard is fenced). I haven't seen any mice around so hopefully it stays that way. I definitely have to give my neighbor credit for trapping them though, that's pretty hardcore.

[housegeek]

Thanks Kaylie. I think we'll just do that.

[Deleted]

I also recommend a professional; hantavirus doesn't play. We had a guy come seal up our house for around $500 when we had rats in the unfinished basement. He set a bunch of traps and then sealed up every tiny hole he could find. They chewed through one more spot, and he came by to replug and re-trap. His work came with a one-year warranty. I would not use a service that poisoned though. It's not good for birds/animals/pets that might find the poisoned mouse, it's asking for rotting smells in your attic for a long while, and having poison leftover/lying around wouldn't be good for any pets you do get in the future.

[Susie]

Oh goodness, no, I don't think the builder should cover mice 3 months later. It's something you're going to have to deal with occasionally over the life of the house.

We had basement mice over the summer (weird) this year. We had significantly better luck with these traps:

than with these:

They sell bait stuff for them (in a little bottle) but peanut butter works just as well.

I don't know, I'm not really bothered by dealing with mouse traps and mice. I emptied the trap 2 or 3 times when we caught them this year. The plastic ones are easy, they work just like a clothes pin. Into a bag and out to the garbage, done.

I would put some of the plastic traps up in the attic relatively near an access point so you can check it easily. If you have mice, you'll either catch one or get your bait stolen, undoubtedly. If you trap them, they won't die in your insulation and rot there.

I did find a couple long-dead mouse carcasses in the attic over the garage when I was up there doing wiring for the family room recessed lighting & surround sound. That was kind of gross. But apparently it never smelled for anyone to notice.

[housegeek]

Thanks Susie

[cajungal]

We had a problem (and may still) with mice in our garage. Our house is a new construction as well, and we've been there a month. We put out kill traps that are all enclosed and you throw the whole thing in the trash, and also this store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/victor-tin-cat-mouse-trap-308. We baited both with peanut butter. Haven't caught anything with the kill traps, but caught 2 with the live one and released them far far away. Good luck with this. Very frustrating and not something to mess around with. The mice ate through the padding of a car seat that we had in the garage.

[cajungal]

Oh, and this is definitely not something the builder should handle. Sorry.