A house mouse averages 50 
droppings per day
House mice often frequent 20 to 30 feeding sites
A single female mouse may produce 56 offspring annually
This is the happy news from Victor®, the folks who brought us the first spring-loaded mousetrap in 1890.
Last week at the cottage I fell off my pinnacle of smugness and admitted there was at least one mouse in the back bedroom. We have never had mice in the cottage. Well, except for the one that died in the linen cupboard a few years ago. This time, I was cleaning out our cupboard of board games, which also had the Laser and sailboard sails, plastic toys and miscellaneous crafts from when the kids were young (string, paper, feathers – great for making mouse nests), and my favourite bathing suit coverup, a little monogrammed terry cloth affair left by the previous owner. It was in the pocket of this jacket, under her initials, that I found the first nest. The second one was on the floor in a back corner. Finally, as I poked the third nest out of a box of construction offcuts the kids used as building blocks, the furry resident appeared, scrambled out, and ran away. I guess. I don’t really know what happened to it after that, because I’m embarrassed to say I ran away, too.
As DH set the traps, I examined the packaging. Things have changed. This Victor Easy Set mouse exterminator was “pre-baited” – something in the smell of it, maybe? – and surprise, surprise,
certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the same group that approves the Ancient Forest Friendly 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper we use in Cottage Life magazine. Eco-friendly, non-toxic (unless you’re a mouse) traps. Who knew? By the way, the Victor website has helpful tips for catching mice if you have a few hanging about your own cottage.
I’d love to hear tips from you, too. If you have any mouse stories or ideas to share with other cottagers, leave a comment.
Posted in At the cottage,Mice,Nature,The environment
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
We bought our furnished cottage on Cordova Lake five summers ago. Before we took posession, it had sat unused for five years. Needless to say, the mice moved in and made it home. It took several days to clean, disinfect and throw out all that had been damaged by the mice. My next tasks were to find out where they were nesting and how they were getting in. It was a difficult task because there were droppings and little bits of chewed fabric and paper in several places: corners of closets, old skates and sneakers, and dresser drawers. It was in the dresser drawers (filled with extra linen) at the far end of the cottage however that required constant re-cleaning. I had never seen a mouse in either of the two rooms that housed these dressers, yet I knew the mice were somehow getting in and spending time in the drawers.
For the next three years, upon arrival at the cottage, before anything was unpacked, I did the search and clean up with disinfecting wipes in hand, picking up droppings in all the usual places. It made me crazy knowing that these little critters had the run of the house while we were away. For the most part, nothing got damaged (except for some flannel sheets now and again). They never got into our food cupboards. Infact, on two occasions we found that the mice brought in their own supply of food: the bird seed our neighbour puts out (found under my husband’s pillow) and acorns (found in my husband’s workboot). Nonetheless, I was not enjoying cohabiting with them.
Throughout those years, it was not unusual to be sitting around the dining room table in the evening, playing a game when a mouse or two would boldly sit aside someone’s foot for a moment before scurying away somewhere under the staircase. I knew there was some connection between the back bedrooms and the staircase. If ever I saw a mouse it was never travelling to the far end of the cottage, but rather towards the staircase. So we set traps and they seemed effective enough. In three years we caught upwards near forty mice. In the beginning my husband would set and clear the traps, which was great, but what to do when I was alone. Needless to say, I got darn good at removing those stiff little critters with eyes bulging out at me.
It wasn’t until last summer that I had reached my threshold for killing. Guests were coming to stay for a week and would be using the bedrooms at the far end of the cottage so I had to do the usual cleaning of the dresser draws. This time to my surprise, I had found what appeared to be a vacant nest – a six inch deep hole dug into the center of a folded electric blanket. With all the other sheets that were soiled I picked it up to throw it away. That’s when three little heads popped up. I called (probably yelled) for my husband’s help. He grabbed the blanket and whisked it outside. Shaking the blanket with one hand and swinging a shovel with the other took care of those three. I watched horrified and wished that they would just keep out. I went back to cleaning the drawers and found yet another one. This one wasn’t going to go down easily. I think something snapped in all of us that afternoon. Trying to catch that mouse became a game as we moved furniture, put up obstacles and waited patiently for it to come out of the sofa-bed. Even my three year old son got into it. Finally we cornered it in the bathroom. I had captured it under the cupboard with a straw broom when my husband came in with the shovel again. Needless to say it was a grim outcome for that mouse. When it was over I cried for some time. I think the adrenaline got the best of us. I was disappointed that I had allowed my dislike for these creatures to overshadow the fact that they were animals and were merely trying to survive. My son asked why I was crying and I explained to him that I was sad to have taken the mouse’s life and that I didn’t want to kill anymore of them.
Our guests came and went. The mice stayed out of their dressers but still ran around the cottage during that week. I knew that the only real solution was to figure out where they were entering the cottage. Again, I knew there was something about the staircase, because that’s where we trapped the most mice. So one weekend last August my son and I took on the task. We pulled away the staircase (five steps) which revealed an unfinished outside wall. Using a srewdriver and steel wool we filled every crack between the boards regardless of how tiny they were. To my astonishment, we found a hole where two boards were supposed to meet but for whatever reason didn’t. The mice had easy access into and out of the cottage! But that was about to end. I covered the hole with a tight fitting wooden plank. My son and I felt pretty good about what we had done. Many were skeptical, but to this day (knock on wood) we have not been visited by another mouse.
What an experience! Thanks for the story – I’m glad you finally found the holes. Mice can slip through a space as small as a dime, but steel wool is a good stuffing material because they can’t chew through it.
Like Tami, our camp had not been occupied for many years before we bought it, more than 15. Surprisingly, there wasn’t near as much nesting and droppings as I would have expected but the mess was there, nevertheless.
As we gutted the inside of the cottage to insulate we cleaned and disinfected everything we could. DH took a can of spray foam and filled every single crack he could find. We filled the bigger holes with steel wool. Because there was no insulation in the cottage, it was easy to see the outside light through the cracks. We bought late in October, so we kept out fingers crossed throughout the winter that we had done enough to keep the critters out. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case, but the traps and the poison seemed to be working somewhat. We had only a few mice every so often. I purchased one of those plug-in deterrents and continued using the poison as well. Long story short I really think that plug-in thingy works because we had only 2 mice for the next 3 years. A few months ago DH unplugged it and put it away thinking it was a bug trap [huh?]. Lo and behold, we had one little varmint in the camp last week. We’re not sure where it came in, but it was NOT welcome. DH got rid of it and I plugged the deterrent thingy back in. Keeping my fingers crossed that we see no more.
On another note, I’ve heard that those traps that are set OUTSIDE the cottage work wonders. I’m gonna look into getting one of those – but I forget the name. I’ll check the forum!
Good to hear from you, Debb. I’m curious about the notion of setting traps outside the cottage. One would think there’d be an unlimited supply of the darned critters. If you find out more about the traps, or a product name, please let us know.
By the way, for those who don’t know, Debb has her own cool enviro-savvy blog with tips for cottagers.
Hey Penny,
Thanks for mentioning my Blog!! The more visitors the merrier!!
I found the site for the Mouse Trap – looks good to me, and I think it really makes sense. If we get one, I’ll be sure to let you know if it works.
http://www.oustamouse.com
Thanks for the info, and now I’m embarrassed. These folks, based in Hunstville, Ontario, were at the 2007 Spring Cottage Life Show!
Is it me or is this a prolific year for mice? We purchased our gettaway in the fall of 2005 and other than the usual mess and droppings when opening saw no mice inside last summer…this summer I’m catching at least one a night in the traps. We can hear them in the walls, DH almost smothered me at 4 a.m. one morning as he leaned across my head and tried to ‘see’ where the noise was coming from! One critter even had the nerve to use my curtains and curtain rods like the 401, running up the curtains and then back and forth across the rod with me trying to knock it off with the broom. At one point it stopped and when I put the broom up to the rod it had the nerve to just lean over and have a sniff before running up and through the hole it had chewed in my ceiling (around the steel wool that had already been placed there by a previous owner by the way!).
We have 3 cats although only one, Gusto, is a real mouser. He’ll sit and watch a corner for hours while the other 2 wait for the tedious work to be done before sauntering over to check out what the fuss was about. If Gusto does manage to catch one he sashays out with it dangling from his mouth and a definite ‘check out how good I am’ look on his face. At this point I jump up, grab a wash basin and as soon as he puts it down for the other 2 to admire, I slam the upside down basin over it and put something heavy on top so the cats can’t free it again. The look of confusion on Gusto’s face is hilarious as he tries to figure out where his prize suddenly disappeard to. I’ll then get a piece of cardboard, slide it under the basin, tip it over with the cardboard still covering it and take the whole contraption for a long walk away from the cottage before letting the critter run free once again. I’m sure he’s laughing all the way as he beats me back to the cottage.
I can highly recommend the new types of traps that work by smothering the mouse. They are easy to set and release the ‘body’ afterwards. I’m not aware of traps that are set outside the cottage but there is a product that we purchased at the Cottage Life show called ‘Oust a Mouse’ that you fill with poison bait and set outside under the cottage or deck; it’s supposed to tempt them away from coming into the cottage for food. I can’t say if it works well yet as it keeps disappearing and then reappears the next day in the middle of the lawn. We had it screwed to a 2×6 board with concrete blocks on the end of the board. The first time the box and board were gone, the second time the box was ripped off the board before it went walk-about. We aren’t sure yet who or what likes to take the box for a walk but that’s a story for another day.
I haven’t heard if this is the Year of the Mouse, but I can tell you that population fluctuations in animals are regional and usually related to fluctuations in the animal’s food source. The favourite food of deer mice, the most common type seen around cottages, is the seeds of maple trees. If your area had a large crop of maple seeds last year, the mice would have hoarded them. This nutritious store of food would have enabled them to produce large litters this year. Not that this bit of trivia is likely to make you feel any better.
Being new cottage owners on Lake Temagami (and new subscribers to Cottage Life) has brought the understanding that mice like to be as warm and dry as their human counterparts. I can’t say that our cottage has an overabundance of maple trees, but rather a lot of poplar and spruce, along with several other species (birch, unknown scrub bushes, etc. et.). As there are very few maple trees, it is obvious that our deer mice have developed a taste for other scrumptous arborial treats. I can say that I have noticed that, as hard as they try, they cannot swim. Over the last few weeks we have found several in our toilet, as my husband says, nose down and ears up! And they are quite bold….running across the carpet in plain view while we are in attendance. Over the past week, we have captured seven of the little critters. Now this cottage is not new to us. It was my in-laws cottage which we have now taken over, and I can’t say that I ever saw a mouse in the cottage when we were holidaying previously. I suppose they are trying to make us feel at home? So the saga now begin in earnest for us. I am hoping that we have some luck with trying to rid the cottage of our unwanted inhabitants, but only time will tell.
Off topic, I would just like to say that I enjoy scouring Cottage Life for helpful hints and really neat stories now that we are cottage owners. Thanks for all of the hard work over the years, and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Thanks Heather. Good luck with the mice. Let us know if you find any magic solutions.
I’m wondering if Michelle (July 13th posting) could tell me about the mouse trap that “smothers” the mouse. I thought knew just about every mouse trap so wonder what you mean or could tell me what kind it is. Thanks.
I really enjoyed the man vs. mouse section. We have a cabin on an island on Rainy Lake in Northwestern Ontario and I am sure my spouse and family think I am nuts for how I am constantly on the lookout for mice and in making sure that every hole in the cabin is plugged. One of the best ways to make sure that all the holes have steel wool in them is to go under the cabin at night with the lights on – any holes will have light shining though them. My vigilence has given us five mouse free years so far – so dont’ give up. Love the magazine and the show.
I have been battling mouse infestation in my cabin for as long as I can remember. I have trapped and released, trapped and killed, lured and drowned them, installed sound emitting devices, you name it if there was a method I have tried it. Last year was so bad I even contemplated selling the old joint. I went to the fall cottage show and purchased two Oust-a-Mouse bait houses. I went to the cabin, installed them exactly as per their directions under my deck, removed all the traps from the inside and left for the winter. I returned last weekend to prepare things for the march break and was completely blown away. For the first time ever I didn’t have to clean up mouse dirt and there was no musty smell in the cabin. Both bait houses are empty so I had to refill them. This was without question the best purchase I have ever made. Design a better mouse trap? What for! I have found the solution and I strongly recommend the product.
Where to start? We have a cottage on portage Bay, about 6 miles out from Honey Harbour. The nickname of our place, bestowed the first week we had it, is “Mouseview”.
That was 35 years ago. Although the nickname has stuck, we have been mouse-free for about 10 years, since we tore down the last debilitated bit of the place and replaced it, assuring it was mouse-tight as we went. Do I think we have a permanent solution? Of course not!
Here are my theories and pracitces:
1. Agree w article that one mouse follows another, so plugging holes is imperative. However, while I do not think mice work hard to get into a building, I think they will work very hard to get out. Therefore, plugging must be accompainied by eradication of inside mice.
2. I have had excellent results with a bucket type mousetrap called a “Maine Mouse-Ah”. Its general design is as the ones described in your article on alternative mousetraps. I have taken to making them out of 5 gallon buckets for friends. In any case, with a few inches of RV antifreeze in the bottom, you are good to go for up to 7 mice at a setting [at least that is my personal record] Adults, I might add. the advantage of a multiple-kill trap, of course, is that it can catch all winter, a thing the spring types can’t do. As an anecdote, last winter I failed to close off a drain pipe which allowed mice to travel up said pipe into the empty commode. In the spring, I was horrified, after 9 mouse free years, to dicover doo-doo and 5 or 6 mice [not smelling] who had failed their swimming test and were dead in the antifreeze. I closed off the pipe and waited to see iff any had failed to succumb to the siren call of the peanut butter bait, or whether I had misapprehended their route of entry. Imagine my satisfaction to have no more mice up through the third weekend of Feb,’08.
3. The only attitude to adopt is that the only good mouse is a dead mouse, a hardened attitude born of long term infestation and some appreciation of the disese they can bear. Smack ‘em, drown ‘em, whatever.
4. Plugging holes. While metal is best, I have made liberal use of spray foam because it fills any thing, and, with reference to 1., above, they are not driven to enter a place and nothing will keep them from getting out if you trap them inside. and if they get out they leave a trail for their buddies to follow to get back in. Now I am back to paragraph 1., so farewell
Our Cottage has been in the family for over 35yrs.and some years are worse than other for unknown reasons. We found the best deterent for Mice is good old stinky Moth Balls or Moth Ball crystals. After Thanksgiving we put out Moth Balls in the closets, storage areas as well as underneath the cabin, approx. 2 boxes of them. The only down side to this, is that when you walk in on opening day you’ve got to keep the windows open to air everything out. We have been very fortunate that we haven’t had any critters move in for about the last 10 years. If you have young children around, you need to explain what they are and they are not to be touched or eaten. Our family & friends are so use to the scent, they don’t even notice it anymore. If your lucky enough to have a fox living in the area, lucky you, as foxes feed on mice and small rodents.