So, long overdue for an update.
Some days after the last post to this thread I came home at night and, as usual, chose to not disturb my birdies with the bright overhead light. I always keep my walkways clear and, in retrospect, I'm sure I would have noticed anything in the middle of my floor. So, I walked through the somewhat dim room to reach my dimmable light. As I stepped backward from the switch and turned, I felt something Under. My. Foot.
Yes. That's right. It was a mousie. Just lying there. In the Middle of My Living Room.
So, retrospectively - he must have run behind my foot. NO i did not squish him, i think my foot rolled him over. Actually, after I exited the room -- umm, exited the house, in fact -- I kept peeping back through the window expecting him to have gotten up and disappeared. ((Which would have been ever so much Worse!! aaagh!!!)) However, he stayed put. Apparently he was killed by the rollover.
Anyway when I felt him under my foot - and hoped I had somehow just dropped maybe a glove - I looked back and saw him. And then hoped I was not frightening the Budgies and Sunny by jumping up and down screaming. Calmed myself for the birdies' sake, caught another glance of mousie, and found myself jumping up-n-down screaming again. After a few repetitions, realized the only solution was to exit the house.
Once outside I was able to calm down... somewhat. My landlord lives upstairs so I called & he happened to be on his way home. My firechief landlord had no problem at all scooping up mousie with a newsprint flyer. (Whilst I peeped thru the window awaiting the all-clear!)
So, that was mousie number One. He was definitely a full-size mouse. NOt the little baby that had snuck thru my budgies' bars.
So by this point I had given up on the CaptSure traps, due to No captures. I left them in place, but added the go-inside-and-be-killed, round D-Con traps. (Even though they make me nervous because a budgie
could stick its head in there.
Probably wouldn't, and still safer than a snap trap, but still make me nervous. (I'm thankful for the basket-over-trap suggestion; I now place dollar store plastic boxes over the round kill-traps whenever the budgies are out.)) I also found a product called "Mouse Magic" to repel mice. It's basically extra-large peppermint tea bags, with a pleasant & Not overly strong peppermint aroma. Not so dangerously strong as my peppermint oil! (Also, not so effective against mice who have already learned your warm house contains tasty birdfood.) I've placed these in every room, along with actual mint-tea bags near some openings.
Speaking of openings, there are one or two I've been able to seal, but in this older house sealing is mostly impossible. I got some steel wool... but a coworker mentioned flammability issues, for which I found some slight confirmation online. So I woN't put steel wool around the many baseboard heater openings, which are probably their main (but, not sole) access points.
About two days after the untimely death of mousie #1, I came home to my budgies sitting close together at the top of their cage, peering downward. Sunny greeted me right away, with an unusual greeting something like "EEP EEP EEP eeiiaaEEIIaa EEP EEP." (The EEPS are normal, tho she usually takes a few minutes to wake up, but the interjection was entirely new.) I looked all around and checked the round-kill-traps, but did not see anything. Sunny repeated her announcement a few times. I gave up & started to settle in.
Then I realized that although I could
hear the budgies munching seed, I could clearly see, they
weren't!!!!
(Turns out, Sunny's new greeting had been her imitation of my "oh look there's a mouse" call, aka me screaming like an idiot. She ditched the element of panic, but got the notes right.)
When I followed the budgies' line-of-sight, there was baby-mousie. Tucked up safely inside one of the Captsure Traps!
I had to call my landlord again. I had to put on big long-sleeve kitchen gloves, and had to ask him to place the trap inside a paper bag. I even had to ask him to place the folded-down bag onto my passenger seat for me! However, then I was (sorta) okay.
Mousie #2, aka baby-mousie, got re-homed by me to a field several miles away, over a river and halfway back to my workplace.
Mousie #3, a medium-size mousie, appeared in the same trap within another few days. (Maybe it was the very the next evening?) This time I didn't even remove my coat; I recognized the budgies' posture and Sunny's "Hey there's a mouse!!" greeting. Mousie #3 was re-homed to the same field, this time without my landlord's assistance. (Although, I probably could have carried Mousie more efficiently had my hands not been so determined to hold the paper bag further away than my arms could outstretch...)
Mousie #4 also appeared within another short period of time. However Mousie #4 waited till the middle of the night. I had taken melatonin that evening, unfortunately. I could hear him but it wasn't safe to drive. OR - I certainly COULD have safely driven mousie TO the field. I would've been wide awake!! However, the return trip, without awareness of Mouse!!!-In!!!-Car!!! to keep me alert, would have been unsafe.
So I resolved to sleep instead. After some hours dozing-&-awakening, repeatedly checking on him, I re-homed Mousie #4 a Different Field. Similar distance, totally different direction -- with a coffee shop on the way back.
So this was all a few weeks ago now. I had stopped using any liners in the cages since I first heard baby mousie in there. I'm cleaning birdies' cages multiple times per day, and vacuuming three to four times daily. (Got myself an easier-to-use stick vacuum for black Friday.) Food is out of the cages at night. (Well, mostly. Birds are not happy about that, so we've been negotiating.) I'm keeping the cages further from the window-curtains, and making sure any cage covers are far up from the floor. KNOCK ON WOOD, I have not seen signs of mice since the last re-home. Those four definitely account for each that I had sighted or suspected. I'm hoping without the lure of easy seeds, the "mouse magic" peppermint mouse repellent (plus the additional peppermint tea bags) might deter additional mice from entering. (And of course, I still have all the traps in place too.)
(Rosetta hasn't learned to lick yet: she just goes <<CHOMP>> to the great cost of my fingers).
