planetdan

Sunday, October 01, 2006 :::

Mouse Jerky

I broke down and called an exterminator. I'm paying an extravagant amount of money for some mouse bait traps that he took 15 minutes to place strategically around my house. Then he used some scare tactics to get me to agree to a three month extended service contract that would all but ensure my house be mouse free by 2007.

But I was concerned about the poison. Would the mice eat the poison, crawl into the walls, die, rot, and stink I wondered out loud? "No, no, no," my pest expert replied, "we use special poison that dehydrates the mice from the inside out. So yes, they will eat the poison, crawl into the walls and die, but they won't rot in stink. Instead they shrivel up and harden. Kinda like Mouse Jerky."

I don't know if this is true or if he's just trying to make me feel better, and even if it is indeed true, is mouse jerky the better route to go? Do I really want to move a ceiling tile someday to find a pile of nearly mummified mouse carcasses? I googled Mouse Jerky but got no helpful results.

Homeownership has become really distasteful to me lately. But we caught another one last night. Three down, god knows how many to go.

::: posted by dan at 11:27 PM :: [ link ] :: (24) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

24 previous comments:

Did he tell you if you could eat the mouse jerky if you found it? Maybe you could consider it kind of like an Easter egg hunt.

By

Erik, at 5:17 AM

Yeah, they shrivel up. But they still stink. REALLY bad. That guy is full of shit. We had a mouse problem last year and used Decon, which, you guessed it, dehydrates them. And I personally found three dead mice just by following their rotting corpse smell. Ewwwyuck.

I'd take their dead, stinking carcasses (if you can find them!) to the exterminator's office and ask him to sniff them...

By

Darcy's Twin, at 5:49 AM

GET A CAT or two. Make sure it is a 'street' or 'farm' cat -- they are the best mousers. Dead mice in the attic is uncool.

Also, by the way, go around the base of your house and make sure the obvious cracks are caulked. It may not eliminate the problem, but I bet your numbers would decrease.

By

Anonymous, at 7:39 AM

Is there construction or demolition nearby? The few times I've seen indoor furries was when an adjoining lot was being cleared. If that is the case, then it might not be an on-going problem.

By

toddbee, at 7:54 AM

"I googled Mouse Jerky but got no helpful results."

That is why I come here some often.

By

Anonymous, at 8:29 AM

At our old place, the mice wouldn't come out of the drop ceiling because of the cat. So after a while, even if they were "dry" and didn't stink, you'd notice an influx of large, black flies. Big buggers. When you see those, even if there's no stink, you know there's a dead critter in the wall, floor, or ceiling somewhere.

By

Scooter, at 11:49 AM

If you really don't like cats some small dogs will hunt too. We have a corgi and he will catch anything. The one we had before him, would actually sit and stalk them. You wouldn't see her for hours then she'd show up with a dead mouse at your feet.
Code example: And they are just too cute for words anyway...

By

the other sarah, at 2:32 PM

I had a mouse once, in my bathroom. It crawled under the bathtub and died, of course where no normal human could reach. We tried making the cat retrieve it, too.. cats don't especially enjoy DEAD mice, we found out. We just had to let it decompose. I hope to God I'm dead before that bathtub is ever ripped out.

Sorry that was in kind of excrutiating detail, but it was really theraputic. Someone should dedicate a blog to mouse stories. Yeah.

By

thelibrariAnne, at 4:58 PM

Listen, those exterminator guys - they lie. After they are poisoned they come out looking for water. I once paid a couple of kids walking to school $20 to come pick up a rodent that was very sick from the poison that had passed out on my living room carpet. They were very happy. I have cats now. They are great, but not all cats are mousers.

By

Anonymous, at 5:28 PM

the stench will be more than you could ever possibly imagine. a couple years ago, a squirrel died in my attic. I know a squirrel is larger than mouse, but it was truly the most foul odor a person could fathom. before discovering the source, I was ready to burn the house down. my guess is several mice could add up to one squirrel. and that means moving. it still makes me sick to think about it today.

By

Anonymous, at 6:41 PM

During the winter we set up a mouse trap in our cottage in northern Ontario and it kinda goes like this.....

Get big pickle bucket (any big plastic bucket works)

drill two holes on either side about 3 inches down from top

cut bottom of empty tin can off

slide dowel through one drilled hole, then slide tin can over the dowel..
slip the other end of the dowel through the other drilled hole

coat the entire tin can with peanut butter

place a "ramp" up to the dowel, as in a piece of wood so the rodents can climb up and get on the dowel

see where I am going w/this?

we pour some antifreeze into the water at the bottom of the bucket..cuz you know it gets cold up in Canada..

it always works.

why does it always work?

cuz the dowel stays still but as soon as they put their rodent body on the tin can, it just rolls around and dumps their ass in the water.

try it and let me know..what can it hurt?

at least you know where the dead bodies are.

By

Anonymous, at 9:13 PM

i know a guy who can get you a breeding pair of mouse eating spiders if you would be interested?

By

Anonymous, at 9:41 PM

when i lived with the parents, my bedroom shared the bottom floor with under-the-house storage and the garage, where my dad used to keep the chopped-up wood for the fireplace. i think my mouse friends used to come out from there and hide in my room. one night i could hear scratching, and in my paranoia, thought it was a giant spider, but no, far worse. the next morning i lay very still trying to hear where the noise was coming from, and a mouse ran over the top of my bed, over the top of me. i nearly shat myself, but luckily, the mouse had already taken care of that part for me...when i checked under my sheets, a nice little collection of poos had been deposited at my feet. those sheets were chucked out soon after.

By

Ems, at 3:29 AM

Are you serious about the mouse-eating spider?

By

Anonymous, at 10:06 AM

I need to say "nearly shat myself" more often. love your comments, Ems.

I especially loved the "paid-schoolchildren-$20-to-remove-dying-rodent" story. Seriously, I hope my kids don't go into a stranger's house on the premise of earning an easy twenty, cause I SO would have done that. When you are the happy camper who is not afraid of spiders or mice, you get a rep, especially at an all-girls camp. I emptied and set eight or so mousetraps in the communal bathroom every morning of camp (for five summers). The other girls would get me outta my bunk at the crack of dawn to do it because they had full bladders, and depended on me. Being only eight or nine, I KNOW I didn't wash my hands before breakfast, either.

good funky memories right there.

By

toddbee, at 10:30 AM

For those of you who feel bad for Mickey & Co., you can feel better knowing I just saved a mouse trapped in my birdfeeder of all places. At first I thought he was dead but when I realized he wasn't I had to set him free. Then he ran over my foot and I screamed.

By

Anonymous, at 2:19 PM

EWWWW!!! Mouse Jerky sounds so gross!

Mikey

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CampBlood, at 3:48 PM

holy crap. I had no idea that mice were such a prevalant problem. I've never had nor seen a mouse and I almost shat myself just reading that story. Honestly, if I found mouse poop in my bed I would have to boil myself and move.

By

Anonymous, at 5:00 PM

"I googled Mouse Jerky but got no helpful results."
Really, what did you do THAT for, again?
Georg

By

Anonymous, at 5:44 PM

I'd stick with the cat idea. they're much more loveable than the exterminator.

By

Anonymous, at 6:32 PM

A king snake would also work nicely.

By

Sandy, at 3:26 PM

yeah... i'm with previous commentors on stink. granted, mine too were squirrels but they stunk to high heaven. we also had flies galore which we realized likely were maggots turned flies feeding off the carcasses.

best of luck on the problem.

By

aisy, at 11:51 PM

I found the horrible shrieking sound the mice would make, once they'd eaten the poison and their brains were about to explode, totally annoying.

By

Colleen, at 7:38 AM

I second the kingsnake idea, their gaurenteed to eat the mice unlike the cat, they can get into unreachable locations, and their are not dangerous to humans. best of all when the mice are gone they will leave and you shouldn't have to worry about them.

By

Anonymous, at 8:24 PM

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