Got mice?

[Kenneth Voort]

Hi everyone,

With everyone winterizing their trailers this time of year, I thought I'd share some of the methods I use to keep the mice at bay. I had mice (or at least incontrovertible evidence of them) in my trailer when I was up today for two big reasons - a) I haven't used my trailer much this year so it was relatively free of human scent, and b) I hadn't yet taken any measures to keep them out.

They got into my kitchen drawers and chewed a few rags up, and into the storage under the dining seats, where I keep some grass seed. They made quite a mess of my grass seed. Fortunately for me, I also keep rat poison in that drawer. Unfortunately for them, they got into that too. I'd say I got lucky.

I've been looking after trailers and hunt camps for a few decades now. It's become a bit of a thing – if a friend gets moused, I come up, stay a few days, and... take care of it. Most folks really don't want to deal with mouse infestations and I enjoy the lack of other humans more than I hate the company of mice. One or two were bad enough that I brought my respirator. As a child and tennager/young adult, I looked after winterizing and "mouseproofing" the family trailer. I've never truly, properly been moused... touch wood.

Here's my list of things I go through when I winterize my trailer or a friend's place:

• First off, bear in mind that nothing is ever truly mouseproof. Your trailer will always be a place without winter winds and without predators. Mice know that, and they can squeeze through a ¼ inch hole. They will visit you.

• The One Big Thing you can do is remove any and all food sources. I have a bunch of dry goods (pasta, instant rice, spices, granola bars, sugar, flour, etc) that I keep up at the club over the winter. I move it to the back of the main hangar and store it in the lockers there for the winter. I put a padlock on that locker not to prevent theft by humans, but by mice. They're very sneaky. Now, by "food" I mean anything that could be seen by a mouse as food, and as I recently learned, this includes things like grass seed — but obviously excludes rat poison (more on that later).

• Your trailer will also contain many things they can use for bedding. If you can't realistically take it home for the winter, then lock it all up. This includes paper towels, kitchen rags, coffee filters, blankets, pillow cases, pads of paper, clothing, even cellophane and tinfoil. Get storage bins with latching lids (not just snap-on lids, but latching lids), store all of that in there, and then hogtie them with duct tape. Make sure they're not flimsy – mice are smart enough to know that such bins often contain survival supplies and will chew through them. They're rodents, and can probably chew through more than you think they can.

• Open all of your drawers and cabinets, and leave them open all winter. Mice like enclosed spaces, especially for breeding and nursing.

• Look under your trailer. Is there anything there they can use as a ladder that would help them get in? If so, get rid of it, or move it. Don't give them any means of ingress that you don't absolutely have to.

• If you can, plug any ventilation holes you can find with steel wool. Mice hate that stuff.

• This is one of my favorites (it's my mother's) - I sprinkle bay leaves and cloves over all the horizontal surfaces. I don't know why mice don't like that — but they don't. I have confirmed this, admittedly anecdotally, with tests (one drawer with the stuff and one drawer without, and without fail, they pick the one without, every time). It's a godawful mess to clean up in the spring, but it works.

• During the rest of the year, keep your food in higher cabinets if you can. The higher they are, the less likely mice are to find it.

• Last, but not least, is rat poison. I don't like using it for a few reasons. It's a horrible way to die, and it doesn't just kill the mice, it kills anything that eats them after they expire - notably, birds of prey.

Rat poison works because once a mischief (yes, that is what a group of mice is called) has learned that your home could be their home, they're very hard to keep out. They're stubborn and strong headed and very sneaky. They teach other mice that your trailer might have food and shelter, so even if you scare off the first few mice, the ones they've taught may not be so easily spooked. However, they never seem to get smart enough to not eat rat poison, especially in the winter months when food is scarce and starvation is a real threat (I understand starvation, but that's a whole other story...) Rat poison will take care of the mice that see through your shenanigans. As much as I hate using rat poison, it works.

Before you use rat poison, please use mousetraps - the classic Victor snaptraps. They really truly and for real have never made a better mousetrap. They're humane. They're effective. Death is instant, which is a far cry better than warfarin poisoning. They're cheap, as in a buck a piece, so you can throw the whole trap out with the mouse if dealing with this offends your stomach. But when you do use rat poison, put it where you see mouse droppings.

Fingers crossed, I've evicted the mice that visited me. I thought it a good idea to share a few of the methods I employ.

P.S. interestingly, they didn't touch my clover seed, which I keep with the rat poison and grass seed. They went for the rat poison before that. Chalk that up as another reason I like clover seed.

[James Lemke]

Good points Ken.
As a cottage owner, and now as a plane owner, I've had to deal with mice more than I would like.
Stuff holes with steel wool. It's cheap & effective.
I too find that cloves are a good repellent. I put some in a small to medium plastic container with a number of small holes in the lid. Place inside.
Also, I use mouse poison (Tomcat bars are my usual brand / type) in a "mouse house" that is OUTSIDE the area to be protected. It's a bad idea to put an attractant inside. Put the house near possible points of ingress and screw it down to something an animal won't move. A few feet of 2x6 will do. Check poison levels often. There is a passable mouse house with Tomcat poison. It is a bit difficult to open but if screwed down, it will do.
That's my 2 cents worth.

[Kenneth Voort]

While I agree that it's generally a bad idea to keep attractants inside, I will not keep them outside.

Keeping poison outside will poison mice that have no interest in my trailer, so is less effective if only because it will be eaten quicker. Beyond that, inside or outside, it's still an attractant; keeping it inside limits the critters that find it. That is the logical reason.

The moral reason is, not only is rat poisoning a very slow and excruciatingly painful death, it also moves up the food chain. Owls and hawks and coyotes and all manner of predators that eat mice (many of which are useful to keep the mouse population in check) will also be poisoned, and many will die in a similar manner.

Warfarin poisoning is my last resort, and I employ it as sparingly as humanly possible.