Mouse in the garage (fish room)

[emartin]

Last week when I pulled up to my house at night I saw a mouse run underneath the garage door.

Two days later I bought a $4 mouse trap (not the spring ones). And put peanut butter inside. It's one of those traps that after the mouse enters to get to the food it can't leave. So far nothing.

Tonight I noticed mouse droppings (big pile) under the one fish tank. I don't remember seeing it before so I have no idea if it is fresh or not.


Two questions...

One, any suggestions for getting rid of it/them? I will not be using any poisons in the garage (for multiple reasons, the fish, my dogs, etc). Should I go for the spring traps instead or get more of the one-way traps?

Two, apparently the one garage door doesn't firmly touch the floor. The mouse has been pushing up the rubber "feet" on the garage door and during the day you can see light coming in that one spot. So it appears the mouse is using the garage as shelter (unless it was just for the one night). There is no loose food in the garage at all, and only moisture is from the tanks and the only way it could get water is if it fell in the tanks (no dead mice in them, as far as I know). I'm not sure how it could've got on top of the tanks anyway since there are metal stands in there and tight fitting glass lids.

So anybody know how to adjust garage doors (motorized ones) so I can have it firmly touching the floor? Or anybody feel like stopping by to do it as a favor?





If I go with the snap traps, what should I use as bait? I'm using creamy Jif Peanut Butter in the one trap I already have.



Thanks in advance,
~Ed

[CrabbyMatty]

Ed, get yourself some glue boards. You can pick them up at any hardware store and they come like 4 or 6 to a pack. They're not very expensive. Use all of them and lay them aound the very perimeter of your garage including the area where you've seen evidence of their presence. I consiider these three season traps. The glue looses a lot of its tackiness when the weather turns cold, but if you're keeping tanks in your garage chances are it's a bit warmer in the winter monts too and would continue to work well then. To discard I just bag the board with the critter and into the garage freezer until next trash day.

[DJRansome]

We use the snap traps and peanut butter. But it isn't always a one-week thing.

They are also attracted to warmth and places that have bedding material like insulation, stuffing of car seat upholstery...anything.

And we found some of my son's paint balls in my car engine. Apparently the paint balls are edible and the engine was warm. I was wondering what that "hot crayon" smell was, LOL.

[clayn]

I have them come into my fish room once it begins to get cold. The first bait I use is fish food as that is probably what they have been eating.

[pogi2009]

I have the same problem, but only during winter. It started when I stored some left over bird seed. Caught a few with the sticky glue paper. But the rest of the year I don't see any.
So every winter, I make sure that there are no exposed "food" in the garage. Also my fish food are stored inside the unused refrigerator.

[emartin]

There's only one thing of fish food in the garage and it is way out of reach in a tightly sealed plastic bottle. They haven't been eating that.

My guess is they are either going in and out (not eating anything in the garage, just using it was shelter), or the mouse was just a one-time thing and eventually left before I even set up the first trap, or there is still some spilled grain, seed, and chicken pellet feed somewhere (pretty sure we swept it all up) and that's what is has been eating.


I'm going to get a couple of the spring traps and look into some sticky traps as well.

Thanks everybody.