<p>When I went out about 3 hours ago to do errands, I walked right by a mouse sitting on our basement stairs. I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything. When I returned an hour ago, it was still sitting there. My husband said he had walked by it too. I have poison out in the basement so I’m thinking it must have eaten some and is dying, but what should I do in the meantime. I have guests coming tonight! Do mice carry rabies? Any suggestions, anyone?</p>
<p>Cover it with a cup or small trash can, and slide a piece of cardboard under the container.
Flip it over, keeping the cardboard lid on tight. Dump it outside. If it doesn’t run away, you will have to choose between dumping it somewhere else or killing it and disposing of the body.</p>
<p>No, mice do not carry rabies. They may carry other things you don’t want like hanta virus. Check the US Center for Disease Control website.</p>
<pre><code>Now that you have dumped the mouse outside, could I interest you in a guaranteed mouser kitten?
</code></pre>
<p>Hope things went ok with your guests. If you have ongoing problems, don’t worry about rabies–just avoid getting bitten. (A bigger issue with mice is hantavirus, which you are not likely to be exposed to either unless you have hundreds of mice & droppings). I have problems with mice in our chicken coop and have never been bitten disposing of the live mice I catch in a bucket.
Old fashioned traps baited with peanut butter or cheese are very effective. Most effective of all is a good cat–but you can’t have poison around if you have a cat. We have not seen a single mouse in our barn since a cat moved in three years ago–and we used to have lots. The mere presence of a cat will deter mice from moving in.</p>
<p>Thanks dylanr and cottonwood. No cat for us because my DS is allergic. I’m thinking I will wait a bit and see if it keels over before I try to move it. If I put it outside and another animal eats it, will it poison that animal?</p>
<p>Thanks, Pootie, for your input. My guests aren’t coming until tonight, so I have some time.</p>
<p>Hanta in the US is unheard of outside the Southwest and Rocky Mts. And only certain types of mice carry it. Common house mice rarely carry it. And hanta is spread by virus particles in feces and urine not by the mouse itself.</p>
<p>If it’s any comfort, a house mouse is more likely to give you bubonic plague than hanta.</p>
<p>And we use bacon to bait our traps—sticks better than cheese which tears and crumbles. Peanut butter also works well.</p>
<p>I also have 2 good mousers around the house, though one has a unsettling tendency to drop “gifts” of still living wood rats at my feet when coming inside.</p>
<p>And if you can’t have cats–I’ve known some dogs to be good at mousing. I had one–and she was a big dog not a terrier.</p>
<p>A poisoned mouse will poison whatever eats it. If you believe the mouse is dying of poison, it’s better to kill it yourself by breaking its neck and dispose of it in the trash. If you can’t do the neck breaking, you can wrap it tightly in plastic so it will suffocate and put it the outside trash bin.</p>
<p>DS is allergic to dogs too. But I’m glad hanta is so unlikely.</p>
<p>
Yes they can but it’s hard to say how badly it would affect the animal that eats it - a cat is way bigger than a mouse so I wouldn’t expect the tiny bit of poison in the mouse’s stomach to be terrible but it’s enough that they issue warnings to this effect. Maybe a vet can say for sure.</p>
<p>If you check the mouse poison you might have used and notice it’s been eaten then you should be careful about disposal of the mouse. This sounds bad but you could always put it outside and if it’s not behaving normally, i.e. if it’s just sitting there lethargic, it could be dispatched with a shovel or something and then either buried or put in a plastic bag and placed in the trash.</p>
<p>Would he like a chipmunk to keep him company? ;)</p>
<p>Gosh, you guys are barbaric.</p>
<p>I vote for the open cup with a top on it, take it outside, and put it in a bush or something. If it’s dying, it will die. If it’s just hanging out or dazed, it will eventually “wake up” and go its merry way.</p>
<p>I could never “dispatch” a mouse. Poor thing! He didn’t ask to come in your house!</p>
<p>I would take cottonwood up on her offer of the kitten, or if you’re outside of Chicago, hit the local rescue group. You can have an outside cat even if you’re allergic. My nephew’s wife is terribly allergic, to the point where she can’t even be around me without swellling up, but she has a couple of good mousers in her yard that take care of the rats from the nearby canal.</p>
<p>bethievt-I noticed your comment about your husband being allergic to dogs. You may wish to check out West Highland White Terriers-nick named: Westies. They have hair rather than fur and therefore are not typically an issue for those allergic to dogs…AND they are good ratters!
(I am very allergic to cats-eyes swell up shut!) and we have a Westie.
I hope this helps-
~APOL</p>
<p>" I could never “dispatch” a mouse. Poor thing! He didn’t ask to come in your house!"</p>
<p>Sure you could. After a momma mouse gives birth in the drywall, the babies die and stink up your house for months, you have a different opinion of the cute mice.</p>
<p>And don’t count on your cats to keep the mice away. Mine don’t.</p>
<p>I used to have a mouse problem back in one of my previous residences. </p>
<p>Sticky traps and good ole’ mousetraps work fine. The key to maximizing their effectiveness is to place them in strategic areas where mice will most likely roam. (i.e. cupboards, closed spaces, areas where you found the mouse, etc.)</p>
<p>Just check your traps periodically. </p>
<p>We once found a mummified mouse in our aged sticky trap. -____-</p>
<p>Go ahead and do the cup trick, put the mouse in the bushes and let it go. Most other animals will not eat an animal that it finds dead.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. The mouse has died and then it was easy to put him out with the garbage. Crows will eat dead things.</p>
<p>APOL–I’ll keep that in mind about Westies, but my son’s allergist said he shouldn’t have any kind of mammal or bird in the house.</p>
<p>I’m more scared of having poison spread around the house than mice.</p>
<p>Our whole neighborhood had a mouse problem two years ago. At our house, mice got into the air conditioning ducts of my car twice and died there. Because of their location, we couldn’t get them out ourselves, so we had to pay the people at the dealership to do it. Big bills.</p>
<p>To keep mice out of the garage after that, my husband spread poison around. But then one day we forgot to close the garage door for a few hours. During that time, some creature dragged some of the poison out into our driveway. For a week, we were afraid we had poisoned the neighbor’s cat. Turned out we didn’t, but some poor creature probably died. </p>
<p>The real solution was to find what was attracting the mice. It turned out to be a forgotten half-full bag of grass seed in the back of the garage. Once it was gone, so were the mice.</p>
<p>My DH is allergic to cats and dogs. It doesn’t matter whether they have fur or hair, is asthma will flare badly. What usually happens when he or I tell people he’s allergic, “helpful” people all chime in to tell us about the hypoallergenic dogs. I think they work against standard allergic response of nasal congestion, watery eyes and face swelling, but not more severe ones. I always appreciate the suggestions, but many people insist that since they, or their relative or a friend, aren’t allergic the their dog, DH won’t be either. </p>
<p>I have to get by with traps but would prefer a mouser because I love cats. BTW, I catch 10-12/year so I would be thrilled with just one.</p>
<p>I don’t like the idea of using poison either and found I have to use the block type rather than the pellets because those they would carry around the house and store “for the future”. Since I’d gotten things under control, I’ve been able to just have poison blocks in the basement and have only seen mouse evidence down there, in one room. This is the first one that I’ve found outside that room in a year or more.</p>
<p>Here in the Southwest, mice=hanta and mice=bubonic plague. Neither of which is any fun… I have no qualms about killing them. (Though I much prefer my cats take care of the problem for me.) </p>
<p>Disposing of dead rodents here can be a real hazardous waste situation. The state health dept recommends that if you find a dead (or dying mouse), you don a filter mask & rubber gloves before handling the corpse or pick the corpse up with a long handled shovel, then place it in a plastic bag with a cup of full strength chlorine bleach and then double or triple bag it before putting it in the trash.</p>