What would you do if you were kept up at night due to
scurrying in your ceiling or food missing/chewed on. Ok I only lost some of my
food when I wasn’t even here yet. My food and supplies had been shipped up here
a month prior to my arrival and some rats got into it. Normally one would think
that mice are easy enough to catch… set a trap with some good food on it and
wait….. well these mice/rats are of a much smarter sort. I set up 2 traps and
added some peanut butter to each trap….. the next morning the peanut butter was
gone but there was no mice. They managed to eat it off the set trap and get
away.
Attempt #2 – smear peanut butter all over the trap sensor
thing and wait again. Again these mice managed to clean off the trap without
getting caught.
Attempt #3 – not very creative but I decided to hit the mice
I saw in my roof with a broom….(the roofs here are thatch with a layer of clear
tarp underneath so any animals are visible from the underside). Fail again.
Attempt #4 resulted in a google search to see if there were
other ways to get these pesky creatures. I found a few sites that showed a
water bucket trap (http://fivegallonideas.com/bucket-mouse-trap/ ) and so I
created something similar (sorry no pics) with some rope, a bucket, a tin can,
peanut butter, and a bench. The next night I woke up from the noise of a can
clunking…. The mouse had managed to pull the can to the edge of the bucket and
was happily eating the peanut butter off the can while sitting on the bench I
had as a ramp into the bucket….. Ok I admit the trap wasn’t identical but it
should have worked for a normal mouse.
Attempt #5 – After chatting with one of my fellow missionaries
I decided to try her suggestion and glue peanuts to the trap. My mistake was
not pealing the outer skin off the peanut and again the mouse got away. I
decided to try this version one more time but with just the peanut and lots of
glue. FINALLY success. When I awoke the
next morning I saw that I had won the battle against the mouse.
Now hopefully there are no more that want to come visit and
I can get some sleep.
Good job on the catch! HOWEVER where there is one mouse there are usually more :( Better re-set that trap again tonight :)
ReplyDeletethat is very true and I did have it set up for a few days after as well but there were no other surprises and all the other scurrying I heard was from lizards who I want to keep around :)
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