For homesteaders, the common house mouse is one of the most troublesome of pests. A small brown or gray rodent with little beady eyes, large ears, and a skinny three to four-inch long tail, house mice flourish under a diverse array of conditions in and around homes, sheds, barns, and outbuildings.
The unwelcome intruders consume food meant for people, pets, and farm animals. They contaminate food preparation areas with their urine and feces, which contain harmful bacteria (salmonella) that can cause food poisoning. Mice constantly gnaw, causing costly property damage. Not to mention they spread disease.
Disease can also be spread indirectly, transmitted when humans encounter infected carriers such as fleas, mites, and ticks. These parasitic insects can invade your home and eventually find their way to people and pets, making a nasty problem even worse.
当北风吹来时,老鼠们会寻找一个温暖、有遮蔽的地方过冬。如果你在家里或周围发现老鼠或它们的粪便,你应该立即清除这些害虫。在小害虫繁殖之前。
Fresh gnawing, mouse droppings, tracks, or a pungent musky odor are all signs of a mouse infestation. Mice build nests from shredded paper, bits of cloth, dried plant material, or other available fibrous materials.
Mice are most active at night. Unless an infestation is intense, you may never see a mouse – only the tell-tale signs of their presence.
如果你希望避免危险的化学物质、毒素和毒药,继续阅读,发现7种天然的驱鼠剂,它们在院子里使用时很有效,也可以用来引诱搬到室内的啮齿动物。
1. Repel Rodents With Herbs
Many herbaceous plants are useful in repelling insects and rodents. Plant lavender, sage, rosemary, horehound, and any variety of mint around the foundation of your home and in gardens and flowerbeds where rodent activity is evident.
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The pungent scent of herbs also repels insect pests, helping to keep the home ant, spider, and cockroach-free.
2. Adopt A Cat
The most natural and effective rodent control is a cat. A couple of feral barn cats, adopted as “mousers” will quickly eliminate the problem.
我讨厌设置和处理捕鼠器和死老鼠。我更喜欢让我们“毛茸茸的家庭”里深受喜爱的小猫咪塔莎(Tasha)来处理清除老鼠的烦人工作。
If mice are an issue in the barn or outbuildings, adopting a semi-feral or feral cat from a rescue shelter is a win-win arrangement for both you and an animal desperately in need of rescue. However, please, never take in a stray cat just to kill mice.
Cats need food, shelter, and love. If you can’t provide all three, a cat is not the solution to your problem. If the mouse problem is indeed severe, consider consulting a professional extermination service.
Editor Note: If you choose to employ the help of a barn cat, do be aware that feral cats have the ability to wreak havoc onnatural wildlife species. So rather than eliminating just the common house mice, they can also prey on birds, native mice, and others.
For proper cat care, theUniversity Of Nebraska Extensionadvises that you only keep as many cats as you can feed and that if you are using cats as mice eradication, that you only keep the minimum number of cats around to take care of your homestead. They also suggest that you employ more than one method of mice eradication, so that you aren’t relying just on cats.
3. Create An Outdoor Rodent Repellent
Ingredients
- 1 cup of liquid dishwashing soap
- 1 cup of castor oil
- 2 tablespoons of Tabasco sauce
- 1 tablespoon of table salt
- 2 minced fresh cloves of garlic
- 1 quart of water
Directions
- Combine the ingredients.
- 倒在鼹鼠洞和老鼠洞周围,以及任何你注意到有啮齿动物活动的地方。
- Apply again after it rains.
4. Block Rodent Entry
Use steel wool or foam sealant to fill holes or gaps in the gables, eaves, rafters, and around doors and windows. Push steel wool into gaps with a butter knife and use foam sealant to hold the steel wool firmly in place.
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Fill gaps or cracks around entry holes for plumbing, electrical, gas, telephone, and cable lines. Look for entry points under doors, around the attic and crawl-space vents, and around the foundation. Cover vents with screening or hardware cloth to prevent entry through larger openings.
5. Secure All Food And Paper Items
Store boxes of cereal, cookies, flour, and sugar in sealed, mouse-proof containers. Even though these items are in sealed packages, mice will chew through the outer cardboard and paper wrappings and find a feast.
Mice manage to survive with limited amounts of food, so if there are even a few crumbs on the counter, you may be supporting a substantial mouse population. Poor sanitation permits mice to thrive. Within a year, a single female mouse may have up to ten litters: each with five to six young.
Store food items in plastic, metal, or glass containers. Avoid leaving crumbs and debris on kitchen counters. Don’t let dishes to pile up in the sink. Wipe down countertops with white vinegar, which kills germs and leaves surfaces sparkling clean.
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Do not leave pet food sitting out. Store dry pet food in containers with airtight lids. Remove and wash pet food dishes after use to avoid attracting rodents and insects to dine.
将垃圾储存在有防鼠盖的垃圾桶或容器内,并记得翻动堆肥堆盖新增加的食物垃圾。
Avoid storing stacks of newspaper or magazines. Remove potential nesting materials including piles of leaves or deep mulch that accumulate around structure foundations. Store paper goods such as paper towels, paper napkins, and toilet tissue in a mouse-proof cabinet or container.
6. Use Essential Oils To Repel Mice
Clean and polish wooden kitchen and storage cabinets with orange essential oil. Mice and insects detest the scent of orange oil and will vacate the area.
把浸透了精油的棉球塞进亚麻衣橱、行李箱、抽屉、睡袋和行李箱。老鼠对特定的气味特别反感。薰衣草、桉树、丁香、鼠尾草和薄荷精油用来驱鼠效果很好。
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从洗衣房借几张有香味的烘干机床单,放在存放的毯子、床单和床单之间。它们不仅可以驱赶老鼠,而且烘干机的气味还可以防止飞蛾进入很少使用的物品。
7. Eliminate Sources Of Water
和所有生物一样,老鼠需要水才能生存。消除室内水源,如管道凝结,漏水的水龙头,或有故障的散热器滴水。
Rodent Removal
If mice have moved into your home or outbuildings, get rid of them. Trapping is more efficient and safer than using poison.
如果你想使用毒药,请记住,中毒的老鼠可能会在试图进入某个地方时死亡,造成可怕的臭味。
此外,当使用毒药时,宠物、牲畜或其他野生动物可能会摄入被污染的老鼠。
Eliminating Mice Indoors With Traps
Although there are many different types of mousetrap on the market, the old-fashioned wood-based snap traps seem to work the best: They are inexpensive and get the job done.
If you do not want to handle a trapped mouse and then reset the trap, use disposable mouse traps indoors to control and hopefully eliminate mice in the house. Pieces of ripe banana, peanut butter, small bits of cheese, small pieces of ham or bacon, as well as raisins make excellent mouse bait.
Setting The Traps
When setting traps, place the wooden traps on a piece of newspaper in locations where you suspect mouse activity. Setting traps in groups of two to three works best. Mice tend to travel along the base of the walls in order to avoid crossing large open spaces.
Place traps at a right angle to the wall, with the trigger end touching the wall. Avoid placing traps where they could be stumbled upon by children or pets.
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Place traps several feet apart. To increase the effectiveness of the traps, enlarge the triggers by attaching a two-inch section of cardboard or opt to purchase traps with an expanded trigger plate. Other foods that attract mice include small pieces of fresh fruit, gumdrops or nutmeats. Attach solid bait to the trigger plate with a section of thread or fishing leader.
Keep An Eye On Your Traps
Monitor mouse traps daily. Once the varmint nibbles the bait, the trap will snap. If you fail to catch mice in your traps after a couple of days, move the traps to another location with evidence of mouse activity.
Humane Extermination
If you wish to employ a more humane approach to rodent removal,“catch and release” rodent trapsare available for purchase at local hardware stores and home and garden centers.
Keep in mind, that if you are going to trap and release mice and rats, do it at least a mile away from your home or they will just return to their previous habitat. Take critters to release far out in the wild so that if released they do not become your neighbor’s problem.
Other Trap Options
If you have a lot of mice, consider deployingmulti-catch mouse traps. Mice are not dissuaded in their pursuit of food by the smell of humans or other dead or dying mice. Once you catch a mouse, it is not necessary to disinfect the trap before reusing.
处理困住的老鼠或其粪便时,应戴上橡胶手套和一次性口罩。准备四分之一杯洗洁精,半杯家用漂白剂和一加仑水的混合物。将一夸脱的混合物放入喷雾瓶中,剩下的用来消毒被老鼠污染的表面。
Never attempt to vacuum or sweep up mouse droppings until you have thoroughly sprayed the area with the mixture. Vacuuming or sweeping circulates dust-borne viruses such as West Nile virus, which is deadly in horses and humans, into the air. After removing droppings, use a damp cloth saturated with the mixture to wipe down all surfaces adjacent to the trapping area.
References
- Mouse Control, New York State Department of Health
- Identity And Prevent Rodent Infestations, United States Environmental Protection Agency
- Rodents, United States Center For Disease Control
TNflashsays
的确,如果你看到一只老鼠,你可能会有一百只。一天晚上,我看见一只胖老鼠从我教练的身下跑出来。第二天,我在房子外面的地基周围寻找可以让他们进去的洞。我找到了三个。我发现了第一个洞,有线电视的人从墙上拉出了一个排气孔,把同轴电缆拉到房子里面,没有重新密封接头。另一个是爬行空间通风口屏幕上的一个洞。我在通风口上放了1/4英寸厚的金属网来堵住那个洞。另一个是一个四分之三的小洞,穿过膨胀的泡沫隔热喷雾,我用它来密封进入房子的热泵管道周围的空间。我把一根短树枝塞进那个洞里,把它封住。晚上8点左右,我在房子里设置了一个捕放陷阱。 I caught a mouse within two hours. I released the mouse about 300 feet from the house and reset the trap. In just a few minutes I had caught another. Then I caught another and another and another one almost like clockwork every 15 minutes. The next day I set three and again planned to stay up to see when they were the most active. I found that they are active mostly from 10 pm to 5 am every night. I invested in two more catch and release traps and one well-advertised spring trap kill hotel. The live catch and release traps caught 5 times more mice but I found you have to get rid of the mice as soon as you hear the trap trip or they will figure a way out and tell the other mice how to steal the bait and get away. I caught 10 to 14 mice a night for nearly 2 weeks before I was all of a sudden rid of my problem. The woods were I released the mice maybe temporarily full of mice but there are snakes, hawks, owls, and my two cats to catch them before they make it back to my house.
lihtansays
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我会用比泡沫更安全的东西来固定入口孔。老鼠和松鼠不会被泡沫吓倒。我喜欢适合实心块的木材,或使用1/4″硬件布固定螺钉和挡泥板垫圈。如果你需要固定通风口或排水孔,但仍然需要允许空气或水通过,五金布是特别有用的。当你检查损坏情况时,也要检查电线和管道,因为它们都可能被害虫咬坏。
Another solution to repelling mice, is to spread some used cat litter around the perimeter of your house. They’re not going to hang around for very long if it smell like a cat lives there.