[Shop-talk] Mouse traps/poison

[Jim Stone]

I keep a couple of mousetraps locked and loaded at all times in my
basement/garage (old ranch house that basically has a drive-in basement).  I
rarely catch anything during warm weather, but probably get 3-4 mice/week when
it is cold out.  With fall just coming to Long Island, I am catching about 1
per week at the moment.

The traps work well overall and are pretty simple to use: I just toss the dead
mice in the field across the street, re-set the trap and wait for the next
one.  The fact that I have never seen any evidence of them in the living
quarters suggest to me that I have been successful at keeping them from
settling in.  However, I am shortly going to be leaving town for a couple of
weeks and donbt want to leave the traps set while I am gone, least I return
to a rotting mess.  On the other hand, I am not wild about leaving the house
bunprotectedb either.

That leaves two options, at least as far as I know: nothing or poison.  I have
been afraid of mouse poison ever since a friend of mine had one die inside the
wall of his house, although that was a long time ago.  I understand that the
poison is supposed to send them outside to seek water, but canbt imagine
that is foolproof.  Am I worrying too much about a problem a neighbor had
decades ago?  Does anyone here have recent positive or negative experience
with poison, or other recommendations for me?

Thanks.

Jim

p.s.  My shop is currently in the basement. J