MEESES TO PIECES

Getting Cozy for the Coming Winter?
You Aren’t the Only One!
With the nippy air hitting, Frugal Yankees every where know, the mice are coming!

Yep, those little rodents are looking for a warm place to stay for the winter. They don't have air miles, so traveling to Florida is out of the question. Their pensions never came to fruition, so assisted living is a no-go. So this leaves your house as an inviting cozy place to bed down for the winter. There's warmth, food and plenty of crevices to scurry in and out of and, no one will complain about not being house broken. Get ready, you'll be seeing these furry little sons of Mickey real soon.

The old rule of thumb is, if you see one, you got a dozen. The thought of a dozen mice crawling around my cabinets and leaving small football shape reminders of their bowel movements is enough to send this Frugal Yankee into a flurry of action.

It isn't just old country homes like mine that get inundated. Mice can be happy in suburban homes, urban homes, just about anywhere. Predators like owls, fox, and hawks have seen their habitat altered and have died off or moved elsewhere. As a result, there are more mice these days.

The solution to your infestation includes two defenses - exclusion and elimination
 
First, plug them holes. This is exclusion and it's tougher than you think. A mouse can squeeze through a hole 1/4 inch wide; that's pretty darn small. They also can chew through many materials. That’s a tough combination when you’re trying to stop something coming into your house, but it can be done.

Start with exterior holes. These are places in your foundation with entry points. If you have a stone foundation like I do, get your mortar and trowel.  Make a batch up and fill everything you find. If the crack is big, use steel wool as backing. It makes it easier to fill the hole, and mice can’t eat through steel wool.

After you're done outside, start crawling around your basement with caulk and more steel wool. Again fill everything in sight.

Ok, exclusion is now complete. It may not be perfect, but over the course of several years, you’ll find most of the holes.

Let's be realistic.  You missed a hole somewhere. So even though you've slowed them varmints down, you’ll probably need to initiate the next step, elimination.

Elimination means either removing them or killing them.

To remove mice without killing them, get a trap made of tough galvanized steel mesh from a hardware stores.  Put some food in the trap and place it where you find droppings.  These four legged pests come for the food and get trapped. The toughest problem with this method is that you have to remove the trap, take it far away and release the critter.

A few pointers:  wear gloves and be cautious.  Take your soon to be evicted guests far enough away so they don't return.  However, if you're going this route, be sure you place them where they'll have a reasonable chance of surviving. Why save them if you doom them to starvation or some other form of death?

You will need to repeat this again and again until you are confident all the mice are gone. Personally, this is a bit too P.C. for me.

I eliminate them as the Sopranos would eliminate a problem.

Let’s whack them! 

You can find out more about whacking in the R-rated conclusion of this article located at my h web site, FrugalYankee.com. Here's the MEESES TO PIECES url.

Be sure to leave a comment here and by all means, check back here next week when the Frugal Yankee offers up some simple money saving tips. Until then, enjoy life and spend less.