I am hoping that I won't have too many mice try to enter the house now that it is getting cooler.

I hadn't seen my owl lately and I was worried that something had happened to it.

Thursday night I came back from seeing Mom and the owl flew in front of my car as it grabbed a small animal from the ground with its talons. It flew off to another tree. I have 40 Red Maple trees in the yard plus a lot of other trees; I have an 8 acre yard. The birds enjoy the berries on the Dogwood trees and the various Holly berries. Mom and I used to belong to the Holly Society and we have the neatest Holly trees with black berries, red berries, and yellow berries. We could buy these trees at the meetings.

I'm not sure what kind of owl it is, but it is mostly white/silver with some dark splotches. It's a neat looking bird and the talons looked deadly.

Until this spring we never had a mice problem cause the neighbor fed 40 feral cats all of who hunted the mice. Last summer one of the neighbors complained and the dog warden got their permission to trap. From July to Septemember 07 29 adult cats were caught in the trap, 1 adult cat and 10 kittens were hand captured all turned in to the local SPCA (ours is a no kill). From April to July 08 4 adult cats were trapped and 7 kittens were hand captured one of which bit me when I grabbed it another bit the dog warden (we both were wearing heavy gloves so no punctures). Now we're starting to get mice in the neighborhood including our house both ds#1&2 have been informed that their cats had better start earning thier keep one of which took care of the mouse we had. Maybe the pampered princess could...on second thought never mind I don't think she would agree to that.    

The Pampered Princess doesn't kill mice anymore. She is not as fast as she was. She doesn't like me because I have killed 4 mice after she trapped them where I have killed them with a cane, a fly swatter, and a plumber's friend. In 2007 she gave a couple of mice heart attacks because the mice hadn't realized that she lived in the house. She stopped being good at keeping mice under control in 2008. She thinks of live mice as mouse toys and she doesn't like it that they try to go to the vents downstairs.

The Pampered Princess is not the lean mean kitty of 2006-----she was barely 6 pounds in those days. Today she weighs in at 10.2 pounds. She is not fat, though.

I used to own a beautiful solid gray cat who was quite the huntress. We were mouse free when she lived here. She even caught a wild rabbit one day !

We plugged up the holes beside the dishwasher and that helped with keeping the mice out of the house.

I work in a warehouse and mice can be pretty common.  We used to have a few ferral cats that took care of the bulk of it, but they were either killed by the train tracks right outside the building or captured by the city.  No we have two companies that do extermination for us and it helps quite a bit, but it doesn't eliminate them.

Hiring an exterminator is not an option for me as I'm allergic to most of the chemicals they use (I get breathing problems) and they use those glue pad traps which would get caught on the Pampered Princess's paws and fur. She has an enormous amount of curiousity !

I know first hand about the exterminator's methods. In 2006 I had a Black Snake inside the house downstairs because of mice. You just wouldn't believe all the glue traps he put around the house downstairs. I had nosebleeds from the chemicals.

I don't have as many mice in the house now that Mom is not here anymore. She left a lot of opened food upstairs which attracted the mice.

If the owl does its job of eating the mice that are outside I shouldn't have any mice.

The only time I had a mouse in the house I had to take care of it. so much for the cats!  I got a trap and got it, had to dispose of it too.  Dh and mice....I am the man of the house in that dept.  The neighbours cat gets mice and bought a barely alive one inside for one of our cats. I had to finish it off and dispose of it too. 

She leaves dead mice and baby rats outside so I get to clean those up from time to time.

I heard peppermint is suppose to get rid of mice.

If I can keep the owl happy in my yard (lots of nasty bugs & mice), that's the most frugal way for me to take care of the potential mouse problem.

We have an outdoor cat that takes care of alot of rodents, but some mice still find their way into the basement and my living room from around the edges of my fireplace insert. Dh has said for 5 yrs now he's going to remove the insert and caulk up wherever they're coming in at, but it hasn't happened yet lol. My husky isn't interested in chasing mice. So we put poison out in the basement (where she doesn't go) and sticky traps upstairs. Once in awhile you'll discover a trap missing and realize there is a mouse running wround somewhere with a trap stuck to him!

Here is an easy way to catch dozens of mice each day, without ever having to re-set the trap. I caught 15 mice the second day I set it.

http://www.frugal-living-freedom.com/mouse-traps.html

If you have questions, let me know and I'll be glad to help.

Clair