General Question

electricsky's avatar

What do I do about the mouse living in my stove?

Asked by electricsky (825points) March 30th, 2009
29 responses
“Great Question” (4points)

There’s a mouse in my stove.
I hear the tiny feet pattering, I hear the tiny squeaks, and I hear the frantic running as it drags large bits of undercooked spaghetti underneath the burner, and I see its little head poke out from underneath the burner. I don’t want to kill it, which is why I haven’t been using my stove at all lately, and I don’t want my cat to kill it, though I’m not sure how to avoid that, considering all she does is sit on the stove and watch all day. How can I possibly give this furry little creature a less dangerous place to live?

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Answers

RedPowerLady's avatar

Lure it out of the stove with a non-kill trap and then put it in a field away from your house.

Facade's avatar

tell him there’s cheese in the fridge

Jeruba's avatar

Lurve for your kind-heartedness, @electricsky.

electricsky's avatar

I was thinking about a non-kill trap (I know I have one around here somewhere…) but I don’t know where to put it. If I put it on the stove itself the cat will most definitely eat it the second it appears, but there really isn’t anywhere else to put it.

electricsky's avatar

@Facade: LOL. I don’t think the fridge would be much better, though. :)
@Jeruba: Why thank you. :)

Jeruba's avatar

1. Get trap ready.
2. Escort puss to another room and shut the door.
3. Activate trap.

AstroChuck's avatar

Give him a cookie.
Of course, he’ll probably want a glass of milk to go with it.

emilia_eclaire's avatar

@AstroChuck

I was TOTALLY going to make that reference but you beat me to it.

@electricsky

When you bait the trap use peanut butter! Mice cannot resist.

RedPowerLady's avatar

I agree with @jeruba when it comes to how to keep your cat away. Your lovely companion might need to be confined to a different room for a couple of hours. I’m sure your cat wouldn’t mind too much if it for the sake of another creatures life ;)

AstroChuck's avatar

I have a humane no kill mousetrap. @emilia_eclaire is 100% right about using peanut butter as bait. If you use one of these traps and bait it with a little Jif, you’ll have no problem catching the little rodent.

electricsky's avatar

Oh… duh… I probably should’ve thought of putting the cat out of the room. So peanut butter, no kill mousetrap, and no kitties. Got it. :)
This kind of reminds me of when I was really little. I went around with my friend and we set off all of the mousetraps in her dads house so none of the mice would get hurt. He wasn’t very happy when he found out, though. :P

tigran's avatar

So what do you do after you’ve trapped it?
maybe a mouse farm in the back yard?

electricsky's avatar

@Tigran: When I used to have lots of mice and I trapped them I just stuck them in the field in front of me and wished them the best.

onesecondregrets's avatar

You make him for dinner, or an appetizer really.

Lupin's avatar

In another post I spoke about “relocating”. Mice can find their way back to the original spot as far as 1900 ft away. My neighbor marked mice with nail polish on their fur and let them loose in the park nearby. The same mice return in 24 hours. One mouse came back several times. He named it “Boomer” – short for “boomerang”. Try the experiment yourself..
Personally I relocate them to another dimension witha Victor mouse trap but I know that is out of the question here.

MissAusten's avatar

We’ve used the no-kill traps with peanut butter, and they really do work. I’d let them go in the field beyond our back yard, but no matter how many mice we caught and released, there were always more of them. One night, I dribbled some blue food coloring on a mouse we’d caught before letting it go.

The next night, we caught a mouse with blue spots.

If you’re going to use the no-kill traps, you’ll want to take the mice far, far away to release them. My husband and I finally switched to old-fashioned mouse traps out of desperation!

Anyway, if you can’t keep the cat out of the kitchen and away from the stove, can you put the mousetrap under the stove? Do you have a “drawer” under the oven for storing pots and pans? (that’s what I use it for—does it have another purpose?!) Put the trap in there. The mouse will probably still find it, but be in a spot where the cat can’t reach him.

AlfredaPrufrock's avatar

I would be so totally freaked out by a mouse in my stove that I would replace the stove.
my mother-in-law used to say mice come in pairs

Lupin's avatar

You can tell you’ve caught the same mouse by how quickly it escapes from the Havahart trap. A new mouse hangs on for a while when you try to dump it out. An experienced mouse will shoot out of the trap when it is opened. That’s how my neighbor decided he was trapping the same mice over and over. The nail polish on the fur proved it.
By the way, where do you think it goes when you let it loose elsewhere? Do you really think it will decide the error of its ways and agree to live outside or are you just moving the problem to someone else?

MissAusten's avatar

I once heard a noise by the stove, and when I turned to look I saw a mouse pop his little head out of the teapot’s spout. He ducked back inside the teapot, then jumped out and disappeared under one of the burners. I didn’t replace the entire stove, but I did get rid of that teapot!

It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so disgusting!

Mr_M's avatar

With the peanutbutter bait you shouldn’t have too much trouble catching it within a few hours. They like to come out at night when the house is dark. Keep kitty in another room while you sleep (or a cat carrier).

Make sure there’s no salmonella in whatever peanut stuff you use.

I hope you only have ONE mouse.

Lupin's avatar

Sorry, but odds are nil that you have only one mouse.

Mr_M's avatar

Don’t delay. Suppose the mouse is pregnant?

casheroo's avatar

How have you not cooked it? Do you not use your stove? It’s gonna smell bad if you burn it.

My cats would probably catch it for me, they wouldn’t kill it just play with it (i’d hope) I’d make them or my husband find it lol

VS's avatar

I hope when he runs out of your stove and across your foot the way one I had did me, that you don’t start screaming and find yourself unable to stop. I remember thinking at the time, who the hell is making all that noise? and I realized it was coming from me. My husband set 4 traps (not the kindness ones!) and within ten minutes of leaving the kitchen, we heard all four traps spring. Trust me when I tell you, if you have knowledge of one, there are more! Don’t let the little bugger give you a heart attack. I’m not particularly afraid of mice—it was the surprise factor I guess!

Mr_M's avatar

When we had mice in my mother’s house, I remember getting out of bed in the dark one night and my toe hitting something furry that moved away.

Jeruba's avatar

I was wondering if you were sure your mouse isn’t a mama with a little family in there that is going to starve and die in your stove if you trap her.

RedPowerLady's avatar

@MissAusten Mouse in a Teapot. Reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. LOL

electricsky's avatar

@VS: Oh, trust me, I’m way too used to mice to be even the slightest bit surprised by the things they do anymore. I used to have hundreds of them as pets in a big aquarium in my room (they kept breeding and breeding), and, inevitably, they all got out. I’d go into my room and there’d just be tons. Took me forever to catch them again. Once, one even jumped onto my head. And yes, I did scream.

And I have at least three mice living in my house. I don’t really mind them, since I’ve never seen them anywhere near my food (until now, obviously). One lives in my bathroom and he likes to watch me brush my teeth before bed, and the other lives in my living room. This is the first time that I’ve ever really wanted to get rid of one, though. I’m just afraid I’ll burn him up if I try to cook, or that my cat will catch him.

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