Mouse infestation at my new house and bb guns

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Raden1942

Raden1942

Member
Feb 15, 2018
1,757
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California, United States
Recently bought 10 acres and a home in an oak and pine forest in Northern CA and after cleaning it up one night we went to bed and in the morning there was mouse droppings on the sink, floor, bed sheets and more. There seems to be a huge amount of them inside my house. Now I plan to seal holes, drop poison and get effective traps but my question to you guys is would a bb gun pumped at say 5 pumps kill a mouse effectively and do you think ricochet would be too high a risk to windows and such. I figure at lower power with nobody except me wearing eye protection in the house and with drooping blankets over windows I should be good. At the same time I have never shot a gun in the house... Except for the garage and I would not generally recommend it. However the house is empty and it's a very bad mouse problem. I have very little time to figure it out either. I need to be moved out of my current home by June 1st. What do you guys think? Bad idea? Good idea? Damned if you do damned if you don't idea? 
 
I think 5 pumps is too much for indoors. I’ve shot one with 3 pumps at about 6’ away. I didn’t see a hole in the wall and he jumped when I hit him. After he jumped off of the cabinet I gun butted him to death on the stovetop. Like you, I wouldn’t recommend shooting in the house, but I had a bad year where a lot of them came inside and I’d just about had it. I put steel wool in the gaps before sealing them. I found that mine were coming in around a water pipe in the garage. I’ve also heard of them climbing trees and entering homes like squirrels do. If the house is empty, have you considered calling an exterminator? Country problems man, every year it seems there’s an abundant proliferation of some sort of pest animal or insect. 
 
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I may call an exterminator but there are a ton of holes to patch. In fact my dad found 3 hidden entries for humans to get into the attic and 3 for the basement. After climbing in there we can see how mice are getting into the house in multiple areas. We have to seal all those up first or the exterminator would be pointless. I figure once we get that done we would just have to mop up the ones left in the house with traps and possibly a gun. I didn't mention that we are going to redo the hardwood floors so damaging them isn't really a big deal. Perhaps a slow moving pellet would be better. I guess it's time to see if my 1377 likes wad cutters. I may just put a laundry basket behind a bait station filled with old towels and sit in my dark room and use pellets. That seems pretty harmless. 
 
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there are traps that "trap" the mice inside so you dont have any smelly bodys about . I have seen them in commercial buildings .

Think i remember about like a shoe box only flatter. pet and kid proof .

Also do not know if legal in CA ?

Maybe a farm supply , Tractor supply 

P.S. wheat makes a good bait im sure their is a Home Brew shop around
 
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One drawback to poison is that you cannot control the amount they eat. They will die anywhere, which is a big problem especially with your other half. Double walls, attic spaces and inaccessible areas are the worse. If you can get your hands on commercial grade products they will work great. I don't normally put poison in the house. When the mouse or rat dies and is not recovered the stench can be overwhelming. Then you will end up with a maggot and fly issue. Snap traps work great to. Mice and rats like to run along edges, the best way to set them is to face the trap facing into the edge or wall. You can catch them coming and going. Don't set it parallel to the wall as it can be accidentally set off it the try to climb it from the back side if the trap. We have a lot of lizards and geckos they like to be up high on walls. I use to shoot them a Red Ryder and some uncooked rice down the barrel. Rice was hard enough to penetrate them without the worry of putting holes in the wall. Best of luck with your exclusion and eradication. Congrats on the new to you home.

Forgot to add, sticky boards, glue board work great from mice. If you catch 1, as long as it is in good shape leave it overnight. It's not uncommon to find the board filled with mice the next day. They are naturally curious so others will come to check it out when the mouse starts to squeak. If you are noticing black colored flecks around the stuck mouse or mice, then it's time to throw it away. The black specks are fleas, they will start to leave the host once they die.
 
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You may be over thinking this...

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I used to use poison until the smell of dead mice will fill up the house and make you puke. You got a hunt to find where they died. They may crawl up behind a wall or who knows where. I like to use traps better. But I have killed mice with just a red Ryder BB gun. I found where they were coming in the laundry room and also have a cat now. No more Mice.Sounds like you have a bigger problem than I did. You can seal up the place and use traps. But if that doesn’t work good enough you might wanna hire an exterminator.
 
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You may be over thinking this...

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Times about 48 and check every 12 hours. A quart of peanut butter and you got bait. Then you get something like a 1377 and put one or two pumps in it and shoot lead you don't have to worry too much about ricochet. I just don't like to poison my environment if I don't have too. Anything you can poison mice with will kill your dog or whatever else finds the little dead beasties also.

You could go to the animal shelter and rescue a cat and that would make your efforts permanent.
 
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Check out this guy on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/c/ShawnWoodsprimitive-archer 

Best trap I used was a 5 gallon bucket half filled with water and covered with vermiculite. Float tasty bait in the middle of the bucket. Plooop! Down goes the rat.



And +1 to the Don't shoot your BB gun in the house answers, IMHO.

Click to expand...

This trap works extremely well, and your situation is made for it.


Me and dad used to shoot the occasional mouse in the house with a Sheridan. One pump always did the trick! On one occasion we had an elusive one in the house. Set up a little bait spot in the kitchen and dad put two pumps in for good measure. The shot ricochet off of the stove then the washing machine which sent it dead center into a glass plate, which broke of course. Still got a little pellet mark on the fridge where the plate was at. We went back to one pump after that!

Beau
 
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I am highly allergic to cats but my cat will take care of the ones in the basement. His name is killerbaby and he earned that name.... All I'm going to say. Also we put down several snap traps with peanut butter and none of them went off. No tall grass next to the house but we have 5 fruit trees about 20 feet away from the house. I feel like the problem is mainly neglect from previous owners. They used it as an air B&B and never actually lived in it. Patching will help and I actually watch Shawn woods religiously. Mousetrap Monday is a guilty pleasure of mine. I ordered 2 of the bucket traps and plan on setting out two glass bowels filled with about an inch of olive oil. That seemed to be a good trap for low cost. Will continue to use snap traps but not really sure why it wasn't working. It might be that my old man just didn't know thier most frequent paths. Will put them in every corner as recommended above. 
 
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