Lori Paul, who contributed an article about living with wildlife not long ago, said we could reprint this 2010 email to the Chaney Trail newsgroup about living with rodents. A juvenile Cooper's Hawk was recently found poisoned, probably from eating a poisoned rodent. Poison-based pest control methods have a habit of making their way into the environment, and here are some suggestions to avoid that.
by Lori Paul
Mice and woodrats invade garages, attics, subfloors, and even the engine compartments of RVs and vehicles that are parked in one place for a prolonged time. Fortunately, woodrats are not "sewer rats," they are the native "pack rats" that live in our foothills and arroyos, though they will travel into urban areas and become a nuisance. They often have white or tan bellies, large ears, prominent "ink drop" eyes, and very long (often slightly furred) tails. Mice and rats seek what all wildlife needs... food, water and shelter. Garages, tool sheds, engine compartments, etc. inadvertently provide one or more of these needed things. Find out what the rats are there for. The more needs you meet for them, the more incentive these animals have to enter your garage, attic, storage shed, or home.
Pictured: a bushy-tailed woodrat, from Wikipedia Commons.
Remove all sources of water and food that intruding mice and rats might find (such as bags of dog kibble, wildbird seed, or old camping food supplies). Reduce "nesting areas" by eliminating boxes full of items the rodents can shred, such as old newspapers, magazines or clothes (they'll be ruined anyway by the rodents nesting in them). Put stored clothes, blankets, books and valuables in plastic storage containers with snap lids instead of cardboard boxes. Such plastic file boxes and storage containers are very inexpensive at Big Lots and many 99 cent stores.
Most importantly: plug up wherever rodents are getting in. If you don't, in spite of all your efforts and expense, more rats will return for every one you kill or live trap out. Put fine mesh (available at OSH and most hardware stores) across holes or outside vents (also important for reducing fire risk from embers blown into your garage or attic!). Add metal weather stripping flanges on the bottom of your garage door. Don't leave your garage door open for prolonged lengths of time, especially when you are not around! Rodents will enter that way, as well as lizards and snakes. Plug holes around pipes with fine aviary wire mesh bent around the opening and then pack steel wool around the pipe (Brillo pads work well, because the soap in the steel wool is an added deterrent). Mice and rats will not chew through the steel wool.
Plugged up? Now extract them
Once you plug all the ways into your garage or attic, you'll need to "evict" all the rats and other wildlife now trapped inside. They will be easier to trap when they become hungry and thirsty. Put a shallow bowl of water down for them and any lizards or other animals that might accidently be trapped inside your garage. It's important to keep whoever is in your garage from dying and smelling up your home! Cleaning your garage box by box will evict rodents, too. Take each box outside, open it, and dump out the contents. Rats will run out in a hurry if they are inside and vanish into the local chaparral or fields around your home (from whence woodrats originally come... and where they leave your garage or attic to forage each night). Even if you don't clean out all your boxes, the thirsty and hungry rats will come to bait placed in lethal snap traps or live traps once they cannot get outside anymore.
Poisons are dangerous to you; your children; cats, dogs and other domestic animals; and wildlife. Rodents dying of poisons will cause owls to go blind or die slowly and painfully, for example, when they capture and eat poisoned prey. This is called "secondary poisoning." Also, poisons cause an agonizing death, whereby the animal (mouse, rodent or even `possum or skunk) crawls away to die inside your walls or a box in your garage or somewhere you can't find it.... then the body begins to decompose and putrify, smelling up your home and attracting large flies that enter the house through the chimney or any crack or open window and door. Rodents also become immune to poisons over time (natural selection), which makes stronger and stronger poisons necessary. Those more toxic poisons are even more hazardous for you, pets and the environment, even as they kill fewer and fewer mice and rats! There have been incidences of poison-resistant rats dragging the bait out where small children have found and eaten them. Bait cakes look like colored vanilla wafers to toddlers.
Sticky traps are inhumane and kill non-targeted wildlife and, in my opinion, should be outlawed. Also called "glue traps" or "glue boards", such traps are non-discriminatory and often capture birds, small harmless lizards, chipmunks, bats... and even butterflies. Kittens have died on those things. The "victim" walks across the board and gets caught by a strong glue, usually by a foot or tail or their snout; they cannot get loose and panic, eventually getting covered in the glue and pinned to the board, to die slowly of immobility, suffocation, thirst or starvation. When the glue blocks their anus, the victim cannot urinate or defecate. Even rats don't deserve that sort of prolonged torture and death.
The dangers of sticky traps
The instructions on the sticky trap say you can "release non-target species" by applying mineral or cooking oil to the trapped animal. I've spent over 2 hours trying to release a harmless western skink off a glue board. It suffered tremendously and almost died of shock, lost its tail and was burned by chemicals in the glue. The large lizard was lucky and recovered after many weeks. Instructions on glue boards further advise tossing the trapped victim along with the sticky board in the trash... or drowning the animal underwater. This is cruel and gruesome.
Humane Society info. about glue traps (know the truth!)
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/resources/facts/glue_traps.html
Please don't use poisons or sticky glue traps!
Be aware that when you kill rodents you actually expose yourself to more disease because fleas jump off as the animal dies (or its body temperature drops) and those fleas and ticks can then bite YOU or your family and pets. Disposing of the body involves risk of exposure to a decomposing carcass. Conversely, an animal you evict or release without touching from a live trap is actually much safer for you. Wear a mask and gloves when sweeping up rodent poop and cleaning out nest areas or wherever there has been urine, just as a health precaution.
The better mousetrap
So, what works to control rodent infestation?
Old-fashioned wood snap traps (small size for invading mice and large for any species of rat) are inexpensive in quantity and work effectively when properly! baited and placed on "runways" along walls (where you find quantities of "droppings"). Properly set, such traps are almost always lethal by snapping the rodent's spine or neck. Rattlesnakes and lizards are sometimes injured or killed in such traps, but you'd probably like to evict them from your garage, also. If you accidently catch a large snake (that might enter your garage to hunt rodents), call me or Bruce Steele to check its condition and either release it or euthanize it as humanely as possible.
Live traps and excluder traps (one-way live traps that let rodents and other animals like squirrels leave, but not get back in the way they got out) work quite well. An excellent company is Tomahawk traps:
Rat & Squirrel double door opening traps (several styles with various features are available, the double door trap works well for rodents who think they can run through the "tunnel" after eating the bait):
http://www.livetrap.com/cgi/search.cgi?user_id=&database=dbase1.exm&template=products.shtml&2_option=1&2=Deluxe+Double+Door+Traps
Mouse traps:
http://www.livetrap.com/cgi/search.cgi?user_id=&database=dbase1.exm&template=products.shtml&2_option=1&2=Mouse+Trap
Excluder traps:
http://www.livetrap.com/cgi/search.cgi?database=dbase1.exm&template=products.shtml&2_option=1&2=One+Way+Doors
Trapping humanely
Live traps can be used over and over, as needed. Full instructions for how to bait and set the traps are included with each order. To state the obvious... all traps MUST be checked at least once, better yet, twice, per day. Small animals can die quickly of shock, thirst (when they are panicked) and starvation in a trap. It's fairly easy to forget one has set a trap, allowing the occupant to suffer for days until it dies. Even lethal snap traps don't always kill outright and one must be ready to humanely dispatch an animal that is injured with a shovel or by breaking its neck swiftly. Unpleasant, but welcome to the real world! We must take responsibility and dispatch animals humanely.
Once you have one or more live traps with rodents in them, carry or drive them up Chaney Trail [or Eaton Canyon -- ed.] and let them go in heavy brush or along the trail far from your home. They will not find their way back. You've at least given the critters a chance to find their way to the wild and survive... outside your garage or attic. If you use a live trap, check it at least once per day and keep a small dish of water in the trap. Release the rodent(s) you catch immediately, before they are hungry or dehydrated. Recall where you set each live (or lethal) trap and, again, check it once or twice per day so that the captured animal can be released without stress or starvation, including "non-target" species.
Getting a cat is not a bad idea. Not only will a cat be saved from the shelter and eat your rodents, the mere odor of a cat around will send many rodents packing off your premises! Just don't let your cat roam about outside where it will kill songbirds, chipmunks, beneficial frogs and lizards, etc... and then get eaten by a coyote, struck by a rattlesnake... or a car, or eaten by some other predator in its turn! Cats who roam urinate and defecate in neighbor's gardens, get exposed to disease, injured in cat fights, and absolutely devastate birds and wildlife populations. Unlike most native predators, cats will kill over and over again for fun, or stalk and frighten small animals away from necessary food and water, reducing their chances of survival or ability to feed their own young.
Don't put your cat at risk and let it become a nuisance. If you cannot keep a cat indoors, then don't get a cat... OR, provide a safe outdoor cat enclosure. A variety of info about such enclosures is available on the Internet along with photos of what responsible cat owners have built for their own cats. Such enclosures and outdoor "runways" are limited only by one's imagination and pocketbook. They do not have to be large and costly, especially if you are willing to design and built them yourself.
Other resources
Lastly, consult with the Bio-Integral Resource Center (environmentally responsible, humane and least toxic pest control associated with University at Berkeley):
http://www.birc.org/about_us.htm
Their publications are excellent and available for purchase at low cost:
Integrated rat management. Common Sense Pest Control Quarterly 20 (1):5-16
Managing the house mouse. Common Sense Pest Control Quarterly 7(4):7-15
If you go with a professional exterminator and that company uses poisons, ask to see the chemical hazard sheet they are required by law to provide for each rodenticide. Read those sheets for the so-called "EPA approved chemicals" carefully before you sign any contract. Also, read the contract carefully. Often, exterminators leave lethal poisons and charge you high fees even when the rodents will simply return again and again. Do you want poisons left on your premises again and again? Professional exterminators are NOT always the most effective way to go. They make their profit out of returning again and again or "tenting" your home with incredibly neurotoxic poisons. It is job security for these companies!
We live near the National Forest with wildlife all around our homes, including field mice and woodrats. It is up to us to build our homes and other structures to exclude these animals. We all enjoy living close to beautiful wildlands; however, living here requires some special effort. I think certain precautions worth the quality of nature and life we enjoy here... in spite of woodrats in the garage, squirrels and bats in out attics, deer eating our roses, bears toppling garbage cans, and even the threat of wildfire.
