It’s true. Over the winter, we got mice in our camper trailer. My husband set traps in the camper before we closed it up in the fall last year. We also stuck “Bounce” sheets everywhere (something we had heard that deterred mice from coming in a camper). During the winter, my husband caught 2 mice in the traps he had set. Notice I say “my husband”. I don’t know what it is about mice but have a huge issue with removing dead ones from traps. I would sooner throw the whole trap out and set up a brand new trap to catch more rather than reuse a trap. So I will gladly leave this mouse removal job for my husband.
I’m going to warn you, the next few paragraphs might be a bit gruesome.
When I was a university student, I lived in Halifax, NS. Side note -Halifax is such a beautiful place, I recommend visiting, the views and history are amazing. I hope to go back some day.
When school started, I lived in a really old building by the water which was used as overflow dorms for the university I was attending. You guessed it, perfect place for mice. The management would use live traps (the sticky paper ones), trying to be humane, and in the middle of the night you would hear a mouse screaming and trying to gnaw off its own leg to free itself.
After the Christmas break, I had enough of dorm life and got the brilliant idea to move out and share an apartment with a girl friend I had met in dorms. We didn’t do much apartment hunting, we basically took the first apartment that fit our budget and was in the right area for us to get to school. Our one bedroom, ground level apartment was tiny. I was lucky enough to take the bedroom (if you could call it that). I’m guessing it was 8 by 10 feet with a view of the garbage dumpster about 2 feet from the window. I bought an air mattress and slept on the floor. She bought a futon and slept in the living room when she was around. She had a boyfriend and would spend most nights at his place. So most of the time, it was just me in the tiny apartment.
Not long after we moved in, we noticed the mice. The worst part was at night and hearing them running in the walls. Looking back, I wonder how I managed to get any sleep. But if you are faced with a situation you try to make the best of it, and/or block it out. I bought steel wool and stuffed it in between the carpet and the baseboards and any holes or crevices I could find in the apartment. I kept reminding myself, only a few more months to go and I would be out of this mice infested apartment.
Many years later, the first house my husband and I bought together, we had one mouse get in. Luckily, we managed to catch it quickly. I’m guessing it came in while we are unloading/loading our vehicle for a trip. I think my husband was away at the time it got caught in the trap, so I had to deal with the dead mouse. As far as I remember, I threw put on disposable rubber gloves, grabbed a stick from outside and hooked the mouse trap on the stick and threw the mouse (trap and all) into the garbage. I think that is what happened, I have a great memory for blocking out yucky and bad parts of my life.
So when my husband told me that mice got into the camper this winter, I knew it was going to be a big job to get it cleaned out again. Mice make a mess quickly. Luckily, it was only 2 mice and they did not have time to make a nest and have babies before they were caught. Although, they were just starting to build a nest as some of the blankets had been gnawed and pulled apart.
We took everything out of the camper. My husband used the shop vac to vacuum up all the droppings. I washed all the blankets, towels and all things fabric. Washed the dishes, pots and pans. If it couldn’t be washed it got thrown out. My husband washed everything down.
So this is where we are now. Such a waste of time!! Before I move all the clean items back in, I will give it a good vacuuming. Yesterday, I bought a carpet cleaner to wash all the carpets, couch and benches. After that is done, I’m going to give all the surfaces a really good wash and make sure no more mice are in there!
Unfortunately, we still don’t know where they came into the camper, so we’ll have to put steel wool and spray foam in every crevice we think they many have came in. Oi!
Have you ever had to deal with mice?
As Always,
Sandra
We have lived with mice a lot when I was younger, we lived in an old house and the mice could easily move from house to house. Sometimes I would hear them walk around at night, but it never bothered me. Once I remember I wanted to have bread for breakfast, but at the moment I took the bread out of the cupboard a mouse came running out of it and a huge hole was left in, it certainly had a good feast that night! My parents only used to do something about it when it got too bad, we put down poison and we made some traps. Mostly, if something was caught in the traps, we used to take it to the forest and let it out there. Honestly, I do not think I would like to clean dead mice out of traps either.
ReplyDeleteAisha,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your stories! Yipes, I can't imagine a mouse running out of your bread cupboard. I surely would have screamed!