For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 06, 2023

Got a better humane idea, Elizabeth?

You didn’t want her to kill it, now you don’t want her to trap it and set it free.

You better check that at least every day. When you catch multiple mice, they’ll eat each other. Even worse is when the try to crawl out the very small gap in the rotating mechanism – trying to get a dead mouse out of there is something you’ll never want to do again. Oh, and don’t do this in the Southwest. When you catch mice alive, they end up peeing and that can be a source of hantavirus.

The Pattersons now have a good reason to take a vacation in a warmer clime.

I wondered if they have thought of the disease exposure associated with the rodents.

Oh for heaven’s sake! Do you want her to send it to Tahiti so it will be warm? Give it a beachfront property so it can live in luxury?

What’s the point of having a small “turret” on a 1-story house? What a goofy layout..

In my experience, those traps don’t work, no matter what you bait them with.

They have fur. They’ll be fine. Or, they’ll be eaten by owls. But, probably fine.

Rodent poison, the only way to completely annihilate them. Otherwise they get into your walls, gnaw on your electrical wiring and get into your heating system.

Liz is not quite 13 years old -

https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2023/02/15

And they are telling Liz to drive a car in this weather to drop a mouse in the country?? Even in Canada you have to be 16 years old to get a driver’s license! I can understand why Liz is having a double take objection.

Somewhere I read that we only have a rat, mice and cockroach problem in places with freezing winters because our cities provide such warm, comfy buildings for them to live in.

i used to use a live trap. i’d set the critters free in the nearby parkway so the owls could have something to eat.

The problem with live traps is that if one forgets to check them regularly (~2X/day), the mouse either dies of starvation/dehydration or just plain stress. i once had a ninja mouse who not only escaped the live trap a few times, but also was able to clear the bait from the snap trap several times- until i stuck the bait to the trigger with a mushy, sticky marshmallow.

My hubby believes in Have No Heart traps.

Check local regulations before releasing the mice; you can definitely get in trouble for relocating pest species. My dad knew a farmer who had a terrible raccoon population, so in desperation he finally applied for a permit from the DNR to cull them, which let him shoot them unrestricted on his property. In one night he shot over a hundred! After investigating, it turned out that a nearby city’s animal control office had been using his property as their normal release site whenever they’d relocate a problem raccoon. His lawyer had a talk with them and they stopped.

Put a small clothes rack inside the trap with tiny snow outfits… in festive colors.

That? That’s their house? Ugh. Time to move.

Yes Elizabeth, in this weather. Mice aren’t weak, pitiful creatures like humans are. They can and do survive in such conditions where as a human, without a massive support system of stuff would not. Or you could give the mouse to the weird kid down the street that has a python for a pet.

Mice represent one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, Pestilence.

That’s nice. Owls get hungry during winter.

Oh, oh… Liz is apparently going woke, liberal, greenie.

If you are going to use “Catch and Release Traps” please use a thick pair of leather gloves. No all mice run for the hills, plus accidents happen. A rabies series of shots is no fun.

The mouse will be OK outside, Elizabeth.

‘Lizard Breath’ is being a typical female teenager—can’t make up her mind ! ! !

She’ll change her mind the first time she finds a “calling card” in her oatmeal.

I used to do that with squirrels.

We had a problem, but with a particular black bear. It was running amok in the suburbs of Traverse City, Michigan. The DNR tranquilized it and sent it to Alpena, MI. Low and behold, the same bear made its way back to town. I don’t remember how long it took to for the bear to migrate back. The song “The Cat Came Back The Very Next Day” (or in this case, the bear came back) kept running around in my mind.

https://mousetrapmonday.com/ I like this guy’s attitude about mice

Those traps worked great when my kids’ pet gerbils escaped. I baited them with peanut butter and put them on a few layers of newspaper, and the beasts showed up within a day or two.

Elly’s amazing talent: being able to read with her eyes closed.

Not what I would do with a mouse.

Try the old MOUSE TRAP game from Ideal Toys

Mice can also be quite territorial. Unless you drive quite a distance away, they’ll go back into your own home. That, or pick a fight with all the other mice local to where you dumped them – assuming they don’t just die from the stress. House mice typically live in houses, and may not have any of the skills necessary to live outdoors for an extended period of time. For that matter, they can die of stress inside a trap within an hour.

It’s not really a kind way to dispose of a mouse. The kind way is a snap trap – fast and efficient. The kinder way is to clear away plants and debris from against your house, secure any entrances you find to your home, put all food away in gnaw-proof containers, make sure garbage is taken out of your home promptly and put into a gnaw-proof can, and insulate all your pipes so that mice can’t get water from licking them. If your home is inhospitable, they won’t want to stay even if they manage to get in.

Poor little guy could freeze to death

Hav-a-Heart used to make humane traps. You put a bit of food inside and if a mouse entered, its weight would cause the trap to tilt and the door to close. We caught quite a few, back in the 80s, and set them free out back of the garage. We also had cats then, several of whom proved to be excellent mousers. You’ve never seen an animal look so please with itself as a cat with a mouse!

Take them into the country so they can invade a rural stucture like a barn or farm house. When we had a toddler we used “humane” traps in a farm house we rented. When we caught one we’d take the trap outside and the barn cats would get a treat.