One of my wife's friends gave her a nice prayer plant for Christmas, but my wife didn't have an extra plant stand to put it on by the kitchen window. So, a few days ago I went down into the basement, found some scrap wood and set about making her a small trestle table plant stand that would fit in with the country kitchen decor.

Well, I'm working away the other afternoon in the basement and I see a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a mouse scurring behind the well pressure tank. It's not unusual to have a mouse in the basement of this old farm house when the weather turns cold. The field mice want a warm place too. So, while I set a mouse trap, I reminded our cat that she was falling down on the job. She just looked at me and yawned.

Next day there was a nice mouse in the trap. To make sure there weren't any more mice, I set the trap again. Low and behold, got another one the next day. This time I threatened to put our cat on half rations if she didn't get with it. She looked at me and proceeded to stroll around the basement. I think she was just getting some exercise and pretending to look for mice.

Set the trap again. Today when I went to the basement, the trap was gone! Not moved or dragged behind something or under something. GONE!! STOLEN!! Somewhere, there is a mouse with a trap dangling around its neck or hanging off its nose or latched onto its foot. Maybe the mice ganged up and carried the trap off somewhere knowing it was hazardous to their health. Maybe the cat took it.

So, if anyone sees a mouse running or limping past their house dragging a mouse trap, please let me know.

Ed

P.S. I finished the plant stand and my wife likes it.

-- Ed (ecpubs@lynchburg.net), January 05, 2002

Answers

maybe the cat finally got the idea? or it caought another mouse, and the cat got a free meal,, and is useing the spring as a tooth pick

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), January 05, 2002.

No telling where that thing is. This reminds me of the time i went out 1 morning to check the mouse trap i had set in the hen coop. It had also disappeared & while i was wondering what had dragged it off, i found the little bugger. Little bitty mouse had only it's tail caught, ran right through some poultry wire but the trap didn't follow him. He "sewed" himself right through that wire. everytime i pulled the trap, he squealed something awful since i was nearly pulling his tail out. Being the softy that i am, i undid his tail & off he went. Guess he learned his lesson....my trap stayed empty for several days following that little incident.

-- Buk (bukabuk@hotmail.com), January 05, 2002.

We all of a sudden got a bunch of mice in the basement. I bought 4 traps. My son set them. We started catching mice like crazy. Then one by one the traps disappeared. We SEARCHED for them. We don't have any cats in the basement. We never found them. We are moving in a month. I am wondering if they will show up somewhere then. I had to go out and buy more and 2 of them disappeared.

-- M & M (amazinggraze@valkyrie.net), January 05, 2002.

It has been my experence that in a couple of days or just a little longer you will be able to find the traps by following the smell. Yuck

-- David (bluewaterfarm@mindspring.com), January 05, 2002.

Okay, if the mouse is big enough to drag off the trap....!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@aol.com), January 05, 2002.

I cemented a fault in my foundation which was letting the mice into my old house. After a day or two, the mice seemed like they were getting hungry and were drawing lots as while one mouse would give up its life to the trap, the other mouse would steal the bait. I stayed up a few hours and emtied the trap and rebaited it about once every 15 minutes until all mice were gone.

Maybe you can find your hole where the mice were entering and fix it.

-- Gary from MN (hpysheep@midwestinfo.com), January 05, 2002.

Drill a hole in your traps and tie a piece of wire through the hole and fasten it (tie it down) to something the mouse can't drag away-- this happened to us too--we found the trap several days later--:^(

-- Sharon (spangenberg@hovac.com), January 05, 2002.

I haven't lost a trap lately, but I did have a field mouse set off a rat trap (the kind that uses a base 4 by 8 inches in size). Not a pretty site. the head and upper torso were in the trap and his little butt was across the shed.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 06, 2002.

Jay ,perchance I have a morbid sense of humour but that visual made me howl.I will be smirking all day now.

-- teri (dnsmacbeth@aol.com), January 06, 2002.

Ed,

I think I saw him and the trap running under my stove! got him by the tail!

-- westbrok (westbrook_farms@yahoo.com), January 06, 2002.

Teri,

I must have the same sense of humor. I could almost imagine the mouse as he saw his butt flying before he expires saying in "Chandler" style "something is wrong here. Could it be any MORE wrong???"

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 06, 2002.

I'm just wondering what you guys use as bait on these traps? We always use chocolate spread, so at least they die happy!!

Alison

-- Alison Homa (alisonhoma@hotmail.com), January 06, 2002.

The 1st Fall we were in our house, we had the hard wood floor in the dining room torn up to redo a section - mice kept coming upstairs from the basement! So, we set some traps & caught about half a dozen mice in a couple days - one morning we came into the dining room to find 2 mice caught head first in the same trap! I guess they were getting greedy for that peanut butter & didn't want to wait in line! :0

-- hmm (h.m.metheny@att.net), January 06, 2002.

Bait; yummy peanutbutter....because its so odoriferous!

-- Jim-mi (hartalteng@voyager.net), January 06, 2002.

I need to send a couple of our field rats over to train your rats. Our locale big boys can and do set off our large traps and steal the bait. I watched one evening late, the rat took a branch in its mouth set off the trap then ate the bait....Then as my 22LR hit it, it cut flips. Oh well it taught many others it's trick. ugggh.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), January 06, 2002.

When I was a boy my parents bought a new place rather closer to the county landfill than I'd have liked. One of the first problems we had to contend with was an infestation of the biggest damn Norway rats that any of us had ever seen. We got the rat traps on wood boards and lost the first couple of them without a trace so we started wiring them down. Came out one day and found *half* the trap, the other half had been chewed off and was gone. Repeated experience showed that it was the unfortunate victim's compatriots that were responsible for the loss of the trap as they ate him, rats seem to have little compunction about cannibalism. The big board traps weren't reliable killers on those rats anyway.

We eventually ended up going to 00 steel traps and wiring them to the rafters. Once I got the hang of using them and how best to place them we'd kill six or seven a day and entirely eliminated the infestation in a couple of weeks.

I hate rats.

........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), January 06, 2002.

Remember - the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Are you sure your CAT didn't take the mousetrap away? Pick it up on its paw, run a little way, then shake it off?

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), January 07, 2002.

Remember - the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Are you sure your CAT didn't take the mousetrap away? Pick it up on its paw, run a little way, then shake it off? Or even take a ready- caught snack away on an attached platter?

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), January 07, 2002.

Get those sticky board traps. The buggers can't take them away. I put a couple pieces of dogfood in the centers. They are sticky! I pull the mice off of them with the plyers, so I can use the traps again and again. I just leave them around the house, where the dogs can't get to them, like behind things. I caught 27 since it got cold here. But you gotta get the mice off as soon as you can, if left too long, they sink into the goo. I have 4 of them around the house, and I just make a habit of checking them often.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), January 07, 2002.