TL;DR: When commercial products have been ineffective or proven dog-unfriendly, what are some other mouse-catching strategies when the mice hide in baseboard heaters and have learned to avoid most traps?
Context:
I bought an old home in an old neighborhood. It soon became apparent that there are mice and they get everywhere*.
Steps taken:
- I called 2 big name pest control companies. They both charged a lump fee of $350-500 then came out and put snap traps, then suggested I have a $3000-ish service come out to seal up the house.
- snap traps (my own, all over the house)
- glue traps (caught far more mice than the pros did)
- many completely ineffective repellents
- electronic sound-repllents
- sprays
- pellets
I never got them 100% gone and they keep breeding (or possibly entering from outside, but I sealed everything up as best as I could on my budget). I've probably caught 20 mice over the course of the year. Maybe more.
I had almost elminiated them for a while with well placed glue traps, but then
- They learned to avoid them (I caught all the dumb mice; the surviving generation of mice are brilliant)
- My dog got her paws stuck in the glue traps 2x despite preventative measures, and I can't let that happen again
So now their activity / numbers seems way up because I can't use almost any traps. The places where I know they go are also often places where my dog could get to and there's really no safe trap I know of for a dog.
What's a good strategy or tool for catching, killing, and/or driving out mice that's very dog-safe?
Any ideas, strategies, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
*I hate mice more than I describe to you. I've been cleaning their droppings and sterilizing everything in the house everyday for over a year.
Best Answer
There is a "home brew" and a commercial form of "bucket-trap" which basically lures them out to a freely rotating element baited with peanut butter and drops them into water to drown. If you build it with a hole in the side and use a lid (as the commercial version I recall is built) it's fairly dog-safe as there's just the hole in the side (typically with a ramp) for the mice to crawl in. The illustrated version would be not dog-safe at all, as it's open and appears to be using antifreeze (suggested when using them in the winter in unheated buildings.)
There are also the enclosed repeating traps which are dog-safe, since again, the mice have to crawl into them.
How well either works depends on your mice.