I would go the 'cop out' route. Heh-hehe.

I was afraid to click on the thread............I thought there would be a photo of a whole "nest of baby critters" that needed to be identified. Followed by timid posts of "I've never seen anything like that in my life. Eeeew."

From the way you described the nest, it sounds like what mice do. The poor thing is probably running around in the storage area looking for it's bed and planning the build of a new one. You are going to set of glue traps in the area?

We had that problem one year. But it wasn't just their nest, a whole bunch of gross droppings everywhere. I had to throw alot of stuff away and sterilized all the other stuff. The little buggers chewed a whole through my favorite tree skirt. Red chenille with cute little pom-poms.

Never set a glue trap. My friend once described what happen to her after doing this. The poor critter(chipmunk) was dragging itself across her garage floor with one leg while the rest of it's body was stuck to the trap. She peeked out in the garage every once in a while to see it still struggling across the garage. She final called her husband home from the office so she did not have to be witness to the torture any longer.

All the classy folks are storing their quality Chinese items this way LOL!

The mouse may have left already, if food was exhausted in the storage unit. We had some critters in the garage, much to the chagrin of the husband whose 1980s video arcade was in there (no cars, mind you, just 12 arcade games and 2 pinball machines). We got rid of the bird seed upon which they were feeding, cleaned up the mess and nest, and never saw anything of the little rodents again. Of course, I had also seen a couple of black snakes on my property...

I still do the lights the old-fashioned way: set up tree, dig out box of lights, cuss and spit a bit untangling them (how *DO* they get tangled when I very neatly tie them up into distinct bunches every year), plug them into the socket, find they are working/replace burnt out bulbs, put them on the tree, plug in the whole shebang, figure out which ^&*()&%$# string didn't light up all the way, undo the whole thing because it is *ALWAYS* a middle strand, drive to Walmart while begging the poor people of China, Myamar, and other slaves who work for pennies a year to forgive me because Walmart is the only place open at 11pm on Sunday night, buy the most expensive contractor-grade white lights without blinking/running/flashing programs I can find, dash back home, finish putting up the lights, and swear THIS year we are starting earlier!

Just want to also say that glue traps are horribly inhumane. I used them once, will not describe what I saw, but never again! Innocent creatures, even if we think of them as pests, do not deserve that fate. They're just trying to live, as we are, and there are more humane ways to get rid of them.

Ingrid

If you had a mouse nest in the box with your pre-wired fake tree and now the lights partially don't work, I would abandon the thing unless you have the capacity to test each circuit and examine all the wiring, strand by strand. Mice (and that's likely what you had) are famously fond of wire insulation (the plastic-y coating that's on the wires). If they chewed it partially off the light's wires and connections some circuits may not work because they are damaged or slighty shorting out. The worrisome part is that the other lights may appear to be OK, but in reality just a hair's breadth (mouse's toothmark) from disaster, which could mean a dangerous fire if you plug it in. You could always decorate it with strings of light - that would be fine.

Also before you park it in your house, I suggest you clean the nested area well by vacuuming it outside (discard the vac bag afterwards) and then perhaps even washing (with bleach) any branches around the nest. There is a serious, sometimes fatal, viral respiratory disease (Hanta virus) which is spread by contact with deer and white-footed mouse feces and dried urine (and they poop 'n pee where they live - sorry, TMI). I don't know where you are, but this is a risk in the SW and, oddly, the NE, too. And perhaps in many other places.

Sorry to make your holiday prep more complicated.

Molly~

Merry Christmas to you, too, Molly!

No, seriously, thanks for that info. I will get onto the disinfection and inspection of the tree tomorrow. We're in the SE, so maybe we don't have the same issues. But better safe than sorry. We have white-tailed deer. I wonder if that is anything like white-footed mice?

Unless it's a big nest, or you see more than one nest in the box, I'd suspect plain old House Mouse rather than a Deermouse. Deermice are country mice, Housemice are urban/suburban. Deermice live in groups of up to 10, so where there is one nest, you will often find another. Cold weather means tiny little herds of deermice are trying to move in where it's warm, which is why I have two cats living in the kitchen/back porch. One is a great mouser, the other is a great goof off, but they keep my kitchen rodent free.

Otherwise, if I didn't have the cats, I would use glue traps, but only because: (tender hearted soul that I am)
1) This is a farm, so I have plenty of open land to let them go.

2) I know how to get almost any animal off a glue trap without harming it. (other than an insect -sorry, but I've not had much luck saving spiders or crickets)

The secret is cooking oil. Corn oil, cheap-o vegetable oil, if you're feeling really bad about making the vermin suffer, you could use extra virgin olive oil, but really, it doesn't matter. Just slide the glue trap and the struggling varmint onto a cookie sheet or sturdy piece of cardboard to support it while you carry it outside. (In our case, that would be outside and at least a 1/4 mile away from the house, but just outside works if you're in town)

When you get to the release site, just set the cookie sheet/cardboard down, and pour corn oil over the rodent. Oil disolves the glue in less than a minute, and your greasy little varmint will have pulled itself off the trap and will be staggering away into the grass. The rat/mouse/chipmunk/baby squirrel will take care of cleaning itself, which is why you use edible oil. Lizards, frogs and toads don't clean themselves, but it won't hurt them either.

If you catch a bird, you'll have to carefully wash the oil out of it's feathers with dish soap, like they do for seabirds caught in an oil slick. This is also what I'd suggest you do if you catch a litter of kittens. (which happened to one of my neighbors, who called me in a panic about it)

Don't be so sure they didn't get into your tubs. My mom used to work in the school cafeteria and the mice frequenly bit through the large industrial plastic buckets of mayo. They can chew thru most anything although they may not be so aggressive if you don't have food in the tubs.

You beat me to that one dktrahan. Mice will chew through those plastic tubs and can squeeze through the crack where the lid meets. Using duct tape around the lid keeps them from squeezing in as they don't like to chew through the tough threads and sticky glue duct tape has. When they chew through the plastic they start at a corner not a flat surface. Mix Tabasco with Vaseline and rub it on the corners. Niether of these methods is foolproof/mouseproof though.

I would guess that the mouse family has abandoned the cheap a$$ China made house when he couldn't sell it nor get any dollars from it as collateral and is looking for a high quality German made creche or perhaps a lovely Swedish candle tree for the next home for his family.
The mice in my house get only the best....things like Royal Canin dog food and Orvill Redenbacher popcorn, eaten straignt from the nice hoover vacuum sweeper.
Linda C