The couple of times I have had to do this, I picked up the edge of the trap furthest from the mouse's head, carried it to the toilet, and submerged the head of the mouse into the toilet bowl. Gruesome I know, but quick and the most humane way I could figure out.

I was afraid of something like that. I was thinking of picking it up in a plastic bag, taking it to the garage and dropping the sand tamper on it. Maybe I will rethink the sticky traps, but I think they are going to catch the mice better.

The caught, trapped mice will chew their own leg off to get away. Or they will slowly starve to death. A quick, humane death is easier for all. Although I use only the snap traps myself, if you must use sticky traps, a quick drowning seems to be the most humane.

Our pest control guy left a whole supply of glue traps when he made his first call to our home recently. "Just in case." I don't know that I could bring myself to actually use them, should the need arise. The Humane Society of the U.S. calls them "cheap, cruel and indiscriminate." I've read about (and unfortunately seen gruesome photos) of mice that get caught on a sticky trap and chew through their own limbs in an attempt to escape. Horrible.

On the other hand, nobody wants to live with a wild rodent infestation. I don't have an answer to your problem, but my heart goes out to you and I hope you figure out a way within your own comfort level to rid your home of the little buggers.

Ew! I think I'm going to scoop up the traps I just set out, chewing their little legs off is just sickening. Reminds me of the mouse who got caught in a snap trap under the sink but it didn't kill him. He thrashed around under there all afternoon. I told DH I'd meet him at a restaurant for dinner (I was NOT going to cook with that) and then he could come home first and remove the varmint.

A bit OT but this reminded me of the varmint we caught in the attic of our previous home a year or so ago. He was a big guy and we were amazed that he had been able to access the attic from the tight space he made his way into. He inflicted a good deal of damage up there, and I WANTED to be angry with him when we finally trapped him and DH brought him down from the attic. But that little masked face ... I just couldn't be upset with him. He was scared to death, and would glance shyly at us and when we'd make eye contact, he'd quickly look away. We called him Wrecky, and we set him free down near the river.

Like the chipmunks, cute as can be but you do NOT want 'em around.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to pick up the essential peppermint oil recommended in another thread and "herd" the varmints into one area where we can trap them all in proper traps.

Thanks for not recommending a cat. The mice have lately been seen in DS's room, where the cat hangs out all the time. They have been seen WHILE the cat is in there.

In my experience, cats provide pitiful pest control. (Sometimes, they ARE the pests.)

I sympathize because I've had a mouse problem since I bought my old 1880's farmhouse, but only in the kitchen, thank goodness. But please try to not use the sticky traps. They are so inhumane. Best bet is to put flour down near where you think the mice are coming in. They will leave a sure track that will show you where they're getting in. Then seal it up with coarse steel wool.

25 years ago (the last time I had a mouse in the house), I bagged it up and wrapped the bag around the tail pipe of my car, turned on the car. He was dead in seconds.

We think they got in a looooong time ago, and just live here.

Yes, you have to get the colony.

Thanks for reconsidering the sticky traps. They are really cruel.

I would also seal off any entryways into the house. Every single hole anywhere even tiny ones, gaps in siding, whatever, look very, very carefully.

The bigger question is, how did they get in?

In my experience, cats provide pitiful pest control.

A good mouser is taught, more often than just born. If the mother cat is a hunter for food, and she has the chance to teach the kittens, then they will also usually become good hunters. Other cats, while having the instinct to chase and hunt, don't necessarily connect that what they are chasing is food. So they are as likely as not to just view mice as little more than playthings. They don't connect the sound and smell of a mouse running inside a cabinet to food, and will not be inclined to wait an hour for their plaything to scurry across the floor. And if they do, the mouse will often escape, because the cat is only playing with it. A hunter that considers it their next meal will wait for an opportunity and kill the mouse.

Oh we had a little mouse friend once at our old house. My dog who kills everything, I mean everything; birds, snakes, opposum, squirrels, raccoons, kittens:(. Anyway, he decided he'd let this mouse eat from his dish and would even leave dry kibble for it. I did the glue trap. I took it down to the lake and olive oil sprayed him loose. Before this I always trapped them in the plastic humane trap that you release alive but, they'd panic and pee then drown themselves in it so I'd end up checking the traps throughout the night. The traps are called safety traps and come in a 2 pack. Please consider picking up the glue trap with tongs and sealing in a container until you can release him with oil.

Glue traps are the nth degree of cruelty. Releasing a mouse outside its home turf and into a new area is pretty much consigning it to death, too -- fast if fate is merciful, slow if it is not. Nothing "sweet" about it. A fast, direct kill is pretty much the only kind way to control mice that are already inside unless you use live traps, but even using those requires a kind approach, which is not releasing the rodent miles away. All that is accomplished in that case is that you don't see it die.

My strategy when living in the woods of Massachusetts was, each fall, to seal up all new openings that had developed in the house over the past year, then live trap the guys who had moved in over summer (deer mice, very cute and native), and put them back out in the yard where they belonged.

If I had house mice, which are non-native, I would use snap traps without apologies, but I could not ever bring myself to use glue traps.

Catspa- I tried releasing them in my yard and sealing holes...they always found a way back. I guess it would depend on how large your yard is. I make no distinction between native or non-native species.

I didn't have any malicious thoughts about the cute little buggers. That was until last week when the pest control guy pointed out that I had rats. $2500 later and thousands more to shell out for electrical wiring repair...I'm not feeling too humane.

There's having malicious thoughts and then there's inhumane. I've threatened many times to go out and get an ak-47 in order to blow those dang mice away..but it's a quick death for them. Instead, I pulled all of my appliances out, squeezed into the two cabinets next to the sink, and got every entrance filled with steel wool. No more mice. They're welcome in my crawlspace but not in the house proper. Suffering is suffering, regardless of whether the one doing the suffering is a pest or a saint. Last spring, I went into my shed and there were two dead mice inside the huge Brute barrel I have in there for trash overflow (which I also keep very clean by washing with ammonia or white vinegar). They obviously couldn't get out once inside, and one had eaten the other. Gross!

I have had good luck with the rat zapper. I like it because I do not have to see the dead mouse (that really bothers me). The unit flashes when there is a dead mouse inside, and you just dump the carcass without every having to look at it. Also, the death is very quick.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002665ZTC/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00CM859OA&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=16RQ8DD38H94550398P8

How to humanely kill a rodent.

I don't mind killing mice if they are in my house-don't want the damage- but I couldn't do the glue traps... torture! :(

Toss the sticky traps before they work and get some old fashioned snap traps. We find the wood ones work better than the new fangled ones. They are 4 for a dollar at the dollar store. My husband will take the mouse out and reuse but I just toss the whole thing at $.25 each it is worth it to me. Peanut butter is our bait of choice. We've never had a mouse not die on first blow so haven't had to kill any that were just injured.

I did the glue traps once and the stuck mouse looked up at me with his big brown eyes and he was just so cute. I had to set him free and never used them again. The snap traps usually kill them instantly, and I'm fine with that.

Except when they don't die in the snap trap. We have found them snapped, empty, with only a blood stain left behind. One was caught, I guess by the leg, under the kitchen sink and thrashed around. I absolutely could not deal with it. We have another trap that is supposed to kill them, then you throw away the whole trap without having to see it...except when it doesn't kill them.

Lou Manfredini was talking about this very subject this morning on the local news. He did recommend the glue trap but of course didn't talk about the aftermath. And he mentioned straight gluten. Apparently they will eat it, and while it is not poisonous to them, it causes them to not drink so they die of dehydration. But, I don't want them dying in my walls! Phew!

i just don't think there's any way around it. Tibbrix, can I borrow your ak-47?

I think some of you are "thinking" about this too much. It's a mouse. It's in YOUR house spreading disease, destroying YOUR property and pooping/peeing in YOUR house. Potentially causing thousands of dollars in damages to YOUR house. Let's hope you're not as unlucky as my dad when one crawled in his mouth while he was sleeping (and snoring). He was at a swanky lake resort playing in a weekend long tennis tournament. Ewww!

Catching and releasing mice? No thanks! It's been 25 years since I've had one in the house but if I get another one, I will use a method easiest on me and dispose of it as painlessly (for the mouse) as I can. In the fall and winter, we put trays of poison in the attic and in the garage where no other animal can get to it.

I don't have roaches and rarely have spiders and centipedes. I smash those! We have an on again/off again LIZARD problem. What's up with that?! Yeah, I don't release those either...they'll just make their way right back into my house :o

We lived in base housing, insulation was blown into all and we had a family of mice blown in ours. Housing said it was "our problem". We caught them in a no kill trap and released them near the Base Commanders house. They ran right into the back door. I think it soon became Housing's problem. :) We have several indoor and outdoor cats and no longer have a mouse problem. No to the sticky traps, they are a nightmare for so many reasons.

As much as I hate the idea of rodents anywhere in my house, the thought of them suffering agonizing deaths makes me heartsick. Why don't they just all go somewhere else?

A year or so ago, there must have been a neighbor using d-CON, because I found all these outwardly uninjured dead mice and rats in my yard. Ugh.

Monica, that's so funny about the lizards. When we spent a summer in Arizona, I flipped up the rug by the door one day to find a little lizard beneath it. I opened the door and he scooted out.

Well, the sticky stuff is in the trash. I got 3 kinds of kill traps including the classic snap, for a "trap-off" competition. I got essential peppermint oil to "herd" them to one end of the house where I will put most of the traps (I already have cotton balls). I got steel wool to stuff into holes. I didn't look for plain gluten. (Lou said it is a peaceful death for them, like hypothermia!)

oh, dear, I sound so ruthless. I'm not, really. Wait, I must be. Aargh.

No, you are not ruthless. I don't think anyone wants to share their home with mice, rats, roaches etc. Mice can get through a surprisingly small space.

We had a big "waterbug" "palmetto bug" (BIG southern roaches) problem when we first bought this old house. I used spray in foam under the sink to seal around the pipes and in any cracks/holes. Stuffed steel wool around the gas stove pipe entrance, used silicone calking all around the base of the kitchen cabinets. No more pests. Well, okay, sometimes my dh is a little pesty but I can put up with that.

I'm glad you threw away those glue traps. They are indescribably cruel, and by all rationality, should be outlawed.

I know someone who had a snake problem in her home. One made its way to a crack in the brick fireplace and slithered into it, so she quickly grabbed a caulk gun and sealed his fate. It's a funny story to hear her tell it. Cruel? Yes. But panic makes us do outlandish things at times.

Hopefully snake slithered up and out through the chimney! (Hey, maybe I need a snake, they eat mice!)

bpathome, I feel for you. We've used the peppermint for years now with no mice until recently. I'm sure my hubby has not been as diligent as he once was about placing it and there could very well be somewhere they are now getting in because of hail damage summer before last that we've missed. To day an itty bitty mouse was seen twice in the Ladies Parlor. At first I thought Joey, our largest male cat, was after a bug until I saw the darn little thing. He later came back and laid on my desk. When I asked if he caught the mouse he looked forlorn so I assumed he didn't get it. I had a little talk with him telling him that when he saw it next it was his job to kill it as it didn't belong in our home.
Well, he must have understood me because he did kill it. Our son found him looking even more forlorn laying in the Sunroom looking at the pour little, darn dirty, but oh so cute critter in front of him. I totally understood his feeling. As much as I don't want them in my home, they are still God's creation as much as I am and I felt terrible the dear little being lost his life so young. It's just not right, but what are you to do?
And now I'm sitting her crying because I told my cat to kill!

Wonder if I should feel bad about killing a a copperhead snake by throwing a sledgehammer on it and nailing it right behind the head? Nope, don't feel bad, I just don't. The dogs found it right where my 3 year old grandson had been playing just 20 minutes earlier. That snake wasn't leaving the property alive... even if it was God's creation. And I'm not going to feel bad about disposing of any of God's creatures that invade my home causing potential damage to it or us :)

After a hurricane (Alicia?) rodents moved into the neighborhood (because of all the debris) and a mouse somehow got into the kitchen one night and ran across hub's foot as he was standing at the sink, he got all eeked out and bought some sticky traps the next day for the garage. He caught the mouse, then couldn't figure out what to do with it, so he decided to put it out of its misery by hitting it with a baseball bat. Um, yeah, the bat stuck to the glue, so he flipped it over, hit it, the glue trap stuck to the garage floor. I didn't watch any of it but heard it, he called an exterminator the next day and never again spoke about it, the whole thing was horrible.