Rent a Weasel?

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Rather a Ferret, actually.

My girlfriend keeps an immaculate home (I don't). Unfortunately she lives next to an open field and has had a mouse invasion. Apparently they're now in their second generation and despite traps and glue boards, she's only taken a portion of these nasty destructive beasts out.

I've seen YouTubes of ferret meets mouse and I suspect these things would get the word out in a big hurry that her place is not safe territory. All I know about ferrets is that I had a criminal class family living across the street about 30+ years ago. Daddy was in prison for murder and mom was shacked up with a usurper. Used to give their three and four year old children ferrets and butane lighters for Christmas. The ferret would run away and crawl into a crack under my entry way. Had to get on my hands and knees and pull it out when it would escape (probably for good reason). Never got bit or scratched.

When I Google rent a ferret, all I get is landlord advice on renting to ferret owners.

If there's any better ideas out there than noise makers, essential oils, Irish Spring, etc. feel free to come up with other out of the box suggestions. Haven't tried the put a dowel coated with peanut butter through a bucket filled with water yet but heard that suggestion. Glue boards do get some action, but those buggers do know how to reproduce rapidly and she doesn't want a third generation popping up.

I'm retired and have no interest in getting back into business, but a rental ferret business is one of my few creative ideas in the past decade. I'm sure there would be regulatory impediments to doing this but I still think I may have come across a rare good idea. Maybe there's a St. Louis ferret club that I could contact.
 
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I started using the roller on a bucket, from Amazon. Works surprisingly well. Keep them on the outside perimeter of the house.
Peanut butter as the bait.
 
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She has cat allergy (probably ferret as well), doesn't want a permanent pet. i think about half of the cats are mousers but every ferret has killer instinct built in (probably, I don't really know).

Danno's description better than mine. Mouse gets on spinning tight rope looking for tasty treat, falls off and drowns. Was thinking about mounting something similar on spare toilet, you could just flush, probably wouldn't even have to bag 'em up.
 
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I had a mouse (maybe more than one?) showing up in my vacation condo from time to time and got pretty ticked when I went to grab something from the kitchen counter and stuck my hand into mouse pee with little poops floating in it.
I bought some poison bait stations and some kind of electronic doodad that was supposed to repel mice...the box swore that it was not ultrasonic (which I had used before with squirrels and made me feel uneasy all the time), but it didn't explain what it really did.
I left all the stuff out for about a month and just unplugged the doodad...no signs of mice but I can't prove that anything I did caused them to die or vacate. I didn't get the feeling they were living in my place but suspected they were just visiting on occasion, the only food they ever found was a tootsie roll my daughter left behind some bottled waters stacked up on the counter. I try to make sure we never leave food out and did a couple of inventories of what we did have stored up there with no signs of rodent feasting.

Maybe a doodad like the one I bought might help? Found it at WM, can't remember the brand name but I could figure it out if needed. I didn't do any research before buying, just saw it when I was getting the bait stations and grabbed it. I couldn't tell any difference between having it plugged in or not other than the LEDs that are supposed to let you know it's working. I could definitely tell when those ultrasonic things were on and only put up with them because they actually seemed to drive the squirrels out of our attic...
 
The ultrasonic things don't get a very high rating. I suggested she place poison in the house but she's afraid they'll smell when they die. Mice are pretty small and I'm sure any smell would be temporary. Of course that's before they reproduced. Her exterminator gave her comp. sticky boards and told her to put poison outside. Can't figure that out at all. When I killed mice with poison about thirty years ago, it was loose grain tainted with Warfarin. Word was that they'd dehydrate from blood loss and go out to get a drink and die. Worked well. Everything these days is encapsulated in little container mazes that only mice can figure out.

Had a squirrel in the attic problem about a decade ago in a rental house. Contacted something called Critter Control. Had a family of about five, so they put candy circus peanuts in live traps. It was supposed to be about $200 for the first five caught and about $50 for each additional squirrel after that. Put the traps outside on my roof and literally got every squirrel in the subdivision. Cost me hundreds extra.
 
Originally Posted by csandste
The ultrasonic things don't get a very high rating. I suggested she place poison in the house but she's afraid they'll smell when they die. Mice are pretty small and I'm sure any smell would be temporary. Of course that's before they reproduced. Her exterminator gave her comp. sticky boards and told her to put poison outside. Can't figure that out at all. When I killed mice with poison about thirty years ago, it was loose grain tainted with Warfarin. Word was that they'd dehydrate from blood loss and go out to get a drink and die. Worked well. Everything these days is encapsulated in little container mazes that only mice can figure out.

Had a squirrel in the attic problem about a decade ago in a rental house. Contacted something called Critter Control. Had a family of about five, so they put candy circus peanuts in live traps. It was supposed to be about $200 for the first five caught and about $50 for each additional squirrel after that. Put the traps outside on my roof and literally got every squirrel in the subdivision. Cost me hundreds extra.

I drove the squirrels out with ultrasonic devices and thought they were still gone when I went up and patched the hole they were getting in at a funny intersection between differently angled sections of my roof...then the wife and I went on a short vacation.
We got back home and the next door neighbor came hustling over to say there was a huge racket in our attic while we were gone...at least one of the little buggers had gotten trapped inside!
I had nailed and caulked a piece of aluminum siding over the hole and a small hole had actually been chewed through the siding...just enough for the squirrel(s?) to squeeze out and leave a lot of blood and fur behind. I have to think they died after that, it was a real mess.
I really wasn't planning to kill the things, but that's what they got for messing with my house! IDK, wild animals are tough and maybe they healed up...repatched the hole and no more problems until we sold that place.
 
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My GF is contacting the same firm which got every squirrel in the neighborhood into cages. They do critter roundups for all of the wildlife for the condo (other owners are also complaining). Apparently if it's something structural the condo might pay. They did seal my rental house and no further squirrels have shown up in years.

I also called the ferret rescue service about having one for a few days and I'm sure if they contact me it will be to tell me I'm a potential ferret abuser and they don't do that. Since there are also two comments about the sound devices working, we might look into that as well. The question is will the mice prefer annoying sounds or freezing their butts off outside.
 
You will have to use block bait poison. Because the poisons available are so weak, buy two different kinds with different active ingredients. This will kill them faster. Most of the mice will leave the house while dying. They get thirsty from internal bleeding. Good luck.
 
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