Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Main question/facts first (long story follows.)

Over the course of about six months I lost my entire colony of feeder/pet mice and rats to what I'm attributing to deer mouse-borne illness. (Peromyscus maniculatus)

I'd like to re-establish my breeding program but can't unless I can find a way to eradicate these wild mice and prevent them from coming back. Any suggestions on how to wild mouse-proof my apartment?

I live on the second floor of an old (early 1900's) farm house. The landlord freely admits that deer mice "have always been a problem" but the lease clearly states that all extermination is the responsibility of the renters. I suspect the mice enter through the heating system; I hear them scrambling up and down the wall furnace in the bedroom. I've looked but see no way of adequately blocking this off, even with the traditional steel wool. I don't think poison is an option - other tenants obviously have used this and the stench is, of course, horrible.

I'd like to avoid hiring a professional exterminator, as it's my understanding that treating just my apartment would not be effective (not to mention the cost and the fact that the treatment itself would not be conducive to raising rodents afterward.)

Has anyone here dealt with this problem? Any ideas or suggestions? Is my only option to give up on raising mice and rats in my home until I can move to (hopefully) a non-infested apartment? (Next summer would be the earliest that could happen.)

And here's my long sad tale......

What a nightmare. Who knew, when I moved into this apartment, that the local deer mice would find it to be as nice as I did?

These deer mice showed up as soon as the weather grew chilly last fall, but did not go away when the weather warmed up as I thought they would. They have been adept at avoiding every snap trap I set up. Glue traps work well - some weeks I catch up to a dozen. But these too stay empty after a while (giving me the impression that the little buggers "wise up" to them. I don't catch more unless I take a week or so break from putting the glue traps out again.)

They seemed to like the rodent room best, no doubt because of the smorgasbord of rat food that the rats would toss out of their cages. I'd consistently find deer mouse droppings on the tops of the mouse cages. But the kitchen and other rooms were never off-limits, and I still see either the mice themselves or their droppings at least once a week.

I suspect other tenants in this house use poison because lucky me, I have found mice sitting on tables, my alarm clock... seemingly unfazed by my presence, so stupefied that I could scoop them up with a small container.

Sadly, all signs seem to point to these lovely critters being the cause of the tragic deaths of every last feeder and pet rodent I had (until recently) been successfully keeping/breeding in the spare bedroom.

Briefly, what happened was that several "waves" of some sort of illness swept through the small-but-thriving colonies of mice and rats... symptoms were bizarre but consistent and did not even remotely fit those of Sendai, Myco, or other URI's that I'm aware of. Each time it happened I'd lose one or more group of rodents, with the remaining critters becoming visibly weaker and obviously ill. None responded to an assortment of medical treatments. When the last of the rodents (from rats to mice to a guinea pig) died I chose to abandon all breeding projects. The deer mice, however, don't seem to have adopted that same approach as they maintain their visible presence.

I never became ill myself, although hanta virus is of course a concern. I've yet to find a nest or any other indication of where they may be living, breeding, or entering the house.

Any suggestions on how I might make moves toward wild-mouse proofing this place? I'd very much like to begin breeding again, especially since I want to bring in more herps. Moving to another apartment is not, unfortunately, an option until next summer. I am prepared for accepting that my only option will be to give up on the idea of keeping rodents here again, but there's always hope.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for bearing with the lengthy post. My down-falling as always.
-----
Rebecca
TSBabe66@hotmail.com
Honored to moderate at Snakefeeders, the place to buy/sell/trade feeder animals. Come check us out! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/snakefeeders/

Rebecca

I've been giving this some thought and I see three paths.

1) Hardware cloth over heaters, vents, and other openings. Metal weather stripping under all doors. Plug all holes around electrical plugs, phone jacks, and plaster cracks.

OR

2) Build a frame large enough to fit your rodents in and cover that with hardware cloth with a solid (wood or metal) top and bottom.

OR

3) Build a shed outside like mine

DeMak

Your input is much appreciated. An outside shed is the best solution but not an option at the moment as I'm a renter, live on the second floor, and can't currently swing the costs of heating and cooling such a structure that'd be subjected to the extremes of winter and summer.

Enclosing the rodent area as you suggested would not address what I feel is the main issue of how the animals became ill. Assuming (as I must) that whatever struck my rodents was something akin to hanta virus (which I understand is spread via airborne feces/urine particles), keeping the wild mice out of the mouse/rat area (rather than the entire apartment) wouldn't prevent the same situation from repeating itself.

At this point it's obviously in my best interest to mouse-proof the apartment as much as possible just for my own health... and as winter is approaching, a seasonal wild-mouse invasion would, in it's subsequent absence, be proof in itself that I was successful.

To be honest, my primary motivation for re-establishing a rodent colony is that I kept some of the rats as pets for my classroom.... and their offspring as pets for other teachers and such. I'd hate to present the kids with their new "classmates" only to have the rats succumb to illness
after spending a vacation or two in my apartment. We shall see.... thank you again for the suggestions and especially for the picture of your shed. In my mind, that sort of thing became far more complicated than what your description indicates!
-----
Rebecca
TSBabe66@hotmail.com
Honored to moderate at Snakefeeders, the place to buy/sell/trade feeder animals. Come check us out! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/snakefeeders/

I forgot to mention that there is a latex foam in a can. It is the easiest way I know to seal around electrical outlets, ect. You may not get all the entrances the first time. I remember being in my livingroom one morning and seeing a tree rat come out of the wall by pushing between the electrical outlet plate and the wall.

I live in L. A. so heating in the winter is not an issue. In the summer, sometimes the rat house gets into the nineties in the afternoons for weeks at a time. They are still providing though. I think my shed cost about 250$ by the time I was finished. Not a minor cost....