There is a mouse in my house
 

and I think he is freakin adorable, but I seem to be the only one that thinks so and they want to snap his little neck. Any advice on how to non-lethally solve this issue, or where you might buy a humane trap?

I believe they're called Have a heart traps, or some variation of such, probably spelled differently.

They have an area for you to put nuts/food, and the mouse goes in, which triggers the trap to close behind it, and it catches it in the cage.

Just make sure you get the right size for mice, or else the mouse might be able to get out.

A lot of mechanical mouse traps probably kill instantly, in terms of being humane.

In terms of being cute, one is cute, a thousand is a problem.

yea I probably should have clearified sorry. I mean I want it not-dead.
nearest I can tell its just the one, got a few good looks at it, and while I dont claim to be able to tell them apart I saw no reason to suspect another

If it's in your house it's quite likely it's looking for Shelter or food, But yeah you should really be carefull about that. A female could be looking for a place to breed, a male could be gathering food for his offspring. Mice usually aren't a lonely bunch... you might not have a nest in your house, but you could have one nearby.

We had mice over here a while back. There was the vacant lot nearby that instead of mowing down the grass some jackass thought it would be a good idea to torch it. A small familty of rats moved in to our house. We were building an extra room on the back, so there was some construction materials lying around. Easy nest, and they came through the door for food during the night. Our next door neighboor got himself a 2 feet long snake...

Eventually we had to pretty much lock down the house for a week and poison the outside to get rid of them, there was just no other way. Once they find safety and food, they are staying.

Well, you have a few options. You can buy something.

Like This

Or, you can build something.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4549162/crea...ap-200X200.jpg

I am the rodent whisperer.
 

Capture it with your bare hands, and then release it into the wild.

It's what I do. With bats, as well.

uhn... wouldn't the rat simply grab the chesse and back away?

I mean, unless Mice aren't effected by friction or this one decides that it's a good idea to dash for the cheese, i don't know how this could work...

I didn't think it was that difficult, really.
 

No...the bait is too far along the tube for the mouse to get at without tipping the tube into the can.

The idea isn't for them to get to the bait, it is for them to go FOR the bait and unbalance the tube.

OOOOH! I thought the Tube was connected! If it's loose, then yeah, should work!

Well, mice can carry a lot of diseases.

This. It's what I do as well. Worst case scenario, you accidentally squish the little bugger.

If you're nervous, wear oven mitts.

Well, the terrarium will come with a top, I'm sure. You can take him to the vet at that point, or, really, just wait a week feeding and watering as normal to see if he starts showing any symptoms.

Just make something or do it with your hands. You can't be outsmarted by a mouse surely? Top of the food chain!

Not really. Well, yeah, but because we have guns, and he already said he doesn't want it dead.

Besides that, there's a certain point where you're no longer designed to hunt a prey animal. Mice are well below our threshold.

Use a cat.

Build a non-lethal trap. Mice run towards food. Put food over or under something that will trap him. Can you really not outthink a mouse Blues?

Yes, well. I bring the point up because mice are one of the best at what mammals do really well: fucking.

While I agree that a mouse can be cute when it's confined, I find that a wild mouse running around is extremely unnerving because it tends to dart in and out of my vision quicker than I can process it, and it makes me panic.

I have had no fewer than three mice in my room so far.

I do like the idea of a gravity trap but sadly thats not really an option. Its stays at ground level consistantly

Try sticky traps with poison bate. Or non poison if you want it alive. It worked wonderfully for us years ago when we had nearly 6 of them. (Though we felt very bad that 5 of the 6 were babies that died to our trap).

man those sticky traps are horrible, never using one of those ever again

Carboard box, on a tray, string, stick, bait. It's a classic for a reason you know.

Depends on the brand you get.

Unless he means horrible in the sense that it is an inescapable hell in which the mouse is quickly driven to panic as it makes increasingly desperate but ultimately futile attempts to unstick its body from the trap. I may have a strong dislike for mice invading my home, but the least they deserve is a quick death, not a torturous, drawn-out period of starvation and hopelessness.

did you say mouse?

I'm just really glad we made it 3 pages without Dr Seuss jokes with the Thread title

I wanted to suggest giving it a cookie. Or warning against that. Or something.

well this mouse has guts I'll give him that, twice he's popped his head out while I was near-by

[edit]
yup

I've had mice a few times. It's why I keep my bread in the oven; they don't go in the oven.

Last time I had a mouse, it was very cold. He crawled under my sheets and I crushed him to death. I only noticed after putting some breakfast in the microwave and deciding I'd use the time to make my bed.

T-Rex has the solution to your mouse problems... maybe.
http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-697.png

nevermind, assuming there was just the one its dead now

though traditional mouse trap they set up didn't work too well, it was still alive in the morning

crap this is depressing

Yeah, I usually like to capture them with something humane before finishing the job outside. Don't need them getting nasty little dead mouse bits in my carpet.

:( Well, at least his friends could have learned a lesson from his sacrifice

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...0013/mouse.jpg

Tough luck :(
 

Well, if you get any more, there are things like this, but as you can see they're pretty easy to make on your own.

Just be sure to release them far from your house. They're pretty good at coming back.

I agree.

I found the sticky trap suggestion rather odd, considering the OP wanted a non-lethal method. Glue traps should be illegal anyway, I can't really think of a more inhumane trap. I actually have a story about these things, it happened a week ago at work:

We were having mouse problems in the office and management had the delightful idea of setting up glue traps. One which was right under my desk. One morning I came in and found a mouse stuck on one of them, it was alive - but in such a very bad state. One of his hind legs were twisted/broken, his belly skin was partially torn off and he was actually in the process of gnawing on a limb in an attempt to escape. The poor thing must have been stuck all night, it looked like it was in an incredible amount of pain. I can't believe *this* is an acceptable way to kill something, to force it to maim itself and starve to death - it's a level of torture you'd expect from medieval times. So quite rightly I was upset and a little pissed at the situation.

A co-worker (who is an asshole) suggested I just throw it in the dumpster downstairs. What, so it continues to suffer like that? No way. It's one thing killing a pest, it's another to intentionally let an animal suffer like that, so I'd have no word of it. I had to put the trap in a plastic bag, tie it up and slam the mouse very hard with the bottom of my thermos. Better an instant death like this then being discarded like a piece of rubbish to die agonisingly. After this was done, I went to management and had a word - thankfully, they agreed and replaced the traps with snappy ones. Had they not have, I probably would have sabotaged the glue traps until they replaced them.

I never really gave such traps much thought until then. Now, I absolutely despise glue traps with a passion and plead/discourage people not to use them. They're unnecessarily cruel - actually, "cruel" is quite the understatement here. They're just plain evil. I'll never understand why people have to be such jerks when it comes to such things, making the death of something as agonising as possible when traps exist to instantly kill the little buggers. Maybe it's because people think "they're just mice", but it doesn't make it right to kill something like that IMO. When killing an animal, it shouldn't be tortured to death, it should be killed as painlessly as possible.

Have absolutely no problems with killing mice, or any pest animal - just that method, to me, lacks humanity. I hope my story dissuades people from using these vile contraptions.