BETHEL PARK (KDKA) — A mouse doesn’t need a big hole to get into your house.

“What you have to realize on a mouse — they get through holes the size of a pencil,” Andy Amrhein with Evey True Value Hardware said. “A mouse, the skeleton on it, they can contract so that a mouse that is maybe the size of a silver dollar, it’s going to contract to the size of a pencil less than your finger.”

There are many ways to deal with the problem.

“With the glue traps, it’s not a very humane way of doing it,” Amrhein said. “The mouse will get stuck into the glue trap itself, but then it could take days of the mouse being in the trap for the mouse to die of starvation or dehydration.”

The old wives’ tale says mice like cheese, but frankly peanut butter is the most common bait to use on the old fashioned mouse trap.

One of the things about using a mouse trap is getting it set. There are a couple of different ones that you don’t really have to touch, but the old standby that has been around for hundreds of years — the Victor.

If you aren’t careful, it will really leave a mark, which may be another reason more people are trying live traps.

“They realize there is a mouse in there, but they don’t have to touch it and they don’t have to see it and that’s where these live traps are — they are becoming more and more popular,” Amrhein said.

Mouse or rat poison is an option, but fear of having poison around your kids and pets led Bonide Corporation to develop a repellent called Mouse Magic.

Within 10 seconds of dropping a packet in a bucket, the mouse tries repeatedly to jump out.

“It’s totally organic so it can’t hurt you, can’t hurt your kids, can’t hurt your pets, can’t hurt your little kitty cat or dog so there’s no chance of the poison getting in the wrong hands,” Amrhein said.

RELATED LINKS
Amazon: Mouse Magic
Evey True Value