A Nightmare Realized

Sammy Grigio said:
For the last few months the wife and I have been waging a relentless battle against mice in our house. This is a rather hardy and persistent variety that is endemic to Alaska. They're not any bigger than any other mouse but they do seem to be a lot more tenacious in eating and breeding. We have tried everything short of fumigation to eradicate them. We go through a few weeks of peace and no mouse activity to spurts of tepid activity and rummaging wall raptors. Raptors because the sound they make scurrying around inside the walls sounds like a ravaging raptor looking for a way out.

The defining characteristic in these mice is the figurative size of their balls. They are absolutely fearless. They aren't scared of our two pit bulls, our crazy kids or us. A month ago as we were having a family dinner with a hearty spread on the table one of them jettisoned up my daughters leg, down her arm and onto the table. It darted for the dinner rolls and parked itself right there and began munching in front of us. We were shocked. My daughter was frozen still and mortified. Once I came to my senses I attempted to shoo it off the table. It catapulted off the with a piece of dinner roll in its mouth and vanished as they do.

That was the last straw. I bought 50 sticky traps and 50 "poison control stations" and set them ALL around the house. Within a few days there was no sign of them anywhere. Out of the 50 sticky traps 36 had done their job and captured the culprits. The rest we assumed were done away with by the poison. That was four weeks ago.

Now, the nightmare. Last night my wife and I were in our room watching a movie. My chameleon Jimmy (male Ambilobe) is housed in our room with us just off and to the right of the foot of the bed. I heard a scratching sound inside of his cage. I didn't think anything of it as it's a fairly common sound caused by crickets that escape the feeder and claw at the walls in the bottom which are lined with poly film for water proofing. The scratching sound continued and became a bit louder and more hurried. Then it stopped suddenly. Shortly after it stopped the wife and I both looked over at each other simultaneously and said "Did that kind of sound like a mouse in Jimmy's cage to you?". Panic. I jump up to investigate and my eyes immediately catch one of those little a-holes trying to get into Jimmy's feeder to munch on the veggies and bug burger. Before I could land on my feet I saw Jimmy staring at this mouse with utmost disdain, and it that moment he did it. In pure chameleon fashion he stuck him with his tongue, reeled him in, gave him about four hard chomps and swallowed.

I still can't believe he did that. It makes me happy and excited but also mortifies me. I can only pray at this point that mouse didn't have any poison in its system. I will find out, no doubt, when I get home from work today. If Jimmy is still alive, not only will I be a very happy and relieved man, but it will further prove the sheer awesomeness of our beloved chromatic dinosaurs.

Who needs a cat when you have a chameleon.
Click to expand...
Well!! I think you have no other option here but to buy more chameleons.. this might fix your mices problem haha
 
That poison dont even work, we tried that when we got mice problems a couple years back. All that did was get us a scare and a Vet bill when the dog ate it.... Shes fine thank gosh, she is only 7lb Maltese, and ate 80% of the box, so we were very worried, the Vet gave her Vitamin K shot, and she was fine.

The mice kept breeding even with that poison down, and so there was just more mice. Snapper Traps man, Snapper Traps! Not only does it get rid of those demon creatures, but it does so very loudly so you KNOW! Such a good feeling to hear that trap go off after being terrorized.

Its also arguably more humane. The poison takes time to work, as all it is is an anticoagulant that prevents blood from clotting and supposedly causes internal bleeding that wont stop. It is not at all fast acting, and doesn't even work half the time, our Vet told us that when the dog ate it. Literally just a blood thinner. Shoot you could be helping the rat, that took off with your bacon the day before!

Anyway, the glue traps, they will chew there legs off to escape, its disgusting and mean. Snappers, Quick not much pain as they pretty much always instantly die, a little bloody but not too bad. Get the snappers and thank me later :).



Also the 36 traps filled and the rest you thought gone, not even close. The Glue traps also dont work half the time, they can not get stuck or get around it and get the bait out. The saying goes, that in 1 night no matter how many traps you have, you will catch at most 25% of the population. 2 mice will become 20 in a week. You need to setup lots of snappers, and keep them setup, they are not gone, I promise you. Mice are social like ants, not every mouse goes out to find food, only a small percentage do, and bring food back. There is still at least a few at home base, if not a metric ton.

Our first night with the snappers, we caught 8, figured thats all there was, I kept the traps up anyway and replaced those 8, over the next month, we caught 35 more. Have only caught a few new entrys since then, but we still keep 5 traps baited at all times.

Oh and to bait the snappers, cheese dont work, and anything soft they will pull off. I found a trick that gives 100% success rate. break a cornflake, into small pieces and hot glue them down to the trap, then smear a little bit of Peanut butter on that, they cannot get it off and will try and get snapped.
 
Last edited:
Brodybreaux25 said:
Isnt everything supposed to be bigger and tougher in Alaska? Chams too!
Click to expand...

Thats what I thought about them Mice. All I think about is the area where its 6 months darkness (I dont think many live in that area though) and all the Vampire movies about it. Them there VAMPIRE RATS!

Its good OP got 36, but I bet El Chupacabra is still in there somewhere.

OP you seen this guy about?
chupacabra2.png
 
Thanks, thanks for the severe anxiety! I'm already living a nightmare for crying out loud so can you please give me SOME good news here!

What a wonderful thought the notion of zombie mice breeding in my walls while bleeding out of every orifice. All the while assembling a "special unit" of T-800 type recon mice with a program directive to seek, eat and terrorize. The term "metric ton" will never again be a part of my lexicon. You are so sweet. Thank you for that.

Well that was unsettling :ROFLMAO: .
 
Sammy Grigio said:
For the last few months the wife and I have been waging a relentless battle against mice in our house. This is a rather hardy and persistent variety that is endemic to Alaska. They're not any bigger than any other mouse but they do seem to be a lot more tenacious in eating and breeding. We have tried everything short of fumigation to eradicate them. We go through a few weeks of peace and no mouse activity to spurts of tepid activity and rummaging wall raptors. Raptors because the sound they make scurrying around inside the walls sounds like a ravaging raptor looking for a way out.

The defining characteristic in these mice is the figurative size of their balls. They are absolutely fearless. They aren't scared of our two pit bulls, our crazy kids or us. A month ago as we were having a family dinner with a hearty spread on the table one of them jettisoned up my daughters leg, down her arm and onto the table. It darted for the dinner rolls and parked itself right there and began munching in front of us. We were shocked. My daughter was frozen still and mortified. Once I came to my senses I attempted to shoo it off the table. It catapulted off the with a piece of dinner roll in its mouth and vanished as they do.

That was the last straw. I bought 50 sticky traps and 50 "poison control stations" and set them ALL around the house. Within a few days there was no sign of them anywhere. Out of the 50 sticky traps 36 had done their job and captured the culprits. The rest we assumed were done away with by the poison. That was four weeks ago.

Now, the nightmare. Last night my wife and I were in our room watching a movie. My chameleon Jimmy (male Ambilobe) is housed in our room with us just off and to the right of the foot of the bed. I heard a scratching sound inside of his cage. I didn't think anything of it as it's a fairly common sound caused by crickets that escape the feeder and claw at the walls in the bottom which are lined with poly film for water proofing. The scratching sound continued and became a bit louder and more hurried. Then it stopped suddenly. Shortly after it stopped the wife and I both looked over at each other simultaneously and said "Did that kind of sound like a mouse in Jimmy's cage to you?". Panic. I jump up to investigate and my eyes immediately catch one of those little a-holes trying to get into Jimmy's feeder to munch on the veggies and bug burger. Before I could land on my feet I saw Jimmy staring at this mouse with utmost disdain, and it that moment he did it. In pure chameleon fashion he stuck him with his tongue, reeled him in, gave him about four hard chomps and swallowed.

I still can't believe he did that. It makes me happy and excited but also mortifies me. I can only pray at this point that mouse didn't have any poison in its system. I will find out, no doubt, when I get home from work today. If Jimmy is still alive, not only will I be a very happy and relieved man, but it will further prove the sheer awesomeness of our beloved chromatic dinosaurs.

Who needs a cat when you have a chameleon.
Click to expand...
wait wait wait, let me get this straight. Your CHAMELEON ATE AN ENTIRE RAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? o_O
 
Hope the chameleon didn't get poisoned.

@cyberlocc ...snap traps don't always work either..I've seen it where the animal doesn't end up with it's neck snapped but gets caught by its leg and eats it's leg off to get free...just like on the sticky traps.
 
kinyonga said:
Hope the chameleon didn't get poisoned.

@cyberlocc ...snap traps don't always work either..I've seen it where the animal doesn't end up with it's neck snapped but gets caught by its leg and eats it's leg off to get free...just like on the sticky traps.
Click to expand...

Alright hear me out people...

Snap traps ON sticky traps! They chew off one set of legs ... get stuck... chew off the other set of legs.... then all they can do is spin in place and you can just go pick em up!
 
kinyonga said:
Hope the chameleon didn't get poisoned.

@cyberlocc ...snap traps don't always work either..I've seen it where the animal doesn't end up with it's neck snapped but gets caught by its leg and eats it's leg off to get free...just like on the sticky traps.
Click to expand...

Ya we had that happen once, and them get caught low down in the rear end area once. However that was how I discovered why the traps were failing at first, they kept getting the bait and getting away, or getting miscaught like that.


Thats why I said, #1 best way IMO, is to hot glue a small piece of cornflake down, it has to be small, like the size of a pea, and fully glued. If you do that, there wont be any false snaps, there head will always be in the trap, at least in my experience. If they can take bait and leave, thats when legs seem to get trapped.

Either way, that happens with the glue traps 100% of the time, they are not killed from the glue, just stuck.
 
Glue traps are cruel. I usually catch them with a humane trap and take them up the road to the fields near me along with something for them to eat. I'm getting good at creating traps now!
 
Sammy Grigio said:
Woah there! MOUSE, I said mouse. I don't think there is a species out there that could out done an entire full grown rat.
Click to expand...

I mean there is diffent sized rats. Different sized nice too, I reckon your Alaskan Mice are the size of the stray cats outside my house.

I am very curious what will happen with the bones. Can a Cham pass those?
 
cyberlocc said:
Thats what I thought about them Mice. All I think about is the area where its 6 months darkness (I dont think many live in that area though) and all the Vampire movies about it. Them there VAMPIRE RATS!

Its good OP got 36, but I bet El Chupacabra is still in there somewhere.

OP you seen this guy about?
chupacabra2.png
Click to expand...
oh yeah, im right here on the border with Mexico, see them suckers all the time^.
 
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