Mice!!!

I have spoken with a bunch of people in the Wichita County area who are being plagued with mice in their houses. Fall is already here and Winter will be here before we know it. Creatures from the great outdoors are getting the idea that they need to find shelter indoors.

I strongly recommend that people contact their local exterminating company and have them come and do their magic around your house. They will stuff even the littlest, tiniest holes where unwanted guests will enter into your home. For you, do-it-yourselfers, you can do this yourself. Buy steel wool at your local hardware or building store and stuff it in any holes around the exterior of your house.

At that time, many homeowners choose to set out mice traps. Others set out boxes of D-Con. This poisoned food will kill the mice shortly after it has been eaten.

D-Con and other similar poisons are dangerous to humans and other animals including dogs and cats. I advice parents of young children to hide the D-Con packets up high or behind major appliances so that children cannot find it. Many people who have indoor dogs and cats have to be concerned about their pets finding the dead mice before you do. Some of these pets will chew on the deceased mouse. The poisons can transmit from the mouse body to the pet. So be careful!

People who have tall grass, weeds, bushes, etc around the bases of their homes are actually encouraging wildlife to come on indoors. Cut them down if at all possible.

There has been a bountiful harvest in the Wichita County area. There is so much grain that much of it is unable to fit into the elevators so it must be piled up in other areas. When I was growing up, we lived a block away from the Collingwood Elevators. Every year, we fought these nasty little varments. Daddy put out live mouse catchers. That is a metal apparatus that throws the mouse into a cage like thing. Then the homeowner can take the live mice out to the country and set them free or drown them in a bucket of water. Oftimes he put out D-Con. I really feel sorry for the citizens who live nearby to grain elevators as a result of what we always put up with!!!

VLE-B