How do I get the mouse out of my stove? archived

Yhis evening my son remarked, "There's a mouse living in the stove." "How do you know?" I asked. "I saw him on top of the burner, and then I saw his tail as he climbed inside the burner." I kind of assumed he was flexing his creative muscles, but just now I walked into the kitchen and heard a rustle, then caught a glimpse of a tail as it flicked out of sight. Seems fairly small (field mouse rather than rat or, god forbid, another possum). Our cat and dog are supremely disinterested. So, how do I get him out? (preferably without seeing or handling him). :shamed::sad:

Ahhhh--- unfortunately, I know far too much about this stuff. First---take the burners out and scrub everthing down with ammonia. Then soak cotton balls with pure oil of peppermint and place them away from anywhere they might ignite, but in the space under the burner covers. Replace every 3 days or so. That should drive him out.
Keep checking for droppings---mice love old stoves:sad:

Calli

turn all the burners on, and turn the stove on as high as it will go for an hour or so....

Monster, I don't think that will work. When I moved into my house, there was a mouse happily living in the stove. I know the previous owner used both the range top and the oven on a regular basis and it didn't seem to faze the mouse a bit. I have three (evil) cats, so once I moved in, mousy didn't last too long.

Not evil. Cats are working animals and they had a job to do...

Deb maybe you can borrow Spontanious's cats!!!

We had this one winter - I tried turning the oven up to 450 degrees to see if the mouse would relocate. It moved temporarily, but then returned. I found tapping on the sides and top of the stove at all sorts of odd times seemed to help the mouse move out. Or perhaps it was just springtime came and it went back outside. My kids have funny memories of that winter - they liked the mouse and didn't want me to get rid of it. I felt otherwise.

A number of years ago, we had a mouse in the house and he scurried under the couch and hid. We couldn't get under our old couch without moving the whole thing. My cat sat at the corner of the couch for four hours and just waited. The moment that mouse moved---BAM! My husband saw the whole thing. We haven't had a mouse since.

We had a mouse, don't know if it lived in the stove, but it lived near the stove... My hubby put a mouse trap under the stove and caught the mouse that night. It freaked the living daylights out of me....but it solved our problem.

Would you send your hubby over here, red? :smile: Cuz no way am I doing that myself!

I am right there with you. He was out of the house when we caught the mouse (I feel like Dr. Seuss) I called him frantic and couldn't go downstairs until he came home and took care of it. Thanks goodness the kids were in bed! Otherwise they would have been so facinated.....:confused:

Was it a humane trap, or did you end up with, um, an ex-mouse?