Toplikar: Humane traps could spring ‘Allen Fieldmouse’

Audio clips with Joe Bracciano, owner of Bracciano Pest Control

“Where?”

Bonnie jumped back from her chair at the breakfast table, holding her palms out and taking a defensive stance with a worried look on her face.

“No, no, no,” I said, amused by my teenage daughter’s reaction. “I saw one this morning. But not here.”

“Where?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you,” I said, laughing.

“Dad, you’d better tell me. I hate mice,” Bonnie said, looking around on the floor. “Where?”

“Like I said, not here,” I said, realizing by her glare she was serious. “OK, I’ll tell you. It was in Allen Fieldhouse.”

Of mice and pretzels

The Fieldhouse does get its share of mice, but, in all fairness, no more or less than any other place would during winter, according to a source in the know who preferred to be anonymous for this column.

Kansas University contracts with Ozark Integrated Pest Services Inc., Topeka, and generally uses humane-type traps to catch and release the critters, the source said.

I became curious about what new tech marvels were out there to dispel the little creatures from their best-laid schemes.

I called Joe Bracciano, who operates his own pest-control business in Lawrence, to learn how to keep a mouse out of a house — or, in this case, the Fieldhouse.

Bracciano wasn’t too surprised a mouse could get into the Fieldhouse, even without points.

“A place like the Fieldhouse, obviously you’re dealing with doors being opened and propped open,” he said.

A mouse could easily get in, lured by the smells of popcorn, pretzels, nachos, pizza and hot dogs — the stuff that keeps 16,300 fans happy during a big game.

And, once inside, a female mouse might find a place to settle in, build a nest and have a nice little family, Bracciano explained.

“Usually a female will take up a nest where she feels close to a food source,” he said. “You don’t want a female. You’d rather have a male running around, certainly, because he can’t have any baby mice.”

To catch a mouse

One of the reasons that mice are drawn into a building is because there’s a food source handy. For example, it might have found a dish of dog food or cat food in the garage. Or the homeowner might have been putting out bird seed on a regular basis and attracted mice, along with the birds.

One way to get rid of mice is to eliminate their food source, Bracciano said.

Another way is to set out poisonous bait, he said.

But I was most interested in the third alternative — trapping. I was curious to find out whether technology had led us to a better mouse trap.

Before calling Joe, I had searched the U.S. Patent Office Web site and found that there had been more than 150 patents issued with the words “mouse trap” in them since 1976.

Most were not new, but there were variations on the tried-and-true snap trap — the one that can give you a throbbing finger if you accidentally snap it on yourself.

Electronic and sonic

As I searched the patent Web site, I found a schematic one that emitted an alarm sound after the trap was sprung.

Another trap had flat “teeth” that clamped down on a mouse that would be lured into the jaws of the trap by bait.

There also were several humane-type traps that let the mouse in, but not out. You take the mouse outside and release it yourself.

Next, I checked up on the biggest name in mouse traps, Victor, which builds the cheap wooden snap traps that have been around for decades.

I was in luck. Victor’s Web site was hawking an electronic trap that kills a mouse with a zap of electricity.

“Delivers an electrical shock to kill mouse in seconds. Safe to use around children and pets. Built-in safety feature,” according to the literature.

Four AA batteries are not included in the $23.50 price.

Victor also was promoting the Victor PestChasers, which produces a high-frequency sound that is supposed to repel rodents.

“This sound is inaudible to people and nonrodent pets,” according to the literature. One of them is supposed to work within a 400-square-foot area, costing $19.99. You plug into an outlet and it’s supposed to keep the mice at bay.

And there were glue boards, which traps a mouse that walks on it, but doesn’t kill it immediately.

I also looked up some humane traps — the kind that catches a mouse and then requires you to take the trap outside and release the mouse in the wild.

Abundantearth.com was selling two Humane Live Mouse Traps for $17.95.

Squealing mice

“I’m all for the humane way of killing a mouse,” Bracciano said. “Anything that will kill it instantaneously or as soon as it gets into the thing is my trap choice.”

He doesn’t like the glue board.

“Glue boards don’t actually kill them. A lot of times what happens with the glue board is they’ll get on the board and they start squealing,” Bracciano said. “Sometimes they actually shove their face down into the glue and it may cause them to suffocate. A lot of times they’ll sit on that trap and just squeal.”

He said the “catch-them-alive” traps come in various types, with some able to catch as many as 15 to 20 mice.

The trouble with those kind of traps is that many people don’t want to touch a trap with a live mouse inside.

“Once they catch them, they go, ‘Oh, I’m not going to touch that’ and the mouse ends up dying and stinking,” he said.

Bracciano wasn’t familiar with the electronic traps. He said they sounded a little too expensive. And he was skeptical of the notion of a sonic repellent actually working.

“Personally, I don’t take much stock in anything that’s too fancy,” he said. “If they get too large, you can’t place them in an area where you want to catch a mouse anyway. … Making things fancier and fancier, they get bigger and bigger. Pretty soon, you’re wheeling something in that’s the size of a TV.”

He said the Victor snap trap, which is relatively small and inexpensive, “still, to this day, is the most cost-effective means of taking care of a mouse population.”

Allen Fieldmouse?

I explained to Bonnie that I had seen the mouse about 6:15 a.m., while I was doing a morning workout in the Fieldhouse.

I had been running up and down the steps on the east side of the basketball court in the upper bleachers.

It was quiet, the lights were low and I was paying close attention to the steps, so as not to trip.

Then a few steps down from me, I saw it — a little dark mouse. It froze, darted one way, then another, then found a lane underneath the blue bleacher as I barreled down toward it. I think I startled it as much as it did me.

Since then, each time I get to that section I look for the mouse, wary about stepping on him. Fortunately, I haven’t seen little Allen in two weeks.

That’s not too surprising, Bracciano told me.

That mouse — if it’s even still there — will make itself scarce, especially when fans arrive for a game, he said.

“Without a doubt,” he said. “It will be shaking and shimmering somewhere and hoping that nobody finds him.”

And that’s good news for my daughter.

Hopefully, the only critters that Bonnie runs into the next time she goes to a game will be the big ones — the mascots in crimson and royal blue.