Stupid Question: Can I keep the rodent that is in my house?

Release them across the street and they will just return to your house after a little outdoor activity. I read a study somewhere that showed mice will return after being dropped off 1900 ft away. My neighbor did an experiment and used nail polish to mark mice he caught in hav-a hart traps. They returned from a drop off 1000 ft away in the park.
i would use Victor snap traps and try to control the infestation.

Drop them more than that distance. The problem with any rodemnt is the carry other wild things like fleas and ticks and . . . . in some places:

Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome
Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome
Lassa Fever
Leptospirosis
Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM)
Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever
Plague
Rat-Bite Fever
Salmonellosis
South American Arenaviruses (Argentine hemorrhagic fever, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Sabiá-associated hemorrhagic fever, Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever)
Tularemia

Uuugh, grownups are such buzzkills.

Snap traps are a no-go – I have a cat and a dog that are both way too curious. I’m not going to risk hurting them.

Well I’ll indulge you. Once when was a kid I caught a mouse in a snap trap but it just had a messed up foot. I kept it in an empty aquarium for a couple months then let it go in the woods. My sisters and I kept every little critter we caught though. It’s not exactly legal but your kid(s) would probably enjoy watching it for a while until you let it go.

Since you have a cat then you should have the solution.

(Notice, I say should, as that’s often not the case and some cats are just lazy.)

So far the rat kill rate is Dog -1 : Cat – 0. They do work together to spook the little beasts out of hiding.

My sister had a bunch of snakes and she bred mice to feed them to the snakes. I LOVE MICE SO VERY MUCH. So I got up to about 10 mice that I had spanning multiple tanks with tubes going between them. They were so smart and fun to watch. My favorite was there was this one big mouse that was the “asshole”. So a mouse would be running on the wheel and the big asshole would jump onto the wheel basically making the smaller mouse in the wheel go “over the top” a few times.

The little dudes are smart.

My sister had a hamster. A big hairy thing that was pretty close to looking like a guinea pig. My hamster was a short haired one with silky hair. I thought it would be cool one day if they hung out. So I let both lose on my floor.

This one interaction got my hamster pregnant. It was only a few hours, once.. And later I had six baby hamsters to get rid of.

So I love rodents…

Fast forward a decade. I was in college and noticed a mouse in my room eating some shells and cheese I left on my floor. I did not care. I found where they were getting into my room so I left them food by the hole they chewed in my wall (w00t Renting). It hit the point they would just walk around my room when I was in it and doing my thing. They had no fear of me and I liked it.

Mice are Fucking Awesome.

The one in my room is named Bartholomew.

How big is Bartholomew?

I haven’t seen much of him. Just a glimpse. I’d say no bigger than my fist, and I wear child-size gloves

Maybe the kiddo could use a new pet.

I think one of the cruelest rodent-ridding devices is the beaver cleaver! ;-0

Good One!

A friend of mine once told me that the only good thing about evidence of mice is that you almost certainly are rat free. The bigger guys will devour their little cousins and the little guys know it.

I hate to burst your bubble but please remember that they’re feral mice, not the fancy breed that’ve been domesticated for pet keeping. Mice are a lot more messy than rats, at least that’s the opinions that I have seen in Mice vs Rats threads. Who’s to say that they won’t carry disease or mite with them when you decided to keep them in your house, your pets and family wellbeing should be the first priority.

Everytime I get significant rain two or more days in a row the local mice decide I have the ark of choice. I trapped lots this spring and summer, not with humanity in mind.
There was one, one last, which evaded every sort of trap I tried, including homemade attempts at live capture.
I love rodents too, but wild ones can bring in bad bugs, and my health was already feeble.
This one last critter liked crossing the livingroom late at night while I was watching tv. I am pretty certain it was female, though I had no proof.
I started setting little treats for her, then turning on the video on my phone, hoping to watch her behavior and figure out a way to get her out.
I learned she would find a hiding spot not far from my feet sometimes, and watch me.
She would do her shopping and taking on seperate trips.
She favored cheese puffs over real cheese.
She was cute, and resolve to get rid of her came hard.
One last mouse came in a few weeks ago when after a good break, we had one more two day drenching.
He was bold, came right into the room, sat by a chair leg and watched me.
I said, “I see you.” He just twisted his head around and studied me in various angles. He was sooooo curious. Pretty soon he found where I keep plastic bags. He got a couple loose and spent the night playing in them all over the kitchen floor.
Sometime the next day he left on his own.
He was, by far, my favorite. He ate nothing.
He amused himself for a day and night, and left.

It is illegal to keep a native species as a pet.

@kritiper it depends on the state (my state will let you keep a native animal as a pet) but almost all ban ownership of exotic animal without a zoo license.

Get yourself a starling. They are an invasive species.

I’m under the impression from talking to rehabbers that more states ban keeping native species than ban exotic species. Your state may vary.

Your mouse may vary, too. It might not be a native species.

Even if it is a native species, although IANAL I am very confident that mice infesting your house are almost surely not at all endangered and that there is almost zero chance of anyone being charged with a crime of harboring a wild mouse!

I think it is wise to try to make sure they are healthy and aren’t carrying disease or parasites before trying to make a pet of them. And if you try to make a pet of an adult wild mouse, I’d tend to expect it to be kind of wild and scared, but I don’t really know mice very well.

Not something I would ever do, but if you have mouse affinity and do enough research, I don’t know that it wouldn’t work.

I’d ask around to people who would know better: Vets and wildlife rehab centers.

Wild mice CAN be intelligent, curious, and they do enjoy learning.
Nearly three decades ago, I worked in a small makeshift lab. It was located at the back of a parking lot. The lot wasn’t fenced, and edged a cornfield.
This lab was used only during the summer for processing samples involved in construction of highways and bridges.
When I took charge, a lot of cleaning was necessary before I could begin.
I could not open the top right drawer in the metal desk. I finally forced it far enough to see a lot of nesting material was jammed into it.
Somebody had wintered there.
I dug away at it bit by bit.
By the end of the day my lab was swept, the desk held only office supplies, and my bulletin board had its first comic strip.
When I got to work the next day, a mouse dropped to the floor from somewhere in my desk when I opened the door. He ran under the door of a storage closet.
Over the rest of the week I would see the little stinker come under the outside door, run through my lab, and under the door of the storage closet.
I decided to set up an obstacle course which would slow him down and allow me to catch him.
I thought being tossed out by a human would intimidate him enough to make him stay away.

The obstacle course worked. I got him. I lifted him to face level as I carried him out to the cornfield and scolded him. He looked right at my face.
The next day he was back. This time he was ready for my course, and got through it too quick.
The next day, I made changes. He came in, I got him.
THAT continued, I made changes, out he’d go.
One day, I felt crappy. I was sitting at my desk, waiting for samples to process.
All the sudden, I heard, “squeak squeak squeak.” I turn around, there he is, against the wall, three feet past the outside door. He was on hind legs, little whiskers twitching. I scowled at him to get out, and he did! He took his own self to the corn that day.
The next day, he gleefully tried his luck with my newest course, got caught, scolded, and carried out.
Little effer kept me and himself amused all summer.

We sure look at things differently. I don’t have a cat. A mouse in my house means I’m not doing my job and with a doubling time of 6 weeks i will soon be inundated by feces in places i don’t want it – usually kitchen cupboards and utensil drawers. Ick!

The sensible answer must be no, you shouldn’t keep them as pets. First of all no self-respecting rodent wants to be kept as a pet and secondly they harbour diseases and nasty ones at that.

My meeces are suspected of bringing in my fleases…....

This is the humane mouse trap we used when we had a cute visitor. Just slid a cracker coated in peanut butter in and left it out at night, he was in it in the morning. Took him for a walk a few blocks away and released him. I kinda wanted to keep him too though.

If you have stick matches, be sure to store them in a metal container!

But your husband is pretty handy, isn’t he? I don’t see why you can’t keep him. Is he house trained?

Your cat seems too timid. Maybe a course in assertiveness would help?

His prey of choice is lizards. They fit so nicely under his paws.

@Muad_Dib I can just picture that!

I’m going to retell my Stupid Mouse Story.

In the rental we moved into I once discovered the cutest little mousy. I put an open cage under the bathroom sink, with a cozy bed and food and water.

Oh. My. God.

Within weeks were were over run my cute little mice! I sadly set out traps. The first time one snapped I got tears in my eyes and said a prayer for him (or her.)
By the 15th time I was cheering madly when one snapped!
In the end, though, I had to put out poison.
One day, after they were gone, I reached for something in the blackness under the kitchen sink and felt something squishy. I put on some rubber gloves and pulled out a dead mouse. It was squishy and not in rigor mortis. because it’s innards had been dissolved.
That was super gross.

What is really great about poison is that the mouse may crawl up into some insulation, die, and then stink like hell, and you don’t know where the smell is coming from! Stick to the traps!

Amazon failed to get the trap to me on time, so mouse sized PBJ sammiches have to wait another day.

I still had an unabated mouse infestation 6 weeks after I started using traps. They just weren’t working @kritiper. The poison finally did the trick.

My traps worked.
Hershey chocolate bars send them around the bend. One segment baits at least four traps. Let the choc melt just a little so it sticks well to the bait plate. I actually had one go off when I had only taken four steps away from placing it!

They’re going to get cavities @Patty_Melt!

When I put out traps, I.Put.Out.Traps! I will set out a minimum of 12 – usually 16 or 20. I make a map so I remember where they are. They do the trick.

I swore off poisoning rodents once I discovered how poisons like dcon work. They bring on a horrible agonizing death in the animal which hemorrhages internally, and is then driven mad by an all consuming unqenchable thirst.

Okay, I know what my nightmares will be about tonight! ;)

It puts a different light on those murders committed with rat poison.

Yes, it does. That sounds absolutely horrible.