Solutions Without Suffering: Humane Rodent Control for Your School

Is there a mouse in your schoolhouse? Rodents running around a school can be a sticky situation, but there's no need for cruel glue traps. After all, mice and rats are complex, unique individuals with the capacity to experience a wide range of emotions. Just as intelligent as our canine friends, rodents are natural students, who excel at learning and understanding concepts.

Despite the stereotypes of being “dirty” or “diseased,” mice and rats are fastidiously clean animals who groom themselves several times a day and are less likely to catch and transmit parasites and viruses than dogs and cats are. Mice and rats are often forced into human environments, such as schools, when their natural habitats are lost to human development. We owe it to these gentle, social animals to do all that we can to peacefully coexist with them.

Whether you're a student or a teacher, you can stand up for mice by talking to school officials about replacing glue, poison, or snap traps with humane rodent control devices and an effective integrated pest management program. It's easy to do, and we'll help you every step of the way by providing the information, tools, and tips that you'll need to talk with school administrators.

Why Glue Traps Are Gruesome

A glue trap consists of a piece of cardboard, fiberboard, or plastic that is coated with a sticky adhesive. The pest control industry also refers to the traps as “glue trays” or “glue boards.” These hideous devices leave animals to suffer immensely during the days that it takes for them to die. Glue traps rip patches of skin, fur, and feathers off the animals' bodies as they struggle to escape, and many animals even chew off their own legs trying to free themselves. A few of the “luckier” animals get their noses and mouths stuck in the glue and suffocate, but even that takes hours.

Glue traps do not discriminate. “Nontarget” animals routinely fall prey to these cruel devices. PETA fields calls on a daily basis from distraught people who have discovered that birds, squirrels, snakes, and even their own animal companions have become hopelessly stuck in glue traps. When the inevitable occurs and their children, spouses, housemates, or coworkers hear the screams of trapped animals, they often try in vain to release the animals, but it's difficult and sometimes impossible, and their efforts cause even more pain and distress. The best thing that can be done for glue trap victims is to find the nearest veterinarian who can euthanize them as soon as possible.

A regulatory impact statement released by the Australian government cited a study that concluded that glue traps should be banned “because of the enormous distress that these traps cause, even if the trapped animals are found after just a few hours and then humanely dispatched.”

Even though many schools use them because they're nontoxic and safer around kids than poison or snap traps, glue traps are still a threat to a child's mental and physical well-being. One Arizona integrated pest management organization that specializes in working with schools noted, “When immature mice become trapped on glue boards, instances have occurred where students were exposed to upsetting noises and sights ….”

In addition to causing children stress and trauma when they have to watch animals die slow, painful deaths, glue traps are also hazardous to students' health. Animals who are trapped on these devices continue to produce urine and feces, which are sources of hantavirus. In one case, a hospital that used glue traps failed to check them for more than a year, and the dead mice became the hosts to a fly population that caused illness among the hospital's patients.

'Rodent-Proofing' Your School

Effective, humane methods of rodent control do not target the animals themselves but instead target the conditions that attract the animals to certain areas. Taking away their sources of food and shelter is the only sure way to deter these animals. Killing them will only cause others to move into the newly formed “vacancy.” The problem of rodent intrusion is largely preventable by maintaining clean, sanitary conditions and plugging holes or cracks where mice or rats might enter a building. Here are a few simple tips that your school's staff can follow to prevent rodent infestations:

• Deter rodents from places that can't be mouse- or rat-proofed with a mixture of salad oil, garlic, horseradish, and cayenne pepper. Let this sit for four days, then strain it into a spray bottle and spray it on the desired area. Cotton balls soaked with peppermint oil work well, as do moth balls.
• Keep counter surfaces, floors, and cabinets free of crumbs or food droppings.
• Keep piles of wood, bushes, and other plants about 1.5 feet away from the school in order to allow a clearing between them and the building.
• Restrict rodents' access to other sources of food, such as birdfeeders, pet food, garden seed, and fertilizers.
• Seal holes larger than 0.25 inch in diameter, cracks in the walls and floors, and spaces around doors, windows, and plumbing fixtures.
• Store all food and garbage in well-sealed containers made of materials that can't be gnawed through, such as metal, ceramic, or glass.

If traps are needed to remove mice or rats, humane box-type traps are available from humane societies and hardware stores and at PETACatalog.com. These traps are made from either plastic or metal and have spring-release trap doors at one end that close behind the animals once they enter the traps. The trap can then be taken outside so that the animal can be released. If you use these traps, remember that they must be checked every hour, because rodents have a high metabolic rate and quickly become very thirsty when they are frightened.

Talking to School Officials

Now that you have the knowledge, it's time for you to give the head honchos of higher education a lesson in humane education. The following are a few tips to help you effectively get your point across when talking to school officials:

• Be confident. Remember that their job is to satisfy the needs of students and teachers. By speaking up, you're helping them out, and they should welcome the expression of your concerns.
• Collect signatures to show support for your efforts. Draw up a “Stop Glue Traps” petition, and pass it around school. Recruit friends and spend time around campus between classes and during lunch asking students and teachers to show their support.
• Know what you're talking about. Study the issue and remember key points, such as why glue traps are cruel and hazardous to children's health, how to “rodent-proof” the school, and where to get and how to use humane catch-and-release traps.
• Share this factsheet with officials to support your complaint.
• Write the officials a letter that introduces them to your concerns and then set up a later time to talk, or give the letter to them as a way to start a conversation addressing the issue. Having a prepared letter outlining your concerns will take a lot of pressure off you. You will already have made your points—all that's left to do is repeat them.

Good luck, and remember to contact us if you need help or encouragement.