Mice

omens

omens

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Not frikkin' fun. Neighbours are doing building work and suddenly it appears we have a mouse problem. These feckers are tearing up the carpet and making runs. So far only caught two in the past week.

Getting fed up. Any ideas?
 
Traps, traps and more traps...no point trying to block holes etc as you'll never find all holes a mouse can fit though any gap the size of a biro

Probably the cold snap as much as its any building work though
 
As I was advised by a very experienced person, prevention is better then cure.(y)
Make sure there is absolutely nothing edible they can get to, and that means crumbs on the floor and if you
have a toaster check the bottom of that too, yes they can get in there and toasted mouse for breakfast :puke:
Don't use the over the counter poisons if you decide to go that way, proffessionals aren't that expensive
and know what they are doing.
I only caught one mouse when I had the problem last year, but one visit from pest control and problem solved :)
 
MWHCVT said:
Traps, traps and more traps...no point trying to block holes etc as you'll never find all holes a mouse can fit though any gap the size of a biro

Probably the cold snap as much as its any building work though
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We live in a little village, on the edge of farmland, and years ago, I was in the kitchen when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a mouse, and I looked at him, he looked at me, then scarpered - through one of the slots in the ventilation panel at the bottom of the kitchen unit skirting. I was amazed, and you are quite right Matt, it was about the thickness of a biro.
The recent cold snap will make them seek refuge, and the fact that there is building work going on, means that they can probably get in via cavity walls or the like.
We also have a cellar, and I have lined the cellar door and frame, and made sure that it is a really tight fit. When re renovated our kitchen (gound floor) a few years ago, we found a small hole in the corner of the floorboards, next to the sink, where they were getting in. We now have tiles the entire ground floor, and put skirting to floor level, so that there are no gaps whatsoever.
Fortunately this seems to have done the trick, because we haven't heard or seen anything since.
 
Some strategically placed traps baited with peanut butter solved our mouse issue
 
Neosorexa Gold and loads of traps. Keep putting the poison down until it stops being eaten.
 
Poison is the best solution if there's more than one or two, but if they die in an inaccessible place you'll be sorry.
 
none of the above worked for us... also the wall noise things you plug in.. doesnt work on field mice which we had...came in from cold presumably... we had one die from poison in 2 weeks of problem and found it behind a wall unit was stinking the room out :(

when you see one.. the chances are it will take the same journey every time..no amount of poison or snappy traps will do the job... as for prevention? doesnt matter about that.. the only thing that worked for us was the cruelest.... got 5 in one day and problem not been back...

glue traps.. set exactly where you know they are running..
 
Could not agree more about removing the access to food. The only packeted foods that I have found mice won't touch are spices.

I'm not keen on poison for the reason Kipax mentioned and the possible impact if a poisoned mouse is eaten by another animal (though probably fairly unlikely with mice living in a house). Never had much success with live traps and glue traps are, as noted, cruel.

Had pretty good success with spring traps. I have used melted chocolate which is fairly hard when it sets or bacon rind tied on to the trap.

Dave
 
good hammer or mallet and quick reactions will sort them out .or you can you the old crafty fox method ,butter 2 pieces of bread lay them on a worktop with a layer of thin sliced cheese on ,sprinkle cheese with superglue ,in the morning you should have a nice cheese and ham sandwich .simples init :ROFLMAO:
 
When my hamster escaped we got a really deep bucket, propped it up with some books and made a series of steps with books, we then sprinkled food up the steps and inside the bucket. The next day she was stuck inside the bucket. It might work with mice, then take them away from the house and let them on their way.

It would prevent the problem if them smelling in an inaccessible place. Possibly put peanut butter just in the bucket in case they take the book stair food and scarper?

Personally we use the enclosed traps as we live in the country and often get mice.
 
We had a problem a few years ago but managed to get rid of them using humane traps, a 2 mile drive, an ultrasonic repeller and now a cat! The only ones we've had since have been brought in by said cat, although we do see them very occasionally clearing up under the bird feeders.
 
Nod said:
using humane traps, a 2 mile drive, an ultrasonic repeller
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tried everyhting in a humane trap.. peanut butter.. anything... this was my preffered method and i would be happy to take the drive... none of em worked :( the ultrasonic repeller as mentioned doesnt work on field mice for some reason...
 
.410!
 
More seriously, at the time, Mrs Nod worked at a place that sold chocolate bars. Said place had a mouse problem and they seemed to only attack the Snickers bars, leaving all the other choices (including Squirrel poop [Topic]) alone, so we used Snickers bars (well, slivers from them!) as the bait.

The important thing with the humane traps is to check them regularly - we had ours just beside the loft hatch for ease of access - since the little blighters die of thirst quite quickly. We checked ours twice a day and carried on with the traps for a fortnight after the last capture.
 
Traps baited with raspberry jam work for me, I get a few mice every winter and they can't seem to resist it.
 
Nod said:
.410!
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A .22 with dust shot will kill small rodents cleanly at short range without causing much damage, but my wife would probably just tolerate them if all non-lethal solutions failed! Cats are usually a good natural solution too.
 
[quoneil_g, post: 6074732, member: 14523"]Get a cat?[/quote]
Yep we have never had a mouse problem with 3 moggies in the house:)
 
fracster said:
Makes a mess of the worktops though and may crack a tile or two.
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MartynK said:
A .22 with dust shot will kill small rodents cleanly at short range without causing much damage, but my wife would probably just tolerate them if all non-lethal solutions failed! Cats are usually a good natural solution too.
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What's a little collateral damage between friends?! Worse than the cracked tiles and scratched (!) worktops is getting the blood and guts off the ceiling...
 
We had a problem with one mouse, managed to capture it using humane trap baited with grated chocolate. Was advised to release it at lease a quarter of mile away, country side preferable.
 
I'm not averse to killing the bastards but I just want something that works. I have two doors to my bedroom (one is entrance and other goes to bathroom). The mouse manages to crawl under the bathroom door (you can see a depression in the carpet) and it seems to want to escape via the main door - can see the carpet fibres and attempts at the wooden frame. Traps by both of these things have yielded nothing. We have been using peanut butter as bait - they don't like cheese.

Will try jam.
 
Try chocolate (y)
 
Found we had mice in the kitchen when we moved into this place in March. Set traps and poison but within hours we caught one in a trap and another the next day, after that there was no sign of them for months.

Then I notices some of the poison had been taken and all the bait on the traps had gone..... I thought we were dealing with Danger Mouse :lol:

Reset the traps with chocolate and clustered them where I'd established they'd been most active (used some flour to trace their route). Within a couple of days the culprit had been captured.

Haven't seen any sign of them since about October but we've had the kitchen re-done so a lot of the places we used to see evidence is hidden.............. Out of sight out of mind I suppose :lol:
 
Think the problem with using peanut butter is the mice just lick the bait rather than biting at it. As mentioned by me and others, chocolate is good. Anything that requires chewing and which can be tied to the trap is also useful, but it can still be a bit hit and miss. Just hope you have some big mice, small or young mice can weigh so little that it is difficult for them to trigger any trap.

Dave
 
The one I spotted was on the small side. Maybe that's why it hasn't triggered anything? In which case, sticky sheets might be better.
 
Gremlin said:
As I was advised by a very experienced person, prevention is better then cure.(y)
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:)
Nod said:
.410!
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I know someone that actually did that, his wife was rather annoyed though, as it was hiding behind her freshly made preserves :D
Gremlin said:
Try chocolate (y)
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Tiny pieces of Mars bar (and the like) no larger than Petite Poire.

Mouse traps, it depends on the type, those 'gator traps (Plastic kind) are next to useless.
The good old fashioned wooden ones are the best.

As already mentioned if you can get the tip of your little finger in a gap, a mouse will get through it.
Make sure you leave nothing out for it to eat, as above bread crumbs in a toaster,
fruit, crisps, potatoes, cereal etc.
Remember a missed crumb on the floor will feed a family of mice for a week
(OK maybe not, but you get the idea)

Check the cupboard under the sink unit, for droppings,
90% of mice enter this way,pipes up through the floor, generally arent sealed that well.
Same for waste pipes too.
Again as been mentioned, in through air bricks, up the cavity and into the loft.
Check here for droppings also.
Pull up the insulation, to check, particularity around the loft hatch, (warmth) and near the water tank (Moister)
Don't just put your head up there and think its OK ;)

Mice and rats re-act to high pitched noises.
However, those plug in things are a waste of money.
Rodents soon get used to the constant pulsing.

Mouse proofing is pretty much impossible,
but you can help your self by putting fine mesh over air bricks, and checking for tiny holes around the base of the external wall,
particularly if its soil or gravel up against the house.
if its solid concrete, just check for cracks in it.

Professional poisons are about 100x stronger than poisons "over the counter"
and all you are doing is feeding them with it.

Of course there is a risk with something dying inside if its poisoned.
If you do put put poison down, and you find an entry point,
what ever you do DO NOT block these until you are satisfied that everyting is dead.

Poisons, 2nd / 3rd generation anti-coagulants, have a dehydrating effect,
inasmuch as it make the target species very thirsty, and they head for water, usually the way they
came in.
If their escape route is blocked they will die in walls, under suspended floors etc.
 
Until you discover it for yourself, you truly won't believe just how much a tiny dead mouse stinks!
 
Well we finally caught one in the parents' bedroom. My mother was upset because the bloody thing stayed alive for about 3-4 mins after trying to escape, crying out.

Annoyingly I can hear another one under the floorboards trying to surface.
 
Just reset the trap and wait it will surface
I was lucky the one I caught, despite being quite big died almost instantly.
fIt must have been waiting be cause I turned the front room lights out and before
I got to bed heard the trap go off
 
omens said:
Well we finally caught one in the parents' bedroom. My mother was upset because the bloody thing stayed alive for about 3-4 mins after trying to escape, crying out.
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It's hardly the mouse's fault. Why didn't you just kill it quickly, instead of leaving it struggling and "crying out"? For Pete's sake.
 
We had an infestation a long time ago when our neighbours moved out, taking all their food with them :(

The solution for us was to be absolutely scrupulous about removing all food sources and putting down half a dozen conventional traps baited with chocolate and peanut butter on bread. We did try a humane trap, and that caught just 1 right at the end when they were starving. Altogether we caught 26 or 27, after which the neighbours came back & used poison everywhere in their house. It then STANK! :mad:

If you have to kill a mouse, the official way is to put something like a pen or pencil behind the head & pull firmly from the base of the tail until the neck breaks - cervical fracture is instant. If you're too squeamish to touch it then just bash its head in, though this is, forgive the pun, hit or miss.

We live in the countryside, so there's no point in taking live mice more than about 10 yards because the garden is full of them. Now the only mice we see in the house are when the cat brings one in.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
If you have to kill a mouse, the official way is to put something like a pen or pencil behind the head & pull firmly from the base of the tail until the neck breaks - cervical fracture is instant. If you're too squeamish to touch it then just bash its head in, though this is, forgive the pun, hit or miss.
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Fair enough, there are a couple of ways to kill small animals. I don't like poison for several reasons, and I don't like to see things suffering either. My point was, once you've decided to kill something and taken the responsibility for ending its life, do it as quickly and cleanly as possible. The idea of leaving an injured, dying, creature struggling and squeaking in a trap, even if it's just for a few minutes, sickens me.
 
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I've never struggled with the idea of despatching animals - only that it must be done quickly and with minimal suffering, hence I'd rather give specific advice on a method here at the risk of some taking offence.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I've never struggled with the idea of despatching animals - only that it must be done quickly and with minimal suffering, hence I'd rather give specific advice on a method here at the risk of some taking offence.
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Neither have I. The method you suggested is very effective, and there are a couple of other ways to do this. I apologise if I gave you the wrong impression, my criticism was about the post which described leaving an injured animal in a trap, "crying out", until it died.

I can't see anything offensive about giving specific advice on how to end an animal's life quickly in a situation like this. Many people have never had to do it, and find it difficult, but most of the posts on this thread are about using traps so it's opportune.
 
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I think for some, the idea of killing anything can be offensive. Certainly it's never nice, but there are times when it is the most appropriate thing to do. No offence taken earlier.
 
ancient_mariner said:
If you have to kill a mouse, the official way is to put something like a pen or pencil behind the head & pull firmly from the base of the tail until the neck breaks - cervical fracture is instant. .
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Absolutely it is !
Just to reiterate one point though BASE of the tail.
If you pull from the tip its likely to break off,
also, its more of a back and up movement in one.
Although I put my thumb and first finger of left hand tight in the base of the ears,
where you can feel the skull, works on rats too.
 
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