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So a few weeks ago I saw a large black mouse (possibly a rat) in the kitchen. This last week we've heard a lot of scrabbling in the walls. Today we've seen two (or one twice) little brown mice. Droppings we've found are consistent only with mice fortunately.
This means war.
All tips and advice welcome.
If anyone has a cat we can borrow....
Everyone has them, you've just found yours.
You can trap where the droppings are, but otherwise just limit the damage by keeping food and bedding material (cardboard etc.) in secure (and ideally hopefully off raised) cupboards.
If it was our cat she probably brought them in, very carefully, then let them go.
Old fashioned mouse traps of the spring loaded death variety, loaded with chunks of old bread work well I found. Despite careful Tom and Jerry research, cheese didn't work well at all.
the one we just bought suggests chocolate or peanut butter! we're using both.Quote:
Originally Posted by wasabi
It could be worse - you might have a Moose infestation!
at least they'd be easier to spot and we'd have the christmas dinner conundrum solved.Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Just located a bag of porridge oats they've been enjoying. Little blighters
Humane traps work fine in my experience, just let 'em go a fair way from house, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Trip-Trap-...item27d088a1c0 - nice to see them scuttle off to freedom, after all removing them from your home is all you're really after, not pointless mouse death :(
I live in central London. There is no good place to remove them to, it would just be passing the problem to the next man. I appreciate the sentiment, but vermin are vermin. They also have particularly good homing instinct if you separate a parent from the nesting litter... Nope, poison and traps it is.
just spent my new mobo budget on anti-rodent paraphernalia. Not happy. :(
We had some mice a few years back, we got some of these mains deterrent emitters that produce a click every minute or so. Not had any since.
we now have 8 of thoseQuote:
Originally Posted by sqwerty
You should be sorted then. :woowoo: I must admit I was skeptical about them at first thinking "it just sounds like a clock ticking how can that scare them off" but it's the frequencies of the sound we don't hear that is uncomfortable for them. Much more humane than traps too!
they work as a deterrent, but if they've nested they can stick it out. We set up 4 running yesterday and the mice were still around this morning. Another 4 in for more coverage, a lot of poison, traps, and bait boxes are down, and a bag of lovely porridge oats sacrificed to the demi-god of the rubbish chute. Off to check the traps now :)Quote:
Originally Posted by sqwerty
One down! Sainsburys Luxury Belgian chocolate and rentokil advanced mouse trap does the trick.
Doh, so much for humane. Anyway, iirc it did take a few days at least for them to clear off completely from our place, but we have had these things running since then and they are still ticking away with not a scurry or scratch to be heard.Quote:
Originally Posted by ik9000
yes they worked for me in the past. Ours died though - it still clicked so we thought it worked, but the LEDs had gone out which probably should have been a sign all was not well. When we put the new ones in you could hear the effect - lots of activity in the walls all of a sudden.
If they were just in the walls like before I'd have gone humane only, but we're finding their droppings all round the flat and they are eating through packaging containers into our food. Sorry, but needs must.
Ah that's fare enough mate. Glad we never had any of that!
Those ultrasonic things are good in places like attics and lofts, but as you say, once they have started nesting...
Personally I prefer traps - with poison they crawl off somewhere to die, and they whiff a bit for a few days - the problem with traps is that they don't always kill cleanly - which is a bit cruel - but makes disposal of the remains easier.
Raisons, apple and chocolate al make good bait, raisons are good because they are easy to put on the pin that most of the 'little nipper' spring traps have.
these have a little recess - just big enough for a small chunk of chocolate (and mice sure do like chocolate) to be hidden in so they have to peer inside and....Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
the trap killed cleanly. I was worried it would still be alive but when we released the trap you could see it had crushed the thing and broken its neck.
Even if that didn't kill it I doubt it would have been able to breathe for very long
I had mice in the attic, and the trap caught it but didn't kill immediately, so I could hear it scrabbling about for a few minutes one night which was a bit distressing, vermin though they are.
There is also a variety called the yellow neck, which have cannibalistic tendencies and are particularly destructive (I had one eat through a thick plastic storage container to get to cerea - after gnawing at the body of one in a trap.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-necked_mouse
However, it seems as if you have got on top of the problem quickly - they are very destructive as you have found!). Once you have got rid of them, you need to try and find (and block) where they are getting in.
Mice are incontinent, and dribble urine constantly, and leave droppings indiscriminately spreading disease.
They can get in through tiny gaps, so be vigilant, and depending on the path, it might be worth leaving a baited trap nearby just in case there tare multiple points of entry that you might have mixed.
there are too many holes and its a rental so we're limited in what we can do. Hopefully the electronic warfare we've employed will deter any newcomers.
If its rental, you may find it is your landlords responsibility - although obviously you need to get on top of it ASAP.
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_ad...sts_and_vermin
http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/201...s-responsible/
He may be responsible for repairs to stop them getting in.
Peanut butter is meant to be crack to mice, I can understand why though - I love the stuff!Quote:
Originally Posted by ik9000
Well I hate it personally. Fancy some Marmite toast?Quote:
Originally Posted by ixis
Do you have whiskers and a tail? :pQuote:
Originally Posted by ixis
and are you eating my porridge oats?Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
"Squeak"
I spotted one in the kitchen a few years ago so went out and bought a few of those "rocker" humane traps, where the mouse tips it and the door falls down.
Got bored of checking it every night and eventually forgot about it. I think the 2 mummified mice I found in them months later had scared off the rest..
Found some droppings last year and got some of the bait trays with the bluey green pellets. All got eaten and the droppings stopped soon after. Never found any bodies though.
They seem to love wallpaper paste as well.
I've found that the old spring loaded traps with bits for fruit (particularly 1/2 a grape) work really well!
alternatively there are poison traps available or just poison, but not the best with pets/small kids about.
Also, the mice can die in hard to reach placed (insulation in loft etc) and decay there, leaving a bit of a mess and smell about!