Getting rid of mice - all tips welcome!

[TheBlonde]

We have mice

So far I have 2 traps and we are making progress with the body count

Any tips for getting rid of them for good?

Can I use poison or is that a bad idea with toddlers?

[harleyd]

mouse trap with piece of mars bar on it

[harleyd]

i wouldnt use poison, they eat it and then go and die somewhere - you get left with a nice smell of rotten dead mouse

[TheBlonde]

bump

[1dilemma]

so is that story of the house being renovated and all the mice/rats living in it streaming down the street looking for a new home an urban myth? Anyone know.
Oh aren't chocolate raisins good?

[TheBlonde]

Surely it must be an urban myth?
Plague of mice spreading, say pest controllers

I keep forgetting to buy the choc raisins
We have resorted to mini cheddars!

Might have to get a cat

[starshaker]

i have found that a snickers bar works mest since they love chocolate and nuts

[1dilemma]

yeah dh suggested a cat the other day! you're joking was my response. We have to keep it we can't just have one for a week you know.
Who's gonna feed it when we go round the world was my thought
(Daren't open your link-I'm sitting here in terror as it is)

[1dilemma]

So pleased to be topical! (Have opened it now, opened the wine first )
Am thinkning about calling the council and telling them off re the renovations and the skips!!

[TheBlonde]

I've not seen any yet today

Picked up the dustbuster thing from my bro so I can vacuum the buggy for crumbs

[TheBlonde]

wine!
I'm hitting the diet coke

[PrincessGoodLife]

we used mouse glue when we had a 'visitor' recently. Put something like chocolate on a piecee of cardboard and put the glue around it. They get stuck to it very well. Course then you have to 'dispose' of it.... yuck

[1dilemma]

ha ha re buggy
dc just bit me so now wining on floor off to replenish my glass need to be peeling pots!

[TheBlonde]

Princess - is it special glue? where did you get it?

[1dilemma]

eugh do they stick to it and starve to death?
My dh was all for humane traps then I pointed out all the renovations on our street and the urban myth etc etc now I'm not so sure

[TheBlonde]

do the humane traps kill them?

otherwise what do you do with them? Free them on the high st and hope they go elsewhere?

[1dilemma]

no just keep them inside, plan was to put them on the common but we can't be sure they don't have a homing instinct
And then dh raised the subject of all their little mouse babies....

[1dilemma]

inside as in inside box to be released elsewhere not as pets

[PrincessGoodLife]

am not in UK but just did a google search and came across some British companies that sell it too, so you can get it over there.

Um, after they get stuck you will know about it since there is a lot of squealing... We live in the country and it was the middle of the night when it got caught on the glue so we put it outside and a fox or cat must have got him because he had been mostly eaten by the morning. If there are cats about you could probably do the same in a town. Or um... stamp on it or something?

Really sorry - hope I haven't put anyone off their tea!

[macneil]

We just got them this week!!

Okay, here's what we did. Day one. We cleaned the hell out of the kitchen and put all food in sealed plastic boxes, big ones, even food that was already sealed and in boxes. Next day, three mouse droppings.


Day two. We put down three glue traps. These are a cruel, inhumane way of killing mice, I know that already. But I didn't want poison in the house, and we sort of didn't expect to catch any mice after the clean.

Day three. No mice on traps, no droppings. We're hoping the lack of available food deterred them. After three days of mouseless traps and no more droppings, we've taken up the traps and are thanking god we didn't catch any mice because both of us were absolutely terrified of what we'd do if we caught one, and discussed the ethics of it ALL NIGHT ENDLESSLY while my history-of-mice brother assured us it was the only way to catch them and snappy traps and humane traps didn't because they learned to recognise the shapes. My husband was constantly harping on about why did he have to do it just because he was a man, and I said he played computer games and enjoyed killing and he said he didn't enjoy the killing and I said okay I'll dispose of the mouse and we discussed whether we'd have to kill it first and so on and so on.

And I intend to keep with the immaculate sealed food programme and buy one of those sonic repellents, that cost £19.99 from some ad I just saw on the telly. My brother says they don't work.

[TheBlonde]

Apparently they get used to the sonic thingy

I wouldn't be reassured that they have left after 3 days tbh

I saw one ages ago, we set traps
Checked them again and again, nothing
Gave up checking

Saw one earlier this week
Checked the traps - 2 bodies
Reset traps - 1 more body
Saw a mouse yesterday
No bodies this morning

[macneil]

"I wouldn't be reassured that they have left after 3 days tbh "

Agreed, but I think they always leave droppings so we're going to be really vigilant. We live in a big Georgian Terrace, so there's not much we can do about the fact that our neighbours will always have mousefriendly houses around us, and I think we just have to accept that they're going to be close and set a pattern of no-food-here for them to learn. That's the hope. When I was out of the country, the surveyor for the couple who were going to buy our flat left an open bag of Bombay mix on the kitchen counter! My mum came a few weeks later to find that and TONS of mouse droppings, tidied up, laid glue traps, but never caught mice on them once the place was clean and foodless again.

[Nightynight]

a cat is the only answer, ime.

[TheBlonde]

Forgot to say - I still haven't seen any droppings!

I am trying to keep our place foodless but it's difficult with a 2 year old

[TheBlonde]

But how can you ensure you get a proper "mouser"?

[Nightynight]

you can't. I think it helps if you get the child of a proven mouser.

we had one cat that was rubbish at mice - he just didnt want to wake up in the night! but turned out to be splendid at rat catching.