MOUSE IN THE HOUSE

Honestly, the people using medieval snap traps! It's a mammal ffs. Nervous system. Feels pain.

Anyway, OP. These ones from Amazon are amazing and cheap If you're scared of one when they're in there, (they are super cute but not great in houses so not an advocate of NOT getting rid of them but why kill them?) Put a towel over the tube when you have one and drive it out a mile or two away to release.
Peanut butter or chocolate to attract. Place along the wall near where you've seen him.

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Glue traps are abhorrently cruel, I can't understand how anyone but someone who gets a kick out of torturing animals would use them.

Snap traps are cruelty-free IF they break the animal's back. However, if the trap isn't positioned correctly along the wall, or if the mouse approaches the trap at an angle, its leg can be caught in the trap instead, which is very painful and very cruel.

Electronic traps are the kindest in my opinion as they are instant: https://www.amazon.co.uk/OWLTRA-OW-2-Electric-Instant-Trigger/dp/B08DCYHSZN

I don’t know anything about a majority of invertebrate infestations and whether there are humane ways of dealing with them, as I said I cannot comment on that. And in this country, again I cannot comment on yours, you wouldn’t end up with a snake infestation and as our only two species of snakes are shy and very precious and not particularly dangerous (adders can be if startled, especially to dogs) so yes I’d be very concerned if someone did try to kill them. And so would the authorities because both species are protected, especially the adder.

Your argument is whataboutery because I don’t know anything about these situations so I cannot comment on them. Ideally, if anyone has an infestation that can be dealt with humanely then yes you should do that. People have problems with bees and wasps in this country and they can be removed easily and humanely by the right person. So there is no need to kill them. I cannot comment on the rest as I don’t know anything about humane options to remove them. I’ve already stated this.

So where do you draw your line? Dogs can be considered vermin in some countries, are you happy for them to be eliminated? Some fishermen consider seals vermin and shoot them, that cool with you? You and I have different boundaries and I’m more than welcome to comment my thoughts about those boundaries in this forum. Many others have said the same thing: always humane. Same as those who kill dogs, cats, seals and so on have different boundaries. I think humane deterrence and removal is always preferable when talking about wild native species. Others think to kill is the automatic reaction and it’s that that I commented is sad. Which I believe it is in the current British nature climate. I see the damage every day via my work. And it will impact on humans. Maybe not you or me, but our children and our grandchildren. I don’t know anything about your country or the pest infestations that you are referring to having no experience or knowledge of them so, as I have said, I cannot comment. But if there are humane practices then I believe they should always be carried out. It just means more work and most people can’t be arsed.

It's not whataboutery.

You have to draw a line somewhere when it comes to pests and vermin.

You're making a global analogy (just one plastic bottle) in support of your contention that all mice must be saved, and I'm asking if the same global analogy applies to cockroaches, scorpions, snakes, mosquitos, etc.

It's a fair question. All smaller animal and insect life is potentially food for something else higher up the food chain. So where is the line to be drawn?

A mouse in good health would not wander over to your foot and allow itself to be picked up in a tea towel.
I’m not saying you poisoned it, but neighbours may well have bait down, or your cat had inflicted terminal injuries. Either way, a mouse slow enough for a human to catch is not in a good way. And if there is a chance it’s been poisoned its very poor form to release it to be part of the food chain.

But, what you are describing, it walking to your foot, is exactly how they behave if they’ve ingested poison - Slower, like they can’t see, no fear of anything.

@user8634216758 Rubbish! It hadn't been poisoned! It was a perfectly normal mouse. Being a cat owner, I've seen dozens of mice over the years. I know what they look like and how they behave!

Or, the cats took it upstairs.

@RosesAndHellebores

Cats didn't take it upstairs as they are shut downstairs at night. Mr mouse legged it and squeezed under the door while I was trying to put the cat out.

Have you read anything I’ve said? I haven’t called them cute nor harmless. I haven’t denied the danger they pose. I work in the environmental sector and am well aware of the problems with Weil’s disease. I cannot comment on the environmental situation in your country as I know nothing about it.

All I have said is that it’s sad that the response is automatically kill it when there are other options. Britain is expertly depleted when it comes to nature and lack of food for many species is a huge problem. It’s often a secondary result of other things, but it’s a problem.
The whataboutery isn’t really relevant.

We don't have a healthy population of a number of owl species in the U.K.

Same. Sometimes they kill them, or they die of shock, then we get either a whole mouse, or bits of one, to pick up.

One of our cats is an excellent mouser. The other is not.

The excellent mouser brings in live mice to teach the shit mouser to catch them.

Shit mouser is not learning! She plays with it for a bit, then gets distracted and looks away, and the mouse runs off! Unfortunately at this point, decent mouser has normally wandered off, so the mouse ends up just running around the house looking for a place to hide, only to be discovered again later.

Thankfully we now know the telltale suspicious activity signs in our cats to know we've got a live one knocking around.

If you're trying to catch a live one, I can recommend long handled dustpan and brushes, particularly the ones with the pan that swings up when you lift it up. We had a dedicated mouse catching one and can usually catch and release a mouse within a couple of minutes of being aware of its presence.

I close off as many doors as possible to try and contain it in one room, preferably one with an exterior door. Open the exterior door, so that it has the option to take itself out, or you have a quick route out yourself if you do catch it!

If you have a cat, take it to a bush somewhere and drop it in there to give it chance to recover and scurry away. If you don't have a cat, just chuck it out the door and shut the door quickly!

The worst one I had was the catch and release of a traumatised mouse that had been stuck under our bin all night. Then only to have to rescue it for a second time when the cat had sneakily been watching me and went and caught the poor thing again!

We had cats, they bought the mice in to play with.

A rodent that has been caught by a cat will 100% be injured, and will almost certainly succumb to the bacterial infection from teeth/claws eventually. Maybe several days later, but no happy ending for mr mouse I'm afraid, unless you’re going to give it antibiotics!

But, what you are describing, it walking to your foot, is exactly how they behave if they’ve ingested poison - Slower, like they can’t see, no fear of anything. I definitely wouldn’t be releasing a slow rodent thats been poisoned as caught by a bird of prey can have dreadful consequences to the food chain.

Unfortunately these don’t work. Someone put a nocturnal video up of an empty room/garage and after a couple of days the mice were completely ignoring it and were right by it - such a disappointment as I thought these were a really great idea.

Cats are also hit and miss as they can actually bring live ones into the house and don’t always kill them.

We started off with humane traps - which worked.The only thing is if you want it to be truly humane you need to release them within an hour or so or it stresses them out(!) so we were having to drive out to the middle of the countryside at night to release. They say they can find their way back within a surprising number of miles, I don’t think this is true personally but we wanted to play it safe as we’d gone to all that trouble. After doing this several times - we live in the countryside and we think they got in through open back door at the end of the summer, and then small gap under the door - we decided snap traps were sadly the more expedient option. And though it was awful seeing their little faces when they’d been caught, they did work. We got some under door attachments and fixed the hole under the back door. You live in fear that they will somehow return as they can cause a hell of a lot of damage and wreak havoc on your mental health so I do sympathise. Hope you get your problem sorted.

edited for typos

Or, the cats took it upstairs.

Nature is everywhere, even inside buildings unless you live in an airtight container.

What about rats?
Cockroaches?
Mosquitos?
Blue bottles?
If I lived in a region where there were scorpions or snakes, should I think twice about killing them in my house?

My entire neighbourhood was infested with mice in early summer when a big public building was demolished. Mice carry disease. The insistence that they're harmless and cute is a puzzling denial of that fact.

The local hawks and coyotes are not going to starve any time soon.

On top of thousands of mice, they also have legions of rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks to eat. Plus lots of birds (because people here don't let their cats roam).

Well, we have a healthy population of owls, raptors, foxes etc. Every time I chuck a mouse over the hedge it gets eaten. You should see the number of Red Kites that follow the harvesters around. No lack of mousey snacks in our neck of the woods.

Yes house mice populations are good, but tell that to a barn owl in the winter who just wants to eat.l to stop it from starving which is quite likely due to a lack of food availability.

@PlantHeadNo5 I agree. For this reason, if my cat kills a mouse I usually put it outside for somebody else to eat. They always disappear very quickly and I prefer to think that they died for a purpose!

The reason you could catch it is because your cat had injured it. It would have been kinder to kill it than let it go. They are very fast normally, you’d have no chance of catching a healthy mouse with a tea towel.

@user8634216758

I really don't think it was injured. It was downstairs when it escaped from the cats, and when I caught it the following day it was upstairs in the bedroom - so it had managed to climb the stairs!

You are right that they are fast, but they go on vibrations - they can't see you if you don't move. It took a couple of attempts (it kept popping out and then darting back under the bookcase when I moved), but eventually it wandered right over to my foot on its own. Poor thing was probably desperately looking for food.

Also, sometimes mice will freeze, rather than run, so you can just chuck something over them.

I’ve had one mouse in the house before but I think we brought it back from a festival. It appeared after we got back from the festival, put our bags down and went out to the supermarket. Later that night I saw it running about. Next day I left the back door open and went out. It left and never came back.
Another house we lived in and found two. Set a trap and caught the first one. Never caught the other but in the meantime we got a kitten. We told the landlord about the mice and he washed his hands of it. When we left he complained about mice in the house and to be fair what did he expect when we took the cat away.

For sure! I live in a tenement flat and have had mice on and off for years. I know there is a large hole in the wall where the drain pipe goes out and the mice come in, I can't reach it because of fitted units and so there is nothing I can do to diminish the steady stream of mice that usually find nothing to eat in my kitchen and move on.

As far as traps go, I find the snap traps more than not tend to fail to snap and serve as tiny feeding stations, electronic zappers had a limited success until they sussed what they were. In fact the only traps that did work were the humane ones, they were quite happy to go in there, but then you have to take them on a walk to the park and surreptitiously empty them out of your pockets, and thank you but I'd rather not.

Recently they little buggers got into a drawer unit and feasted themselves on some pea pasta, ryvita and a snickers bar. When they have been less lucky in foraging they have ripped up plastic bags and some washing up sponges. I was advised to soak cotton balls in peppermint oil but later discovered the balls themselves had disappeared no doubt making a minty soft lining to the mice's nests. I've tried to put them off by using highly scented products to clean with but I think that they are less bothered by the fruity flowery stink than I am.

Just now we have a population explosion on the back of the pea pasta debacle and definitely have some juveniles judging by the size of the mouse poos. So yes, tenements do have mice, and if anyone says their tenement flat doesn't have them has just not spotted them yet.

I believe mice are crepuscular- most active at dawn and dusk.