What would be your preferred method of dealing with a mouse problem?

[BlueBar]

A friend recommended baited (poisoned) traps as a straightforward way to get rid of the mouse (mice?) in my garage.

My dad says old fashioned spring traps are preferable because no matter how careful you are with the poisoned ones, they have to be disposed of and you don't know what might be affected by them afterwards I.e. what else might be affected by the poison.

I don't love the idea of squashed mice, but they do need to go and none of the solutions are particularly palatable

i don’t have a problem but when I did it was soon resolved. I have cats. The mice were coming into the cupboard under the sink from under the house. Just left the cupboard door open a few nights and there was never another dropping to be found.

no mice were killed.

i don’t think.

Borrow a cat 🐈

Snap traps. Poison means you could end up killing someone’s cat or anything else that finds and eats a dying mouse.

Don't get a cat unless you know it's competent. More often than not they cause the mouse problem with their not quite dead offerings.

A Jack Russell terrier

Short term - snap traps. Long term - cat. And then, bonus, you have a cat.

www.screwfix.com/p/pest-stop-plastic-metal-battery-powered-mouse-killer/45407

these are so good - bait it with peanut butter, batteries in, turn them on and you hear a whirring then put where you need it. It flashes yellow if I had caught a mouse but you have to keep looking as the yellow flash takes a few seconds.

i think humane (considering) and definitely no mess and you can get away without seeing the body just about - just take the lid off without looking and shake into your outside bin.

Don't use poison - if they don't die instantly they may crawl under the floorboards and gradually decompose leaving a horrible smell.

Glue traps are now illegal thank god. Unnecessary suffering. Horrific things.

Poison is awful. A v cruel death and also terrible for any other animals unfortunate enough to unwittingly encounter any residue.

Spring traps are generally a quick and humane death. So called ‘humane’ traps are anything but. Housemice deposited in a field will die of exposure as they are not intended to exist outside of the house, hence the name.

Surely the kindest thing is to use humane traps and empty away from the house in a green area.
I would never ever consider killing something for being an inconvenience.

Snap trap baited with peanut butter.

Humane traps

My preference is get a cat.

Blocking entry point and spring traps can be effective. I've had great success with them but also total fails. The huge success period was baiting with my dad's homemade fudge. Caught 8 in an afternoon.

Humane traps are super hit and miss had two successes out of many many goes but tbh both times the mouse died in it anyway.

Never ever poison. Domestic poison use is devastating to wildlife and pets. Also you can end up with bodies that you can't access and a whole new set of problems.

I'd let my terriers kill them. Job done quickly

We rented a house once that had mice. The landlord came around and put poison down. Saw a few dead so got rid. Had a terrible stink in the bathroom which was getting worse. Dh took up a floorboard to find one had died over one of the central heating pipes and it was slowly rotting and roasting at the same time !

A cat is the best

Agree with snap traps. Mars Bars or peanut butter.
Nothing worse than mice in the loft. They wear clogs after lights out.
And when they climb around radiators. Or under the bed.
And they wee all the time. Over everything.
So snap traps .
But I'm getting one of the Srewfix traps for the garage.

Thermonuclear war!

You also need to work out where they are coming from as a bit of wire wool and expanding foam can stop them getting through.

Spring and poison are both horrific. Cant you board up when theyre getting in and use a humane trap to catch and release them?

Snap traps with peanut butter for mice
Humane traps with snickers bar in for voles
For some reason the voles always evade the snap traps but are caught by the humane ones and vice versa.

We are in an old rural house on the edge of fields so get both of them.
Humane traps are a pain because you have to take them so far away and arguably you are just sending them away for prolonged death as they are taken out of their area.

We use humane traps. Dh has had a couple escape in the car on the way to the fields though and I always worry that they may have babies that have been left behind.

Mouse damage is one of the leading causes of damage to electrical wiring and dishwasher/washing machine hoses. They can cause a lot of damage, they chew through the plastic.
Had a long chat with the appliance repair man when they chewed through our dishwasher hose for the second time.
He's seen a lot of electrocuted mice in his time.

Our hoses are now wrapped in copper wire.

Pest controller.

Cats are useless - partly they bring the mice in, get bored and release them. Partly the mice just live in parts of your house the cats don't reach.

Ultrasonic thing - waste of electricity.At best they might keep a mouse free house free of mice. But if you switch one on, and you already have mice, the mice just laugh at it.

Pick them up, put outside or into a suitable container and take into the local fields or woodland to release, that's what we do. Absolutely no need to harm them