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

Humane traps. But I'm a soppy git. We check traps twice daily and drive them 5 miles away to fields. I don't think you're meant to release them but I can't kill them.

You've harmed them by dumping them in a strange woodland. They are very unlikely to survive and probably starved to death or were eaten by predators.

We used spring traps and also a couple of ultrasonic rodent deterrents that plugged in. It takes a couple of weeks for the full effect ov the plug in devices ut after that we've not caught any more and no sign of them.

I just catch them when I see them and take them back outdoors. The cats tend to bring them in to play with.

I'm not bothered by mice, but rats I will try and get rid of.

Cats.

Which one would you reccommend

Big cheese snap traps (from Amazon) baited with peanut butter and put next to a wall/skirting board.

We're thinking of adopting two or three feral cats. We've got chickens and despite taking up the food every evening there is still a regular rat visit (during broad daylight!)

I have found the ultrasonic deterence to be quite effective
This didn't annoy rodents for us but drove me mad!

Cat, humane traps are horrible or useless, either you release it close enough to return to your house, or so far away it dies due to no burrow/ predators

I tried the ultrasonic things - did nothing. Perhaps my mice are turbocharged but i caught two (in 12 hours) who has gone to get the peanut butter in my electrocuting trap. They were less than a metre away from the plug thing which was on high (since it was a guest room and we had the door shut). Peanut butter more interesting than the sound was off putting.

Snap traps and cats. I used the ice cream chocolate sauce. Worked great.

safe to use around children and pets (excluding rodent pets)

What the...is that the equivalent of saying an Iron may get hot? 😮

This. Cats are great. One of mine will intact not part with said dead mouse and completely eat it! I still get on edge with the noise of her crunching the bones and a tail out of her mouth.
Before anyone says anything they have gocat and treat dreamies, also bit of chicken /lamb in their bowls if it’s going spare.
The only question I have why did she eat the bones anyone would thing she was starving.
Also a pan works well heavy weighted one, seriously get a cat 🐈‍⬛.

We got a cat.

These ones have kept the mice out of our garage and have also stopped all the spiders from coming in my garden office. They are quite noisy though so I wouldn't want them in the house
Ultrasonic Pest Repeller, 4... www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B8R33HWY?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

A small blood-thirsty terrier, especially of a smaller breed whose ancestors were bred as farmyard ratters

Snap traps and peanut butter here. Poison had not worked.
We had mice in our garage eating the food stored in there. We caught 12 of them over a week earlier this year.
It gave me great pleasure every day disposing of the dead blighters.

Get a cat. Problem solved!

use a few methods. Don’t mess about. Snap traps work well, but we also have used glue traps and they are amazing. You do have to whack the mouse once you’ve caught one to put it out of its misery, but they get the job done.

AKA a beer glass.

I had two mice scampering around the kitchen last winter, so we caught them in a couple of beer glasses and walked them over the road to the field and let them run free into the hedge.

They may have eventually been eaten by a magpie or similar, but it was rather lovely seeing them run off to safety. Goodbye Mr and Mrs 🐭

For all those saying a cat - cats are variable.

I have one natural born killer.

And one who rarely interacts with a mouse, but if she does will spend 4 painful hours chasing it, mainly in the wrong room, before finally losing the mouse entirely and giving up.

Which cat you get, you won't know. The useless one as a kitten looked like she was going to grow up to be fierce. But instead turned into a sweet wet blanket.

You are guaranteed the benefit of having a cat, though.

Snap-traps, ultrasonic thing and trying to block up as many gaps as possible with wire wool. We also bought a lot of plastic boxes to store food in as the little fuckers got into the cupboard and gnawed a bag of couscous. I'm allergic to cats so that's not an option - I did consider a flamethrower, but DH pointed out we needed the house intact.

Humane traps