Help! What to do about a mouse in our house!

[mouseathome]

I haven't a clue what the protocol should be here so looking for advice.

We live in a small Victorian terrace in London, (where there are generally a lot of rodents)! - but we have never had mice before as previously lived in high rise flats so it was never a problem. We are renting.

Last night I saw a mouse scuttling in the living room (ground floor obvs).

What are the appropriate steps here?

• call pest control ourselves?
• not call pest control put stuff down to deter and give it a good clean?
• contact landlord? Is this a good idea or could it reflect badly on us?
• alternatives? Get a cat??

No idea of the right steps to take. For context our house is a normal family home - cleaned regularly but we have reception aged DC so it's not pristine and she does leave crumbs like any 4yo.

Can anyone advise please?

traps
mud you put poison down they stink when they die

I would buy a 'humane trap' put some chocolate or peanut butter in it. Place the trap near where you saw it. At edge of room.
Assuming you catch it, release it about a mile away from your house.
There is likely to be more than one...
If you can see where it got in block that entry with something solid, wood, piece of metal, cement, but not paper or plastic as they will chew through that.

Get a cat is always my solution. You can never have too many cats.

Cat(s) - their presence tends to put rodents off.
However one of mine brought a live shrew in the other day and dropped it...

Poison works, just take care to read the instructions. But you may get smells and flies from concealed bodies.

Traps are slower, I think and must be...um...dealt with. Sometimes ordinary traps don't kill the mouse.

A pest firm will put down poison and/or traps, whatever they find works, but they'll perhaps have a better idea of the best/safest places. (Or they might tip of load of loose bait through the cracks in the floorboards, which will encourage grain beetles to proliferate! ) They may also look around for entry points. They may do a second visit to empty traps and check bait boxes to see if bait has been taken.

Don't block entry points until all the mice have been dealt with, especially if you poison them, because they do often run outside to die, saving you the smells/flies/hassle of disposal.

I've only ever had them in the loft/walls, not out in the rooms and they aren't really much trouble. But they do carry diseases like salmonella, so best to get rid.

Wouldn't recommend this. My cats are the ones who bring the mice in as little presents for us!

Humane trap with a bit of chocolate in. Works every time for us.

Snap traps loaded with Nutella. Place along skirting boards behind furniture.

Worked for me.

And don't believe anyone that says "if you've seen one mouse, there WILL be more". It's perfectly possible to have a random rodent. Once you've caught it, just look out on work surfaces and cupboards for droppings. Easy to spot if you still have a problem when you know what you're looking for.

All this, and check traps early in the morning. I’ve had many a dawn walk to let the little fuckers go.
If you leave them for too long it’s cruel and they’ll die anyway.
Don’t leave any food scraps, crumbs, dirty plates out, especially overnight.
There will DEFINITELY be more than one.

I agree it’s possible to have just one, as long as you realise very quickly. Usually it takes a while to see evidence by which time the little buggers mates are there.

Humane trap with some Snickers in it. Mice love the combo!

Christ. It must be mouse season or something. The day before yesterday we had a friend visiting and she was sat alone in the sitting room. She swore blind she saw a mouse run under the sofa and ran quaking into the kitchen. I wondered if it was nesting inside the sofa. DH and I decided to put a humane trap down that we had handy but first look under the sofa, so we moved it out from the wall and tipped it up onto its back so we could look at the cloth bottom. I thought there might be a hole. All at once DH went 'Oh my God! We've killed it!' There was the back end of a mouse that was trapped under the edge of the sofa. DH ran to join our friend in the kitchen to be scared. My nine-year-old-daughter, cool as a cucumber, said 'let's make sure it's dead', and poked it with a drinking straw to see if it twitched or moved. It didn't. Into the wheely bin in a plastic bag. Washed hands all round.

Try and work out where it’s coming from, block all holes with wire wool. Cats will deter them

The most humane way is with the old fashioned snap traps if you can bear it. humane traps and releasing them to starve to death in the wilderness is a much nastier way to go. Humane Rodent Control - UFAW

Snap traps and peanut butter. It is unpleasant but at least it’s quick. Humane traps I think can often be worse as you end up with the poor creature stuck overnight and then you have to release it which often means the mouse dies anyway. Quicker you deal with it the less chance of there being a mouse family to deal with.

It's never just one mouse. With these old properties, it's also very tricky to keep them out completely.
You can lay traps, but I found by far the most effective are cats!
We lived on the 3rd floor of an old flat and had mice come up through the walls. Downstairs neighbour got a cat, and no more mice problems. A few years later downstairs neighbour moved out, and mice moved back in...

I had mixed results with a humane trap. What finally worked for me the last time I had a mouse (which had found its way up to the bedroom) was leaving a box with some cheese at the far end overnight. As soon as I heard rustling noises from inside the box I closed off the open end, took it outside and deposited the mouse in the garden. Not had a problem since.