HELP! A mouse electrocuted me

[OctogenarianDecathlete]

Well, technically the dishwasher electrocuted me but only because a mouse has chewed through the cable.

I need all tips on how to get rid of it.

Not just any mouse, we have an Ultra Mouse.

We have a young cat. He went through a phase of bringing live mice in.

We bought humane traps and caught and released several.

Except one.

This 🤬 mouse will not be caught or killed. We've tried all kinds of traps, bait and poison.

We're in a 14 year old shoddily built house with holes in the walls that allow the mouse to move between kitchen, bathroom and garage. It's been getting into the kitchen cupboards from behind. It abseils down onto the worktop (we sprinkle bicarbonate and have footprints in the mornings).

We were trying to use humane traps initially but the 🤬 has had enough chances and needs to just go.

Please give me all your tips on traps, bait and poisons.

I'm this close to burning the house down (or at least, the mouse might manage it itself).

DH has suggested this but I'm worried it'll upset the cat.

Who got us in this mess in the first place.

(I know).

Unintuitively, the humane mouse traps are quite effective in that they do catch the little blighters as they shimmy round any tastily baited snap traps. What one is supposed to do with a humanely trapped mouse, I don't know.

At this point I think it's probably cheaper to pay pest control than the excess when the mouse burns the house down by chewing on any more wires.

Good idea.

I would go for that. I always wanted a California King snake.

Tom, is that you?

I think it's a house mouse. From whisker and tail tracks in the bicarbonate sprinkles we've been laying. (Like for Santa's footprints)

Hmm 🤔 I'll try DH's fancy coffee and protein powder.

I've taken them for a nice walk to the bit of scrubby land the other side of our housing estate, and then happily watch them scamper off.

Pretty much.

Obviously I touched it twice just to check 🤦‍♀️

Yes, it pricked my conscience a bit, but it was money well-spent.

In my DM's house, the little furry b~st~rds gnawed right through her power-shower pipe (!) in the attic, cost her hundreds to fix. And you could hear them scratting about above the ceiling, cackling at their nefarious plans, for ages.

I recommend making a tiny mouse sized suit of armour - he’ll put it on (who wouldn’t) - and ordering a giant Acme magnet. You can deposit him outside at your leisure.

Or you could try to drop an anvil or a grand piano on his head. But I don’t recommend that - inevitably it will land on your paw instead…

Ours can never resist chocolate spread. The bucket of water method can also be effective

Chocolate spread worked for us.
black plastic snap traps- better than the metal and wood traps.

I had a mouse infestation as a student and found some couldn’t be caught with snappy traps or humane traps and resorted to the glue traps. They are horrible as you have to finish off the mouse yourself as the traps are not humane but they are effective.

Why not put a piece of electrical flex in the trap? You know it likes that! 🐭

Gives an excuse to buy chocolate spread. Presumably the good kind, not the healthy/vegan kind.

Don't think we can fit a bucket in anywhere it's visiting. Except the worktop 🤔

Block all the holes with wire wool.
Keep all foodstuffs in sealed containers. Don't leave any crumbs on floors or other surfaces.

Thanks.

We're trying but there are massive holes in the walls behind the kitchen units. We can't get at them without destroying the kitchen.

You can usually remove kitchen cupboards and rehang them - don't 'rip out' anything!

I don't want to!

The latest hole we've found is in the corner by the kitchen sink. I think to dismantle that cupboard we might have to take out the sink itself.

Can't someone just tell me The Secret to getting rid of this one mouse in one go tonight?!

Seconding a bog standard snapping mouse trap.

Use gloves when you set it, as apparently they can sense your smell and will avoid it.

My amazon order that day consisted of a same day box of 10 mouse traps and a box of 100 disposable rubber gloves. The packer at Amazon probably thought we had an infestation, not just a solitary mouse trotting around the kitchen ceiling!

Peanut butter is apparently best, but we went with the old faithful bit of cheese for the last mouse we had.

We put the trap near where it would come out looking for food on the assumption that it would then take the path of least resistance and just head straight for the nearest food source. We caught it the next day.

We have the The Big Cheese Ultra Power Mouse Traps not the ones you posted. Though the ones you have look good too. Our cats kept bringing in live mice (and dead ones) now we have a brand new snazzy cat flap that won’t let our cats in with a mouse in their mouth. It’s amazing! It will only open if they have nothing in their mouth and stays firmly shut when they have a mouse in it.

Thanks.

I haven't used gloves so far, but the kitchen presumably smells like humans and cat but that hasn't put it off.

The traps and bait also successfully caught a bunch of field mice and house mice previously.

This one is different.

We've just deployed the traps (big and small humane and snappy) again with mushroom and coffee.

Peanut butter, cheese, almond butter, flour, seeds, snickers bar etc haven't worked on this one so far.

We've put traps (we have about 10 traps) along its common routes. I think it just climbs over/goes round and carries on.

We'll give these a few days and then redeploy having worn gloves, and in cereal boxes. If we don't have the pest control people in first.

I did look at one of these and it was about £400? And wanted a subscription?

We currently have a microchip flap.

Does your flap do microchip recognition too?

(Again, we've gone from "that's too expensive" to "take my money")

You weren’t electrocuted otherwise you’d be dead.
I can’t believe the number of people on here suggest non-humane traps.