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).

Have you tried one of those high pitched plug in sensors ?

Sounds like you have a pet mouse, honestly I'm jealous, such cute little things.

Yes it was expensive for the cat flap though the £379 is without a subscription (and no further costs at all) and with a monthly subscription it’s about £200. Here’s a photo of one of ours trying to bring a mouse in yesterday and the cat flap stays locked. I contributed a couple of years ago so was one of the first ones to get one. Honestly with our two hunter cats it’s amazing. No more dead or live animals around the place! Yes it does the microchip recognition too and only lets our cats in.

@Pineappleprep
You wouldnt say that if they were chewing their way through your house and food. Seriously unhygienic, it really isnt funny !

Apparently mice don't like the smell of peppermint oil, lemon, cinnamon or vinegar. I'm sure there are others but it really is hit and miss with the darn things.

I hate to say this as I absolutely hate mice and have had a few infestations myself which have been hard to shift but don’t assume you just have one given the amount of damage you are describing and the fact you’ve seen it.

They are hyper fertile little feckers and just because you got down to one a while ago doesn’t mean you still only have one. The gestation period of a mouse is only 20 days and by the time you see them or spot damage it usually means you have several of them ☹️

It's an electric mouse.

What you need is a couple of teenagers, a spectacularly dim cat, a red and white ball and then you throw the ball at the electric mouse in as dramatic a manner as possible. It'll probably help if you have a weird frog thing, a lizard and a demented tortoise to assist you and a banging theme tune.

@Katrinawaves
Absolutely. If one gets a feel for a place, they usually bring their mates unfortunately...

Cheers, thanks 👍

Happy to have a properly contained pet mouse.

But this one is destroying my house. This is the second time it's chewed through the dishwasher cable.

I'm very concerned it might cause an electrical fire next.

Not yet, worried it might upset the poor darling cat that brought the mouse in

We do have a massive spray bottle of "mouse repellent" which is mostly peppermint oil.

I don't know if it's working but it smells nice!

This was a concern.

However, we often dust the kitchen worktop with bicarbonate (I've got a 5kg tub) and we only ever get one set of prints/whiskers/tail swishes.

I'm hoping that by now it's been in the house long enough that we would definitely know if it had reproduced.

I don't want to be proved wrong but would accept evidence to the contrary 🙈

Ok, I have one teenager, a fairly dim cat, and an 8 year old with a Pokémon obsession.

Shall I just shut them all in the kitchen overnight and let them crack on?

Ah yes but this one can't get out!

It was brought in against its will. It has no friends.

Except the cat. The cat really wants to be its friend.

See this is my fear.

Glue traps have been ordered to arrive tomorrow.

In fairness it's had 3 months of 'nice' options that it refused to take.

Make sure you lay them against the walls. Mice don’t like
running in the open and mainly run around the wall (which is why we used to have lots of blood smears along our skirting boards!)

Absolutely.

It's guaranteed to work. Honest.

Thanks! I have done this!

Except the one under the bath which I've put near the hole in the floor.

@NeverDropYourMooncup 😂

This reminds me of when I was about 8-10 years old and I told my parents that I'd seen a mouse in the dining room. After much investigation they couldn't find any droppings or signs that food packaging had been interfered with so they told me I had an over active imagination. Three days later the hob stopped working and when the engineer came to fix it he opened it to find a dead mouse lying across the wiring and shorting it out.

There is no greater pleasure for a child than being able to say "I told you so" to your parents.

If the trap smells of human they avoid it. Buy new trap and open and set it wearing new out of the packet gloves. Use whatever food it's been eating. We have variously had fans of chocolate, mixed nuts and cereal.

I keep looking at that cat flap and wondering if it's worth the expense. When the current one dies I may go for it.

@OctogenarianDecathlete could you borrow a more effective cat?

We love the cat flap. It’s definitely been worth the money. We’ve had it since June. Before we had bloody bits of mice and birds spread around the place nearly every morning including live mice running around and under the kitchen! Also had birds sat cheeping under the dining table. I was one of the first VIP contributors as I was so sick of it. The videos are really cute too.