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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be so creeped out by the fact we have mice...

54 replies

emeraldgirl1 · 09/01/2012 15:09

pest control came today after we saw droppings on the kitchen floor. we had them come a year ago as DH saw a mouse back then, but we thought after their visit (sealing holes etc) the problem had gone away. In true panto tradition - oh, no, it hasn't. We still have mice.

Have never seen one myself, thank God, but the thought of mice in my kitchen makes me squirm in horror. We are very clean in the kitchen and I'm upset that we don't seem to be able to keep them away. Pest control guy (hopefully not just trying to sell me services!!!) is offering a system where they come every few months to seal any new holes and put down new bait. But he thinks (again, I can only trust him) they're coming in through next door's open vents, which obviously we have no way of getting them to deal with if they don't want to.

I'm not obsessively houseproud like my mother but we are very clean and keep a clean kitchen, and the thought of rodents running over the floor is making me feel quite ill atm... :(

OP posts:
mrsjay · 09/01/2012 15:16

poor you , do you live near fields or long grass etc , more than likely they are coming from the fields having mice doesnt mean you are a dirty person they just come in from the cold in the winter , however im with you i squirm at the thought of it we had them once or twice get a rat trap and put nutella on bread , or get a cat although my cat used to bring them in alive shudder

MrGin · 09/01/2012 15:16

Best thing you can do is to get / or borrow a cat.

Ponyclubmum · 09/01/2012 15:20

We used to have a terrible mouse problem - I bought one of those plug in mouse deterrents and haven't seen a single one since! Give one a go. :)

Original poster
emeraldgirl1 · 09/01/2012 15:22

Plug in mouse deterrent...? WHAT IS THIS THING??? running to shops to buy immediately

OP posts:
wahwah1270 · 09/01/2012 15:31

Get a cat - it was the only thing that worked for us

Original poster
emeraldgirl1 · 09/01/2012 15:44

I'm allergic to cats unfortunately...

OP posts:
crazynanna · 09/01/2012 15:49

We have a mousey....so we got a kitty.

Trouble is....mousey is bigger than kitty atm so we live with both until kitty grows somewhat Wink

DorisIsWaiting · 09/01/2012 16:04

We have somethingin the walls and loft (v old stone cottage walls!) Have phoned pest contol today and waiting to see what they can do can hear them scurrying around and it's eeeeekkkk!

marriednotdead · 09/01/2012 16:07

Saw a mouse indoors for 2nd time in October but DH hates cats so we bought a plug in repeller. It seemed to do the trick but a furry critter ran across my lounge yesterday morning while I was mumsnetting reading the paper Angry

I turned the whole of downstairs upside down whilst it was barricaded in the lounge by my wuss of a DH Hmm and found a tiny hole behind my cooker which I stuffed with wire wool- one of the few things they can't chew through apparently.

We set up an escape route for it but after 2 bloody hours shifting furniture I'm ashamed to say it met it's demise via my vacuum cleaner Blush

Am hoping plug in thingy was not a wasted £26

MoreBeta · 09/01/2012 16:13

We had mice under our kitchen units. Put traps under the units plus poison and covered all the airbricks outside with fine mesh.

It worked. Killed 6 in a week and the rest died under the floorboard.

You can buy the expanding foam your rodent man is talking about and DIY as it is widely used in commercial kitchens to block any holes round pipes to stop mice getting in. Obvioulsy, they cannot be tolerated for health and safety reasons in a commercial kitchen so you are right to feel uncomfortable about them in your own home. At this time of year they tend to come in and live near the dishwasher where it is warm and eat food scraps.

roundtoit · 09/01/2012 16:14

poor you Emerald i had them years ago and was ready to move house, they really upet me. found they were coming into the house by way of the water pipe coming up into one of my cupboards there was a little space around the pipe and the little blighters dont need much room. Come into my house now and you will never find any gaps i have filled everything and i mean everything with flexible filler and polyfilla you will be amazed at how small a hole they can get into, check everywhere and fill fill fill.

elastamum · 09/01/2012 16:17

stuff all the gaps round pipes and your roof space with rock wool insulation as they cant chew their way through it

attheendoftheday · 09/01/2012 16:18

We've had mice recently, I've been catching them in humane traps a releasing them a mile away in the woods (am a hopeless veggie animal-lover). How do you know when you no longer have mice? Have blocked their access hole and not caught any in a week, does that mean we're OK?

Sympathies on your mice. They are hard to keep out.

OmniaParatus · 09/01/2012 16:21

Plug ins only work sometimes I once saw a mouse sitting on the counter opposite our plug in without a care in the world, I was furious! We found one in the living room the other day, we have two cats so I really hope one of them brought it in and it isn't a resident .

Since they demolished a wing of the nearby school we have seen a lot of mice, the school must be hoaching!

roundtoit · 09/01/2012 16:26

the only way you know they have all gone is when there are no more droppings anywhere. The holes they can get through are so small so you have to fill in any hole you see. My house is nearly hermetically sealed as i am so paranoid about the little blighters

Wrigglebum · 09/01/2012 16:29

We had them in a flat we rented- they came up through the hole where the tv cable was. We used those plug in mouse repellers and that mostly got rid of them. Makes a noise they hate but if they are settled or you have food they can get too they'll put up with the noise.
Keep one plugged in our kitchen here as a preventative and not seen any yet.

Francagoestohollywood · 09/01/2012 16:31

Sympathies. We used to have mice too, when we lived in the Uk. I once saw a cute one crossing our living room Hmm.
First of all try to locate where they come from and block their access holes.
The plug in thingybalso worked for us.

Ponyclubmum · 09/01/2012 17:07

It's this sort of thing we got. Doesn't work for everyone, as you can see from the reviews, but it certainly did the trick for us!

tunnelmaniac · 09/01/2012 18:55

Er, "crazynanna" , if your mousie is bigger than your kitten it must be a rat!

Scholes34 · 09/01/2012 19:40

You need a trap. You'll find you need to eradicate a whole family over a number of days. You can try filling gaps with wire wool - you'll find a number of gaps under the kitchen cabinets where water, gas pipes etc come into the house. You can also sprinkle some cayenne pepper around the gaps, but they can fit through very small gaps, so you can't seal off the house entirely. If you're prone to mice, you just need to ensure there's no food around they can access, ie don't keep things like packets of biscuits in low cupboards which they can gnaw through. Once you see no more droppings, you know that particular family of mice has gone.

Rhubarbgarden · 09/01/2012 19:48

I found the humane trip-traps work well. But only if you don't have a problem with releasing them somewhere. I used to love it actually - I'd get a good luck at their cute little furry faces and twitchy ears before letting them go Blush.

danilyon · 09/01/2012 21:25

We currently have a mouse I think. We first realised we had one at the beginning of last year and subsequently lived in a premier inn for a week as I was a paranoid pregnant lady at that time

The little blighter had used our spare room, which is a double room, as a playground. We used it as our store room for all our crap and had to bin everything in there.

We refurbished the house, which involved us moving out for 3 months and thought we'd managed to poison the bugger with one of the traps we'd laid. Hadn't seen droppings or any sign of mousey until we came back home on Wednesday after spending time with family this Christmas/new year, when we came home to find some mouse droppings in our bedroom near a cupboard.

Cleaned everything up ASAP and searched the rest of the house but saw no sign anywhere else. Have since found a tiny gap in the corner near said cupboard and I will be purchasing wire wool and filler in the morning.

No idea if it's the same mouse and no idea why it's upstairs and not downstairs. Our theory is that it may be travelling between our row of four terraced houses, if that's even possible. God knows what it's eating, though we did find a gnawed bit of paper by the droppings

You have my sympathies, I hope you manage to turf out your unwelcome visitor soon!!

thepeoplesprincess · 09/01/2012 21:27

I had one of those plug-in things. I returned it to B&Q after I walked into the kitchen and found a mouse sitting directly underneath it.

troisgarcons · 09/01/2012 21:27

I would point out, we never had mice until we got a cat - she delights in bringing the buggers in, setting them free and we spend 3 days hunting the buggers back down before she kills them. Soon as we get rid of it, she goes back to the nest and gets another one for her amusement.

Untold 3 am fun.

crazynanna · 09/01/2012 22:39

tunnelmaniac I jest! Smile I've seen it...'tis a mouse.

But kitty is only 12 weeks and is not really interested in mousey yet

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