To think there is just the one mouse?

[Noodlesoup1976]

Ok so Saturday night I heard scratching and rustling in the corner of my bedroom, turned on the lamp and there is a mouse sat on top of a box!!!

Everything I've read since leads me to believe that if you have one mouse then you have a houseful.

Since then I've left the traps and poison down just in case, but no sign of anything. So I was just wondering, am I kidding myself that this was just a Lone Ranger or am I likely to find more?

Leave the traps down for two weeks.
If you haven't caught any more then, it was probably the only one.
(I used to live in a house backing on to fields and had a pretty awful summer when I caught upwards of twelve!)

We had one mouse last Christmas. I was convinced I was going mad as I was having a very stressful time and kept seeing something dashing along the walls out of the corner of my eye. Seriously convinced I was going nuts, and sow as dh who none the less agreed to put some mouse traps down. The next day I heard it snap and found a fat little mouse caught in it. I went into serious de-mouse the house mode and cleaned EVERYTHING, I found it had climbed into a drawer downstairs and chewed a pencil and a tiny chocolate to shreds. I put traps absolutely everywhere, baited with chocolate and haven't caught another since. No more dropping either, which I discovered along the skirting boards, hidden by our hideous carpet until I knew to look for them. I've kept some traps set up, and dotted cotton wool balls doused in peppermint oil in the corners of rooms, which apparently they hate. Also used some expander foam far too liberally on any gaps. I actually think our mouse came in in our Christmas tree box, rather than make its way into the house as we bought it from a local large charity shop that kept the trees undercover but outside. So in out case, yes it was just one mouse. I am seriously dreading winter though as it really did affect me finding that bloody mouse and dread it happening again. I couldn't relax.

Thank you. I've literally had the house upside down and inside out and can't find any signs of mouse droppings or gnawing, it was just in the one corner of my bedroom where I caught it.

Could it possibly have been a neighbours escaped pet? I had my Hamster get out a few weeks ago and he went straight under the floorboards!

Actually i remember when i was 10 the kids on my neighbourhood went through a phase where half of them got pet mice. Stayed at a friends who had got one, didn't tell me till we went to bed it had escaped a week prior, I wome up at 10 to 4 in the morning, pitch black, with it sat on my face over my eye!

I live near fields and I often get one or two mice at a time. I'll lay traps and once I've caught it/them I see no signs of mice for ages after. You can tell when you have mice. The houseful thing is a myth.

There is never just one mouse.

About five years ago we were going on holiday to Rhodes. We overslept slightly and the taxi was early....cue running around and out of the door. When we came home two weeks later, I quickly noticed that some of my kitchen flooring had been chewed and one of my brand new trainers had been half eaten??? The next night I walked into my kitchen and saw what I first thought was a mouse.....it ran down the side of the cooker and I watched horrified at the verrrrry long tail....yep it was a rat.... we live in a row of terraced house that all share cavity walls and the rat, rats, millions of rats, were having a ball going in and out of everyones kitchen!!!!

The next night I did the same (fuelled on Ouzo) walked into the kitchen and saw the tail!!! I decided, with the aid of the Ouzo that I was going to kill it lol.......could see it down the side of the washing machine....it ran out and I grabbed the first thing to hand - fly/wasp spray lol. I tried spraying it on the rat which then jumped about a foot in the air - which, in my drunken state, I tried to kick it!!!!!

Next day we got the 'council rat catcher' in and he was more than slightly amused at my ouzo/fly spray incident. It took about a month before all the houses were rat free. Incidentally when they have eaten poison and have died it smells like garlic and onions.

Im sure mice are not as bad as rats

Haha Shabbs I actually used to have 2 pet rats, they were lovely boys. This was definitely a teeny tiny mouse, bloody sodding scary though

Sometimes there IS just one mouse, particularly if you're rural.

We had one downstairs a couple of years ago - it made a right racket every evening, in and out of the kitchen bins and racing across the living room. Eventually I caught it in a humane trap, and let it go a few streets away by the posh houses Never heard another sound, so it was clearly a lone wolf mouse.

A mouse is normally never alone. I know it's not a consolation but it's a fact.
Despite the presence of fields behind us, no mouse in our house really wants to be there. They're all toys brought in by the chubby monster currently sleeping at the end of my bed or the little street thug currently spreading mayhem amongst the local rodents. But before them, in the previous house we had mice and they were definitely a big family as we were catching them one by one.
That said, I love pet rats and used to have pet mice but I prefer the grey variety dead.

Work colleague of mine thought he had a mouse.

He didn't.

The pest control people laid traps in the loft and caught dozens over a period of several months. Apparently they must have been scrambling up a climber against NDN's house wall and getting in via a hole under the eaves and into the neighbour's loft. From there they were working their way into his loft as well.

YABU

This is not a Highlander situation.

One mouce = lots of mice.

Mice really don't come in ones.

Make sure the traps and bait trays are in the right places, rodents really don't like new objects and they don't like to come off their paths and trails (one reason they almost constantly dribble wee is that it leaves a scent trail for others to follow).

So the fact you haven't caught any or bait hasn't been disturbed does not automatically mean you only had the one mouse - it could mean you put them in the wrong places or that they are still too new for the mice to investigate, or that they don't NEED to bother because they have enough food thanks very much..

Unless you have a cat that's brought it in there is definitely not just one mouse. They'll be hiding out in a cupboard or a loft or under the floorboards.
Get pest control in now and once they are gone check the outside of your house for entry routes.

I thought we had just one mouse but, within weeks, there was a whole family of them cavorting around the living room in broad daylight.

I'm not scared of mice, I think they're kind of cute, but they're mucky little things that wee everywhere and nibble things they have no right to touch.

My humane traps didn't work. I had to call in the professionals. Two visits from pest control soon sorted them out.

Another one here who thought they had once mouse. Turned out there was a whole family in the loft

My question is - what can I do about it? What's the etiquette? Should I tell them? The tree is quite far from their house but closer to ours. Am worried about the critters getting into our house! Have cut down the branches dangling over but the squeakers are still there.....

Get a cat. Or two. No kittens but at least one who's been on the street for a while. Even semi-feral cats who have sterilised will be OK.

She's lying on my chest at the moment and says the beauty of the mice is they always come in teams. She also took out a rat nest once, killing the Mama and brought the babies inside to play with.

I think it depends on where they come from. I regularly have a lone mouse (or rat, once)...about once every 3 months or so.

But I know that's because DCat has a penchant for catching them, bringing them in and releasing them. We put traps dow,n, catch it really quickly and then hear nothing for the next few months until he does it again.