to react this way to a mouse??????

[Mumyum1]

So last year we appeared to have a single mouse in the house somewhere. He'd made his way amongst the children's toys, he'd made his way upstairs despite our no food upstairs rule (an actual followed rule!) and into the children's bedroom - I know because over s period of a few weeks I found a small amount of mouse poop in all said places. Also in my bedroom. Mouse poop 1 inch next to where I left my laptop and iPhone on a folded blanket on floor next to bed. A single dropping on top of the laundry pile. No poop in any of the food cupboards.

It totally totally totally freaked me out. At the same time my son came home from nursery with scabies and I was convinced it was a mouse mite that had infected him. Even did a crazy lady and took him to GP to say I think it's a mite infestation from the single mouse invasion we have ...

Anyway over those few weeks I redid loadsbof washing, washed lots of floors and stairs and dettol-wiped carpets ... and eventually we caught a live mouse in one of those live capture traps - of forbidden DH to put poison behind cupboards etc

We've been fine for about 2 months and DH just 3 hours ago came upstairs to tell me he's just seen a mouse but no droppings so he thinks it's this mouse's first foray into our home due to the cold weather. I then went on a close investigation and found 2 little mouse droppings on the stairs. 3 on the landing outside our bedrooms, 3 inches from 2 baskets of clean washing I'd just folded and brought upstairs this afternoon. (Do I need to wash it all again???????) 1dropping in the corner of the playroom and 3 little poops in the children's den in the playroom. When I vacuumed yesterday there was definitely nothing. I'm always on mouse poop hyper alert.

I'm so grossed out. I want to throw out the playroom rug that the den is on. I want him to tear away the cupboards to fill the hole (he says he can't and agrees with my wondering whether we will now always have a mouse come in whenever it's so cold??). I need to dettol wipe all the stairs again and the landing carpets. He's just laid out about 6 live traps. I need to steam all the downstairs floors before the one year is allowed to crawl there. My skin is crawling as I type this. AIBU?????????? DH says I'm crazy and obsessed.

Well if I saw a mouse in mine. I'd want to cuddle and squeeeeze him and keep him as pet, so I guess we're two extremes.
If you're scared you're scared. With fear there's no such thing as an over reaction

Not crazy. Mice are incontinent and it can be harmful.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The chances of one mouse is slim. The breed loads - 5 - 10 times a year producing between 3 and 14 mice each time.
The only effective way is to use traps/poison not the humane traps. These either send the problem to other people, or unless you drive for miles they come back to their home.
Also don't be fooled they haven't been in the kitchen. As you have found out they climb. I witnessed one jump from a kitchen worktop over my head and onto a worktop roughly 6 foot away. Thankfully not my place I would have burned my kitchen.

The size of the hole they need is miniscule. Talking the size of a pen nib.

Once you have got rid of this infestation get yourself some plug in deterents. Honestly they do work but you need the mice gone first.

You're overreacting, and there's very rarely only one mouse. More like 10 for every one you see...

Oh now I'm imagining a family of itty bitty mice.

Not overreacting - i had mice last summer and lost my shi*. You will never get rid of them if you don't block holes - no amount of hoovering will keep up with them if they can get in and out. They can sense light, warmth etc - so not even anything to do with food. If one can get in, more can get in. They love to nest and breed very very quickly. We had them for months before we realised - pest control informed us of this when we realised how many we had. And they don't just leave droppings - they spread all kinds of germs and dangerous bacteria, wherever you see droppings, imagine the route they have taken through your house to get there. Hoovering doesn't wipe away the trail! Not trying to freak you out, but really, fill up all holes or accept they will keep coming in. I do empathise fully - it is horrible. Absolutely horrible. I am scared of mice and mostly scared of not being able to see what they are doing when i am asleep aaaaaargh. God have given myself the chills now

Ps i second what pp said about they can get in tiny holes - literally tiny. Get mice mesh for air vents as well, helps a lot. I realise my post sounded extreme but it got to the point for me where I was scared to go in my own kitchen because they had taken to sitting on the chairs at the table!!! That was first time I saw them - 3 of them just sitting at the table and when you see one running across the floor if you are scared it is horrible. I was desperate for a cup of tea one day - this was when it was at "height of infestation" to use technical term, and decided to tuck my leggings into my socks and wear wellies and gloves into the kitchen, in august, in case one of them ran past me. So yep - extreme rodent fearing person here.

It's possible that you are overreacting, but then again, your lo had scabies and you are always going to link the two. I have a really big fear of bugs that keeps me awake for no reason. The other day I find a sleepy ladybird on my elbow and had to run out of church. A good idea may be to work out which things you really need to do and which you don't. Can you afford to replace the rug and every rug after that. Sorry jut it looks like the best you can do until you have learned alternative methods is just to be really really good at cleaning. Or just accept that these things happen, keep an eye out for mice and keep things nicely clean. It can take a while to move from the first to the second, but I promise you it can be done.
Also try not to freak out too much in front of your son. He will learn how he should behave from you.
Good luck. Breathe.

Excuse my 2 am typing

Not unreasonable at all. Get professional pest controllers in to lay poison and plug all holes. The good ones will give you a lifetime guarantee. Best money I ever spent.

There's no such thing as 'just one mouse'. If you see one, you've got many more.

I'm dead scared of mice, DH mocked me until one ran over his foot - then he wasn't so amused.

HA farandole - same here, DP was totally relaxed until one mouse looked suspiciously like a rat (later realised we had these too) and a mouse was waiting patiently for him on the edge of his pillow in the morning, luckily: not my side of the bed.

Oh and they chew. So if you do go round finding the tiny holes, don't use wire. Use something with glass in.

I'm not scared of mice, if it helps. We get them sometimes and I call the council and they come and put poison down. Then the mice don't come back.

They are teeny tiny little things and believe it or not a mouse will be more afraid of you than you are of it but....

If it was in my house I would be out the door and away to my mummy's house because I am terrified of mice and every other type of rodent.

YANBU. When we had a mouse (just 1, we saw him pop in through the fire flue) I refused to even set foot in the kitchen alone. We had yo live on takeaway food served on paper plates as I couldn't stand the idea of being in that room or it touching the plates.

Love little mice in the wild, not in the house.

YABU to use humane traps. Do you want to get rid of the mice or don't you? You can use steel wool, the kind you can find in furniture refinishing suppliers, to bung holes.

YANBU to be so freaked out.

I am currently lighting a lot of smelly candles as a means of dealing with a mouse that may have died in the kitchen wall thanks to a mortal wound inflicted by my cat on her maiden mouse hunt.

The little asshole managed to eat the cheese off one of my traps .

Arrrrrrgh I'm lying here in the dark listening out for sounds even thought the stairs and upstairs are carpeted. I've been reading the thread about the creepy things kids have said but that doesn't creep me out nearly as much as the bloody mouse. Or mice of posters are correct. Though I've not seen droppings for months after we caught the one before. And so this is literally there last few hours only. Hopefully we have only one. I can't bear the thought of a poor little life being poisoned to death but I simply cannot cannot cannot deal with the thought of it living in my house ... running on my floor ... up the stairs.
sugarlump that was me almost - I woke up and a single mouse dropping was next to my fone which is a foot away from my head on the floor next to the bed.

Queenoflouisiana I think that's gonna be me too. I couldn't even bear to pick up son's jacket from the floor in case the mouse was hiding there.

happy I can't help it I've already reacted in front of my son who now thinks it's hilarious to tell me he thinks he saw a mouse in X room of the house. He was eating a piece of choc muffin which fell out of his hand and rolled toward me and I screamed and screamed and screamed. Then laughed hysterically and almost peed myself. So had to turn it into a joke for him or he'd have been scared.

Fuckn hate mice

mathan am beginning to think as someone else above also suggested that I might have to give in and allow DH to lay poison.

He also suggested a cat but we are coming up to the anniversary of our cats death in a week and I don't think I could deal with a cat right now.

I also hate the thought of dead mouse stink - do they just lie behind the cupboards and rot away or do we have to retrieve the bodies????

I feel your pain OP, we have just had a rat infestation, they've been in the whole terrace but appear to nest and die under our flat. I actually had one in my bedroom, I heard it rustling in my bin at 3am and when I turned the light on there it was by my wardrobe. I screamed at the top of my voice and it ran under my bed. I sat bolt upright for an hour listening for it, then it ran from under my bed into the kitchen.

The council put poison down in all of our terrace and for the past 4 weeks we have had the most awful stench coming from our kitchen, my neighbours haven't had this so they must be nesting under us. I had to move in with my mum for a bit because we couldn't cook or use the kitchen with the smell, it would literally make you retch. I'm now completely paranoid listening for sounds like a mad woman and dreaming that they are in my bed.

I just thought I would add my happy little story to let you know you are not alone!

Sorry about your cat op 💐I miss my cat a lot - i think he worked hard keeping mice away all along and i didn't realise. If you can get another cat at some stage that helps a lot, try to get a semi feral one as not all cats hunt. Depends where you put poison - try to put it along skirting boards, back of cupboards etc. But instant snap traps better tbh, quicker for them and you know where they are. If you have some breeding then befoee the dead mouse you get the mouse wee smell - which is like cat piss, only in your house, stronger and from multiple animals. Steelwool works to block all holes too as pp said.

Also our neighbours cat is always trying to get into our flat as he's left out overnight, I thought great! He might be a deterrant! He refused to stay because of the stink! He was straight out of the kitchen window every time I invited him in, I really don't blame him!

I found a mouse in our house once, caught it, banished it, and have never seen any evidence of mice since.

So it is possible to have just one mouse, I think!!

We had a mouse we saw regularly, then discovered a whole family of babies living in the cupboard under the stairs. Really don't like killing so did humans traps, caught a couple but ended up resorting to poison which seemed to get rid of them.Then got a cat last summer & haven't seen a mouse since!

We had one mouse, my greyhound decided to catch it in the kitchen for me

The fluffy animal loving side of me (currently own 4 syrian hamsters, 2 russian dwarf hamsters and 4 gerbils) would want the poor little mouse/mice to be warm and fed, and absolutely would hate the thought if killing them.
The side of me with raging germ phobic OCD would have to disinfect all the floors (i do this regularly, dettol disinfectant spray is a fine mist, much easier to use than the wipes, it's £1.79 in B&M or home bargains, on sale atm for £2 in asda but usually £3.50 in asda/tesco.) And find a way to stop the mouse from running free in my home and continuing to use the toilet everywhere. Some, if not all mouse species are incontinent, i'd be more bothered about the fact it will be weeing all over too, which won't be evident like the solid, easier to clean little poops.
Unfortunately it might be the same mouse, you say you used a live trap, i assume you released it somewhere? Within several miles they can find their way back, like cats do, to where their nest is. Sadly they don't survive well when relocated to forests/fields etc as they aren't used to the environment and the predators.
I'd be torn, and so so so upset, but i think the only option would be to kill it. We had a rat get under our floor and in to the box where our gas meter is, so only the wooden cupboard type box between it and being in the house. As much as i didn't want it harmed, we had to put poison down as it was trying to scratch its way through the wood and there would be no coping with a rat in the house. I wish it could have gone and lived elsewhere (i've actually been physically stopped by my dad throwing some of my takeaway out the window for a rat after leaving a drive through) but they can be vicious, and whilst they are incredibly clean grooming wise (they groom as much as cats) it's the fleas and ticks they get that spread disease and illness.

Plug in deterrents? My DS2 is phobic about mice, they're in both our bedrooms at the moment. I'll definitely look at plug in deterrents come spring when they leave.