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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To bleach everything, burn the house down and then move?

128 replies

TwoDrifters · 10/06/2017 04:52

Currently awake, terrified, as there's a mouse in my bedroom. I've never seen a mouse in this house in 16 years of living here.

WIBU to bleach everything then torch the place?

Been lying awake shaking for the last hour, now sat on sofa with blanket wrapped tightly around me. Arrrggh.

OP posts:
BillyDaveysDaughter · 10/06/2017 07:45

We had a mouse just before we moved out of our last house (rural area, lived in the middle of a field effectively).

He came out from under the kitchen kickboards to steal the dogs biscuits so regularly I named him Clive. He left no pee and no droppings although when I cleared out the airing cupboard it was FULL of mouse shite.

Original poster
TwoDrifters · 10/06/2017 08:00

We've had no droppings that I know of and no other signs of nibbled food etc.

I hope think that it came up from under the floorboards round the back of our fitted wardrobe (there's a slight gap by the skirting at one side and that's where it keeps running in and out from) and then couldn't find it's way out again as the floor is fairly newly laid and there shouldn't be any holes.

It kept skittering around the room and scratching at the skirting as if trying to find a way out. Gahhhhh. Still at large.

OP posts:
SuperFlyHigh · 10/06/2017 08:14

It's not always a case of misadventure and mice wandering around....

Years ago I flat shared and after signing the contract discovered we had mice which my animal loving co-tenant had refused to deal with. Then I found one in my bedroom. I called pest control who found loads of droppings in the kitchen behind the fridge (next to my bedroom) and he said they'd probably originally come in from the overgrown garden. He put down poison.

When i moved out I got 2 cats. Won't say there was never a problem as they caught field mice in the garden and brought them in but the scent of a cat keeps mice from coming into your house.

AngeloMysterioso · 10/06/2017 08:17

You do not have 'a mouse'. You have mice. It will have friends and relatives!

TomHardysWhore · 10/06/2017 08:20

Get a cat OP

vjg13 · 10/06/2017 08:23

Peanut butter or chocolate are best for baiting a humane trap, we had one mouse a few years ago as the cat had come in with it and dropped it. It did take a day or two to catch it and I had bought about 3 traps. Finally released it at the bottom of our garden. I couldn't sleep in the room whilst it was free.

PerpetualStudent · 10/06/2017 08:27

Wire wool in all gaps around the floor (they can get through holes the size of a pencil) will stop their entry routes

mummytime · 10/06/2017 08:31

It could be useful to get a pet control guy - he may well be able to identify where the mouse got into the house - then you can block the hole. There is special fine "chicken" type wire mesh which will stop them getting in via air bricks. Making sure food is in glass/thick plastic containers.

And I'm not one for humane traps -- they just come back - you need to take them miles for them not to come back. And then you've separated them from their family etc. which isn't very humane.
Poison contained and in non child accessible places - is what pest control recommend.
Cats can actually introduce mice to your house - or you find lots of mice corpses. (I have cats, they are messy about killing mice and take their time - I wouldn't recommend them for mice disposal.)

Oh and maybe look at getting help to overcome your extreme reaction. You don't want to pass it on.

Mamabear12 · 10/06/2017 08:33

It sounds to me like you have a phobia. I have a phobia of vomitting, so I know the feelings of having an irrational fear. Your reaction to the mouse is extreme. Firstly, call the exterminator to help get rid of the mice, bc if you see one, there are more. They put out poison and then plug up any holes in the house they get into. Make sure you say you want the holes plugged up. Bc the mice will ALWAYS come back if you do not plug up the holes. We rented a house with mice and we put traps and killed SEVERAL mice, but they never went away until we had the holes plugged up, and of course made sure the mice in the house were gotten rid of by putting traps several days until we trapped no more. It was AWFUL!!!!! Sometimes I would wake in the night to hear the shrieking of the mouse trapped, and go down stairs to be sure, see the mouse and have to get my husband to kill it. And if you don't kill them and set them free, they just find their way back to the house, so you have to kill them unfortunately. But my reaction to the mice was never more then an EWWWW!!!! Grrrr I hate those damn mice!!!!!! Eep bc I have the two young kids and I know mice are dirty, carry germs etc. If you can, perhaps try to get help with your phobia? I got help and it made it slightly better. My phobia is not easy to deal with two young kids....I get the irrational fear etc the second I hear the word "my tummy hurts." My heart beats fast, I feel like its the end of the world, Im terrified and I can only describe it to others it feels like someone hands you a ticking bomb that will go off any second, that is the fear I feel. AWFUL! Sound familiar to you? But yours is w mice?

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 10/06/2017 08:36

There is nothing humane about humane traps- they are dreadful things and of you release a mouse away from its food runs, it'll starve to death. Just use snappy traps.

All food away and hoover like mad. Block any obvious holes with wire wool.

I hate them too OP x

Agoddessonamountaintop · 10/06/2017 08:36

Yes there will be a family and poison is the only wY to get rid of them I'm afraid, horrible though it is. If you must get a cat, give it a collar with a bell so it can't kill garden birds.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 10/06/2017 08:41

Don't get a cat-unless you were going to anyway, it might not catch it, some don't.

NameChanger22 · 10/06/2017 08:41

Don't get a cat. A cat is a bigger, more expensive problem than a mouse.

Grimbles · 10/06/2017 08:43

There is nothing humane about humane traps- they are dreadful things

Yes, especially when you forget to check them regularly Shock

Original poster
TwoDrifters · 10/06/2017 08:44

mummytime I worry about that, I am really exerting myself not to pass this fear on. I am trying to be very adult and calm about this around my DS.

Mamabear Yes heart pounding and jumping at every slight movement. It was worse that it was the middle of the night and dark so I couldn't see where it was/what it was doing and also I was in bed, with bare legs and feet, and felt so vulnerable!

DameDiazepam I will be clearing out my larder and checking all food storage this afternoon!

OP posts:
Agoddessonamountaintop · 10/06/2017 08:44

Plus cats crap all over other yours and other people's gardens.

Original poster
TwoDrifters · 10/06/2017 08:45

We won't be getting a cat, I'm not really an animal person at the best of times!

OP posts:
Original poster
TwoDrifters · 10/06/2017 08:46

(Can you tell?!)

OP posts:
singme · 10/06/2017 08:47

We had a mouse a few weeks ago. For about 3 days we saw it all the time, it even climbed on the sofa bleurgh. Set some traps with some melted snickers bars and it totally ignored them. We went for snap traps after some reading about what is more humane. Then it left never to be seen again.

The upside was that it appeared the night after DH left a bin bag on the floor instead of taking it out to the bin. He's not done that since!

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 10/06/2017 08:50

Peanut butter is good on traps too.

Changingagain · 10/06/2017 08:54

It's perfectly possible to have just one mouse if it's only come in recently.

Original poster
TwoDrifters · 10/06/2017 08:57

Changingagain My husband swears this is the case.

Oh how I want to believe Wink

OP posts:
SootSprite · 10/06/2017 08:59

We had a mouse in our living room the other week, fucking cat brought it in (still very much alive). It ran and hid under the piles of general tat that had built up sofa. It took us over an hour to catch it (with a fishing net) and release it back into the garden. The living room was decimated.

I was fucking furious and after an hour was about the let the cat back in to just eat it miffed at the time but the living room, once reassembled, looks lovely and clean.

UrsulaPandress · 10/06/2017 09:03

When we lived in a Victorian villa with stripped floorboards and huge cellars we had one mouse. It was a lovely dark tiny one with huge ears who used to pop up through the gaps in the floor.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 10/06/2017 09:06

Oh bless your heart UrsulaPandress Smile you poor deluded fool