To be at the end of my rope with this problem

[TallTilly]

Two pre school kids. Stressful job. House is not great following an extremely busy period at work (I can work at nights or I can do housework but I can’t do both) but I’m slowly but surely getting back on top of it.

We have mice. We caught some in traps but there are more of them. This issue is really really giving me a lot of stress. It gives me the creeps I feel like everything is filthy. Worried about the kids catching something. Constantly hoovering poo. The traps aren’t working fast enough. They do eventually catch the mice but it seems to take ages.

I know I need to get the council out with their poison. It is £50 to do this which we don’t really have but will need to just find it or credit card it or something.

Can anyone put my mind at rest re the use of poison when I have toddlers in the house? This is why we haven’t put poison down so far but I feel that there is no other option now.

Pleas help 😞

poison works as rodents cannot vomit. Children can vomit so even if ingested, likely a small dose and likely to make them sick not dead. You likely need poison the rodents can take back to the nest as quickest way to stop an infestation, they breed really fast! sonic things work decently in small spaces but very limited range.

Also seal up any chocolate that you have. The mice I had arrived after an advent calendar dropped behind a cupboard and I completely forgot about it. Heard lots of scurrying one night and found the calendar half chewed and torn.

I had to use poison in the end as the humane traps did not work and the mice were very good at getting about without coming across my cat. The guy form the Council put poison behind the washing machine and under the grate in the fire place. It did kill them all but the smell was absolutely horrendous for a few weeks.

We had a mouse problem a couple of years ago.

We tried humane traps, standard mouse traps etc, but they didn't really control the problem.

In the end my DP went to an old fashioned hardware store and bought some solid blocks of poison. They come in discs with a hole in the middle and wire so you can attach them to wherever you want.

It worked. I also really didn't want to use poison but we had tried everything else and it was getting ridiculous. We were seeing mice in the kitchen daily and it was starting to really upset me.

No need to spend so much on pest control!

And also, we keep things like oats, flour, nuts, seeds, salt etc in either plastic, glass or ceramic containers with lids.

Good luck!

I had mice in my old flat. I used plastic bags to block up everywhere I could find then silicone and expanding foam depending on the size and location of the gaps and the buggers still got in. When I moved out I unplugged all the electrical and right there, behind 3 cables was a sodding great hole in the skirting board!!!! So check absolutely everywhere.

Plastic tubs and nothing on the floors (one stole my prawn crackers once).

Wipe/spray everywhere with peppermint oil, apparently they don't like the smell. Google will give some good links for mixing up spray solutions.

Do you know where they are coming from?

Hope you get them gone soon!

Get a cat and a cat-flap. Before I had a cat I was plagued with mice. He died two years ago :( but mice still haven't returned, the smell seems to keep them away.

Don't get a cat unless you intend to keep it forever though...

The poison is generally dyed so you’d know if your child has touched or eaten it.

We had mice when my youngest was under 2. The pest control man put poison in inaccessible places in rooms the children didn’t play in and explained about the dye. I think he left a card detailing what he’d used in case one did manage to get some (they didn’t!). He also put mesh over the air bricks to cut down access routes.

I git a cat soon after and the mice didn’t come in the house again.

Well, I hesitate to type this, but I've been through your hell. I've had mice running over me in the night and it got so bad I couldn't sleep because I could hear them or thought I could. They made a nest in my dc's soft toys. Honestly it was like a horror movie. Pooing everywhere. I tried the humane traps. Didn't work. I even found one hiding inside before it popped out the other side. Sonic thingies didn't work. I resorted to catching them myself and letting them go on the common. This went on for months.

Then I bought some glue pads - a piece of cardboard with very strong glue on. You have to wear gloves to put them down or they can smell you. I put a line of them on the stairs and caught one. I'm sorry to say I drowned it in a bucket. There is no saving one who gets stuck. The rest of the mice cleared out the house and I haven't seen one again. Very cruel yes, but one sacrificed to get rid of the lot. That was a very horrible day.

I think what happens is one gets caught and tells the rest to clear the hell out. And they leave some kind of smell to tell others not to move in. At any rate that was about 3 years ago. No more problems.

Good luck. It's so horrible.

The poison really works, it is a form of warfarin, blood thinning drug so pretty toxic to children I should think. You can buy it but pest control (council or private) keep using new versions cos the little sods get immune to it. I think professionals would be aware of keeping children and pets safe.
Blocking up the holes needs to be meticulous or they come back. Mice hate the smell of peppermint so dilute peppermint oil with water and spray everywhere twice daily to prevent them returning. Smell of cat may deter but they get bold in winter.
You just have to bite the bullet, three houses in a row had them repeatedly here, it was awful, I wanted to run away. Not scared of them but they are so disgusting. Good luck op.

The sonic deterrents worked for us brought off Amazon took about 2 days but no more mice. We leave it plugged in permanently as it deters flys as well.

We have a cat but as we could hear it under the floorboards the cat couldn’t get to it.

We had some in our attic, I could hear them scurrying about. They ate my wetsuits among other things. I went for old fashioned snap traps. Nice and quick and I know where to find the dead ones. I didn't like idea of poison just because it would draw out their demise and I didn't want to find a dead one in a box when looking for something. I baited them with peanut butter. It worked well. In this weather they will mumify more than rot so won't smell too bad.
The little family that lives under the step in the back garden is safe from harm, unless they decide to come in and sample my stuff in the attic!

One of the safest places to put poison is behind your kitchen plinths, it's very likely that the area under your kitchen cupboards is being used as a 'run'. Put the bait containers under there, towards the back, then replace the plinths.

If you're in an area that has food waste caddies, we had mice feasting on ours until we put it up on a stool.

I used expandable foam to fill gaps you can buy at diy shop worked well

Speaking from A LOT of personal experience here. We live very remotely and have regular mice problems.

Snap traps inside the child safe boxes, baited with peanut butter or fudge. Check frequently. Once the mice are gone, keep a couple of traps set permanently in hidden places as a back up for any new arrivals.

Buy the pet safe poison. (We call it not-poisonpoison! I can't remember the real name). It's highly salt based and won't do any harm to kids or pets other than thirst of they were to get it. Wrap little bags of that up and pop into attics, garages and cupboards. Keep in situ permanently and check once in a while.

Be utterly ruthless as they breed fast. Having them isn't the end of the world, but managing to prevent them breeding unchecked is really important. We got 40 in a day, back before we really got a handle on managing the quirks of country living!

Also, treat pets for fleas and other parasites, as the mice can introduce them...bitter experience again!

And don't beat yourself up about having mice or the dirt. The human - rodent war is ancient, and you're just the latest to fight it!

We’ve also been plagued with them on and off over the years. Started trying to treat it humanely, but we were overrun! We could hear them scurrying in walls moving up our 3 story home.eventually we worked out the ‘runs’ we have permanent bait under out plinths. We do find the occasional one dead and are now contemplating getting cats...

Terrace house here, a mouse ran over my foot two days ago when I opened my front door to get in.
Sticky traps work, I put it inside a plastic bag and kill it with my shoe. That and poison.

Sympathies OP. Centuries ago I made the famous Blue Peter Tracy Island. It was constructed of paper mache and took me hours. No, days. When it was finished I put it under the stairs to dry out ready for the big reveal.

Turns out I had created the perfect conditions for a mouse party 🙁

Don’t poison, my dad did this once and we had mice dying under the floorboards and behind the skirtings which lead to plagues of flies, then disgusting smells as they rotted. A poisoned mouse is also easy prey for cats and owls and get into the food chain, poisoning other animals.

So called ‘humane’ traps are very cruel. There is nothing humane about trapping a living creature in a box for hours without access to food or water before transporting it away from it’s family and known food sources.

The kindest and safest way is the old fashioned snap traps. They die instantly without suffering and you know where the bodies are so you can dispose of them efficiently and hygienically.

Follow the advice about trying to block their entry points. Limit the food available to them when they come in by keeping it in tins, Tupperware etc rather than plastic bags, store food in high cupboards not the floor level cupboards, be vigilant about vacuumimg crumbs etc. And buy more snap traps. Better too many than too few. At one point we had 6 in our garage that were full twice a day. We still have them down but haven’t caught anything for a few months now.

I’m not sure I could use a glue trap and drown a mouse. I didn’t know pet safe poison was a thing so I will look into that.

I know that they are coming in through the hall cupboard so I can block that hole off. I suspect the kitchen is an issue so I’ll put some traps under the units. They also seem to crawl around under the couch cushions I keep finding poo there

They also run around in the toy box I’ve had to Milton a load of toys. I don’t understand that as there is no food there.

I’ve baited traps with peanut butter but they seem in no hurry to go into them. Had the same issue with Nutella it took weeks to catch one. Glue traps - I don’t think I could do that.

Add up the cost of all these solutions and see if it isn’t cheaper to call the council in.

I had mice three years ago. First I knew about it, I saw one in the living room, which meant there were probably loads. I used a combination of humane traps and a sonic device to catch several, and then the rest vanished. It was a bit strange, so maybe what eddielizzard says was right - they warn the others off.

If you catch one make sure you take it a long way from your house or it will find its way back.

The following year I heard something moving about in the space between the floors. I wasn't concerned originally, thinking the sonic devices would see it off. By November, the noises were very loud and insistent. I called in pest control, who claimed to have found rat faeces in the loft. I was skeptical, as they said the faeces were recent and I'd been hearing the noises for months. They charged more to remove rats. Anyway, they put down poison. The noises ebbed away (there were some worrying cracking sounds at one point though). Then there was an earthy smell, a bit like sweaty plimsolls, and an invasion of bluebottles. After that I had the building repointed and insulation put in the walls. I didn't have any problems last winter and am hoping for the best this time round!

I accidentally left an unopened fruit bar in the changing bag the other day. They ate it. It’s just utterly grim I can’t bear it

I use little nipper traps with peanut butter, which have worked on our previous set of mice. I keep them set in the places I know they like, one in the kitchen, one behind the bath( it's warm in there and we have stupid plastic pipes so if they chew them it's a disaster) and one in the shed.

I think they're good as they instantly kill them and are easy to dispose of once caught as you don't have to touch the body at all.

I've just had to buy the rat version of those traps though so we'll see how that works. Last night I watched in horror as a rat tried to get an apple through the kitchen window. It was huge- the size of a kitten!

Oh also if we get a cat itll be a loved pet. But we need to think it through

Just find the money to get the council in if you possibly can. They are experienced pest control, will find their entry points. The poison is usually placed out of sight and results quick. The poison they use is a rodenticide and is not harmful to children or other animals.