To want a humane method of getting rid of mice?

[biggirlknickers]

I’ve had them before and used the no kill traps but they were next to useless. My exH then got some proper traps and they worked but obviously resulted in a lot of dead mice.

Can anyone advise me? Do those sonic thingies work?

I am sorry to say, poison or traps. Or a decent cat/ratting dog.

Humane traps are good for the odd stray mouse.
They won’t clear an infestation imo.

Once they are gone, try and work out how they got in and fix it - fill in holes, repair broken pipes etc and try and make your house as unappealing to a mouse or rat as possible so you hopefully don’t get an infestation again.

I don’t know if the sonic things work or not, but if you have other pets I bet they can hear it aswell.

Ferret shit. Put it in all corners of the house.

Probably not what you wanted to hear though.

Sadly I think only killing them works as a long term fix

I'd say sonic doesn't work, my dm has them and keeps getting mice. Dh quite likes watching some bloke on youtube who tries various mice and rat traps and he has some live capture ones, but then where do you put the mice?

We found the electric shock (fatal) traps with loaded with peanut butter worked best and then blocking up every single hole we could find.

Block every single hole you can find - they can get through minute holes, so block everything. All food needs to be in solid containers. Don't leave food/crumbs around. Ultimately though, if you use traps, they need to be kill ones. Do not use sticky traps though as those are barbaric

I don’t think there is one, OP. Death is the only way.

i am sure you could get rid of a few with the humane traps but not all. Even if you did, wherever you will release them they will just go off and create a problem for someone else

I understand how you feel but you need to use traps that dispatch them quickly. No kill traps will not solve your infestation.

Just remember where you set the traps - it avoids that awkward moment where you stick the hoover tube in the back of a cupboard and here the sickening sound of mouse corpse vs Dyson...and the mess!

We used sonic plug-ins when we lived in an apartment (one per 400 square feet of space, I believe) and they worked really well.

When we had mice in a house, we had a handyman come and paste up every single hole and crevice that might lead to outside or to the basement, and that worked from keeping them in the living spaces.

House mice are classed as vermin and you are not allowed to ‘rehome’ them after you have trapped them. If you have an infestation then getting a Pest Control company in is really the best way to deal with this. Or proper snap traps, regularly checked and the corpses disposed of. No false ‘kindness’. Sorry, but it’s necessary to clear this up for your health’s sake. Mice are incontinent and wee continuously over wherever they go, as well as indiscriminate faeces anywhere and everywhere. They also reproduce prodigiously, one pair can lead to hundreds if not dealt with effectively.

I tried a sonic thing in my caravan and it did nothing.

Just kill them, it really is the only way to properly get rid. Months down the line you’ll wish you had.

Don't use poison (birds of prey, cats, dogs might find a mouse corpse and eat it)

Use the snap traps - field mouse have chewed my ethernet cable. I am relieved it wasn't electrical cable. They need to die.

Steel wool is good for blocking gaps

YABU. Death to all vermin. Especially the ones in my house. Fuckers.

I've used humane mouse traps. You have to be vigilant because they are frantic when in the trap so no point in putting it down when you're going to bed. Anyway, they do work. They like chocolate buttons but I did put a bit of cheese in one and the mouse went for it.

Good for you wanting to do the humane thing, wish more people would. It's easy for a couple of stray mice but maybe not for an infestation. I don't know what I would do with that.

I also once had a live rat in my kitchen, a great big furry thing. Cat brought it in through the cat flap. It would hide away, then come out and eat the cat food!. I closed the kitchen door into the hall so it couldn't go anywhere else in the house, opened the back door and left it open. I put a trail of dried cat food all the way from the laundry area to the back door, it ate them and went out! What a relief.

There are no humane traps for rats; I bought a rat trap - which was demonstrated to me in the shop - but it terrified me. I eventually gave it to a charity shop. So glad I wasn't forced to use it. The rat was so big and fat it could have been pregnant, don't know what I would have done had it stayed.

The most humane traps are electrocution traps. They kill immediately if used properly. They are more expensive than poison / breakbacks but you should use them if you can. Breakbacks don't always kill cleanly and are less effective. Poison is a grim death and contributes to poison-resistance - you will also have corpses in crevices and flies.

'Humane' trap-and-release devices are for soppy humans - either the mouse will come straight back or die more lingeringly away from the family group it needs to survive.

Use electric killers.

You should also discourage mice over time by cleaning very thoroughly, especially fabrics, and making sure not a crumb is left on floors or surfaces overnight. Seal all food in tight plastic or metal containers and store in secure upper cupboards, never leave washing up etc. Even where mice originate elsewhere, e.g. neighbours, they won't stay / breed where there's no food source. Also spend a serious few days searching your property for access holes and blocking them with building materials or wire wool including guards on drain pipes.

Indoors - traps, outdoors - rifle.

I'm not sure that humane exists.

Suppose you use no-kill traps. Fine, where do you dispose of the vermin? Do you dump it on someone else's property? How about 'Out in the woods'? Farmer won't thank you. Besides, mice are territorial and colony animals. You're planning to dump it in territory of another mouse where there may be no food (or not enough, anyway, for your extra mouse). Your dumped mouse won't have its colony to help it live & thrive. There could be new predators in the woods it never encountered and doesn't know how to avoid. As well as nowhere suitable to live (house mice don't belong in the woods). Maybe your mouse will bring new diseases to the wood mice that they didn't have before.

Or that mouse you dumped in the woods was a nursing mother & now you made its naked babies die.

That's why I reckon 'humane' doesn't exist.

I used to live in a static caravan and tried to be all hippy and nice when I realised I had mice and used humane traps. They did fuck all, and soon they had completely over run the place and I even found mouse shit in dd’s cot.

Kill em. It’s the only way sadly.

Seriously just get rid. I was very squeamish about killing so we tried humane traps first but they didn't work. Then research told me that mice gnawing electrical wires is a significant cause of fire. I have kids. I got the death traps. I hated it...had nightmares , but after 6 or 7 mice we had no more.

The first time we had mice we got the pest control man from the council who put down poison which worked quickly and effectively.

Sadly the second time poison only worked on one and the spring traps didn't work after the next couple, so we had to resort to the sticky traps, which then meant murdering the stuck mice, which we hated but was unavoidable. They seem to have gone now and I hope we never get the them back. It was awful!

Get a cat. Otherwise, you need poison and/or traps. Or you learn to live with them.

And when I say a cat, I mean a proper hunting cat. Not a decorative cushion.

OMG. Someone put in a FOI request about how many mice Palmerston has caught. The F&CO had real numbers to answer with. < 3/month on record.

Reputedly, Larry is a lousy ratter. At least he's got a great twitter feed. My cats are fantastic predators. Maybe I should loan them out to folk. Mine procure more like 3 kills/day!!