To ask for your best mouse catching tips?!

[Arkon]

We have mice, new build property and I can’t see any gaps anywhere but it may have run in the back door which of frequently open. See one dart across the kitchen and immediately bought Plastic snap traps baited with chocolate and also sachets of poison. It’s been 2 weeks and haven’t caught anything. Last night lying in bed I heard ‘movement’ couldn’t see anything but pulled out all furniture today and found droppings 😩 I’m terrified of mice! Further hunting has revealed droppings in other rooms too, but no sign of the mice! They are clearly not interested in my traps, any tips?

could you call out pest control to do an assessment?

Get a cat or terrier.

Though cats are better if you don't work at home.

Firstly, locate the entry point. They will have a path leading to it probably by the wall. They can squeeze through tiny holes so follow the poop.

For snaptraps plain bread worked the best. You need to put them where they are. By the walls where their path is.

Snap trap with a mix of Nutella and peanut butter

Buy the cheap wooden traps if you can find them. Get lots .Load them up with peanut butter or chocolate spread and ut each trap on a piece of newspaper. Put the traps along the wall where you saw the mouse last.Make sure there is nothing edible left out anywhere in the house. I was woken one night by a mouse nibbling on some leftover easter egg chocolate - it was the foil rustling that made the noise.

Dont put poison down though. You dont want dead decaying mice in your lovely new house.

Big cheese plastic traps. Put them at right angles to the walls.
They're easy to empty without having to touch anything icky. Can bait them with peanut butter/nutella.

www.robertdyas.co.uk/big-cheese-ultra-power-mouse-traps?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhLqGiYDu6gIVEO7tCh0rZgcNEAQYByABEgJk0PD_BwE

We had some in the loft last year, the snap trap baited with peanut butter caught zilch but the humane trap from amazon with half a ritz cracker in it caught the lot within a few days.

Obviously one mouse at a time per trap and I'd imagine they'd be quite hard to release if you are scared of them!

www.facebook.com/HumaneWildlifeSolutions/

Thanks for the tips, just ordered a few packs of the big cheese trap recommend and put peanut butter on existing traps, fingers crossed!

Peanut butter.

Sorry, didn't read thread.

It does work though.

I’d call rentokill and then get a cat.

You need to make make sure traps dont smell of human. So need wear gloves when baiting them and wash thoroughly in soapy water if you have touched them. I found 4 per room usually along skirting boards/under furniture.

Most successful was but choc biscuits smeared with peanut butter. Bloody terrifying when they snap shut. Awful in the beginning but you do get used to it.

Mice can come in via air bricks so get mesh covers and check outside for gaps. Fill in any little finger size holes with wire wool pushed down with stick or blunt knife. Round radiator pipes etc

I caught one in a bucket once. A little ramp up to the top and a piece of cheese at the bottom so it fell in (I put an old towel in for a softer landing) then I let it out in the fields. This is also how I catch spiders in the bath (not with the cheese, or the towel).

get a cat

According to the expert, you need to sit in the same position by the wall every day for about 5 hours for about six weeks so that the resident rodents get completely used to your smell. Once they are acclimatised to your smell and start coming out in your presence, you have to sit there unmoving for at least a week, just watching, so they are used to the shape of you (they can't see very well).

Then, gradually get closer and closer to their entry point before you pick them off one by one with a pounce and heavy pawed slap, slap, slap over the ground, chew them lightly so as not to burst them and chuck them about the kitchen like an unusually shaped pizza dough until you're told to 'take that poor bloody thing back outside where you found it' and then make a nice little tableau of slaughter across the patio over the next two days whilst the worming tablets are on order.

And then you have a nice kip on some clean washing whilst you're called things like Mousebreath and Mousaggeddon the Destroyer of Mice for the next few months until it's time to repeat the entire performance.

We use peanut butter! Has worked to catch a couple of mice in the last year. We know when there's one lurking in the garage, so we used set up a trap with peanut butter and it usually got caught within a day or two. Now my husband just keeps a couple of traps with PB set up all the time.

@MitziK thank you! I needed that laugh tonight 🌻

Another vote for a cat. The most effective thing by far in my experience.

Little nipper traps and dairy milk chocolate.

I make no apologies for the killing aspect - it's quicker and far more humane than poison.

@MitziK

My expert agrees with your expert!

Old rural property here. Little nipper traps are the best, brutal but effective, use chocolate rather than cheese, put them in any area they could be coming in, e.g waste pipes, where servcies come in to the house etc.
Lots of traps are needed, keep everyhwere clean and keep food packets in plastic boxes to prevent nibbling.
If you slighlty melt the bottom of the chocolate it sets on the trap and is harder for the mouse to pinch.
Humane traps are fine but the little buggers will come back again!

Our cats catch mice and then release them alive in the house

Dh is pretty good at catching them by transfixing them.with a torch beam and then putting a glass over them, sliding cardboard underneath and popping them outside.

However, if the mice have made your home their home, if you release them you need to take them at least 1/2 mile away or they will find their way back.

I found a chocolate biscuit stuck down with nutella worked best. I figure the mouse had to pull at the biscuit which set the trap off. Sometimes we found the little critters had managed to eat the PB or nutella without setting them off!
I do not recommend a border collie as a line of defence. Ours actually watched a mouse walk straight past the end of his nose into the fireplace without even flickering . And yes, he was wide awake

The top section of a Mars bar - the toffee layer with chocolate on top - is the best bait I've found, and I rate Little Nipper traps. Please don't use humane traps because they're not humane. You just release a mouse somewhere where it doesn't know where to find food, water and shelter, to die slowly. A quickly broken neck, with nostrils full of the delicious scent of toffee, is much kinder.