To not want to sleep in a room where I’ve just seen a mouse?

[HelpMouse]

Help, I sleep downstairs and have just seen a mouse! It’s disappeared under some furniture now. How do I find it/get it out? Don’t want to be chasing it all over the room, I especially do not want to wake the children and have them frightened. No partner.

My room is next to the conservatory and I leave the internal door open to get air. Of course the external door has been open today so that’s how it will have got in.

Don’t know what I do tonight, also don’t know what I do going forward, if I want air.

But please help me tonight!

I have never seen evidence of mice in here before so am hoping it’s a very rare occurrence. No food in here although occasionally there is. Do they go for fruit?

[Felifox]

It's the same when I see a toad jumping round outside. I lost my elderly cat recently and his friend still comes in, except he brought me a rat so I had to shut the cat flap. Totally understand!

[FictionalCharacter]

@MrsWildermac

If you want to 'get rid' of it, get a bucket, spread peanut butter a couple of inches below the rim on the inside. Put some water in the bottom. The mouse will smell the PB, overbalance trying to get it and fall into bucket.

No, please don't. That's horrible. Drowning isn't a humane way to kill an animal.

[HelpMouse]

Yeah I think the issue with any kind of temporary fitting is that it’s got to have no gap small enough to fit a mouse through, which is a pretty small gap!

[SchrodingersImmigrant]

Oh yeah. I didn't realise about the gap (my french door have higher bottom so no issue on them).

[HelpMouse]

Ok thanks for the example, unfortunately that doesn’t work as there’s a gap at the bottom.

[HelpMouse]

Actual stair gates all have gaps at the bottom and or sides.
But is there something specific to sliding doors which you meant?

[SchrodingersImmigrant]

Kind of like this? If you google folding child gate it should show you lots of results. I looked into them a while ago, but in the end didn't lut any on the back door

www.babysecurity.co.uk/product/callowesse-omni-retractable-stair-gate-0-140cm/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyt6iq9bf7wIVied3Ch0vNQx3EAQYGCABEgJVaPD_BwE

[HelpMouse]

Tell me more about the child gate thing @SchrodingersImmigrant?

[SchrodingersImmigrant]

You don't need to change the whole door
Just get kind of a child gate thing. I saw folding ones to the side as well.

Also. Humane traps are not humane

[ginandbearit]

Or rather..ON YOU ...😨

[ginandbearit]

Don't search mn for what spiders do to you in your sleep OP ..😬😬

[HelpMouse]

Yes was vaguely thinking moving the armchair might be a revelation..... good idea re pellets

Well yes re door, so I have a way of ventilating the room I sleep in, which doesn’t allow creatures to wander in! ie some kind of panel/ door with an opener at the top on one side.

[HollowTalk]

Yes, get the furniture out of the garage but I wouldn't put it in my car! I'd be flinging pellets all around the garage before I moved it!

Why are you going to replace the doors? Is that so that you never have them open?

[HelpMouse]

Better news (if anyone’s reading this - if not, I’m journaling and that’s helpful!): when I ventured downstairs I found that the trap I’d set in just inside the conservatory had done it’s job, victory! 💀 🐁 .

This also allowed me to confirm that it WAS a mouse, as my wonderings in the middle of the night had thought it did seem quite big....

So am going to hope that it was alone and maybe had stayed in the house from the first night. Will still buy rodenticide stuff today, and keep the conservatory door closed at night until I can get a different door - at vast expense, but hey ho.

And something else has occurred to me, whether this is self inflicted in a sense: I’ve been storing an old armchair and sofa in my garage, pending arranging council to take them away. Garage is not attached to house but in a block away from the house, think of a terrace so attached to the house three down from me. Noticed mouse droppings on the chair the other day, did vaguely wonder if they might be nesting somewhere in it (stuff on top of it so couldn’t see anything). Saw a neighbour yesterday and asked if they’d had any mouse problems recently and she said yes, they’d one in the garage.

Pins dropping? Better get that furniture out and away, hadn’t I.....

[HelpMouse]

I kept waking up every couple of hours upstairs. Also my moving means I’ll have to explain to the kids and they’ll freak!

[HelpMouse]

Bad night. Saw a mouse again, felt more troubled about it than the first night, moved upstairs. Realised no way of knowing if this was one that had somehow got in again, or the same way which had stayed in from the night before and had just hidden somewhere. It managed to eat peanut butter off a trap without springing it, 😔.

Going to go to DIY store today and buy pellets and anything else I can find.

It was very bold, sitting in the middle of the carpet in low light. So much for them keeping to walls.

Can’t contact a glazing place until at least tomorrow or maybe not til Tuesday. The local company I spoke to couldn’t help, recommended another one.

[HollowTalk]

Get yourself to B&Q or go onto Amazon and buy a big tub of pellets. Put a little bowl of them in the corner of every room. I have done this over the years and have never seen a mouse afterwards.

[Saz12]

Yep - don’t release them anywhere near your house. Ex’s garden or annoying boss?

[LostInABlizzard]

ll I had to do then was release the mouse back into the wild.

If you release a mouse back into the wild you'll see it again. He'll remember where the peanut butter came from.

[ittakes2]

I sat on a mouse's tail last week. I am trying to forget about it so I should have not been tempted to read your post!
Like others my stupid cat brings live mice in. I went to the toilet at 4am and when I got up I saw a mouse's tail sticking out into the bowl. I convinced myself it was material from my PJ bottoms until this tail moved to stick out the other side of the toilet seat. I realised it was a mouse hiding from the cat - being in a bathroom it had no where else to hide except between under the toilet seat on top of the toilet rim. Its lucky I didn't squash it to death as I am not a light woman! My husband was not super happy about being waken up and 4am to get rid of the mouse.
That said it would not have bothered me if it was in the same room as me. Just not so close that I sat on it.

[HelpMouse]

@AnathemaPulsifer

Stuff the hole with wire wool then polyfilla it.

If I have to buy wire wool I may as well buy the ready mixed concrete type stuff.... but thanks.

[jessstan2]

If you've seen the mouse once, you will see it again. I caught one a week ago in one of these:

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mouse-Trap-Humane/333148401476?epid=1166226417&hash=item4d91312f44:g:esMAAOSwCjJfqWNk

I baited the trap with a bit of crushed up chocolate chip cookie and cheese. All I had to do then was release the mouse back into the wild. It seemed happy to run off down to the shed.

[AnathemaPulsifer]

Stuff the hole with wire wool then polyfilla it.

[HelpMouse]

Ahah, have found a very few droppings (I think) near a possible hole. Plus some nibbled card.

If I just put polyfilla in the hole they’ll eat it, won’t they?