URGENT - mouse/rat in my home

[Cocacolathanks]

I feel like I’m going to throw up but I’ve just seen a massive rat/mouse run across my living room floor and into the storeroom.

I quickly did a house check and noticed a bag of new flour has been eaten into from the bottom (it was in the store room) + some fresh bread has been eaten BUT that bread was in my kitchen cupboard (bottom row).

I think I might just pass out. I only moved into this house a year ago and I’m not exactly unhygienic although I have 3 kids who can make a mess.

what the hell can I do?

how do I get rid of mice/rats?

i am not joking this is actually making me have a panic attack. I’m scared and disgusted.

My cockapoo is an excellent tatter!

Glue traps are just.... Horrible. Happy they will not be available in couple of years

Instant death. I don't particularly like the idea of slow death in unknown places.
Also. People need to stop giving animals human emotions and ideas fgs

Throw a blanket or towel over it and scoop it up and put it out side

The same happened to me. I felt like burning the house down. A lovely man from the council came.around, declared it a 'rogue rat' and put poison down. Had a horrible smell a few days later and loads of bluebottles but never found it. Guess it's under the floorboards somewhere(shudders)

Will people stop suggesting to 'get a cat'. Like it's a simple case of popping to tesco to pick one up! What are you then going to do with an impulse buy moggy? Not to mention the fact that a lot of cats actually bring things in rather than get them out. Just get a mousetrap OP.

Last year my cat brought in a rat and dropped it at my feet. Without thinking, I picked it up to take it outside and it ran up my back and onto my shoulder. It all seemed to happen in slow motion! I took it off my shoulder and it bit me. I had to have a tetanus shot! Bloody cat brought the same bugger in the next day but I was prepared with a tea towel this time!

Call in pest control and they’ll lay poison for you

Yeah, and to hell with any owl that might happen to eat the poisoned rat and then die itself. People are bloody awful.

Thank you. You said it so much better than I could.

If mice I would put down poison traps. We live near some woods and had an exterminator out when we had a bit of a mice infestation - he said they would really likely come back in the winter as they would be looking for warmth and food. Once in a while we find a dead mouse somewhere which, while not great, is better than the alternative. They don't really smell, at least not enough to notice.

For rats it's a different story and you definite need help. They can be REALLY destructive and a rotting rat will definitely smell.

I would get pest control, we spent money on humane traps , then mouse traps then poison , then gave up and got pest control . I would buy a torch with uv from Amazon or somewhere ,it lights up where they have been running , which turned out to be along the edge of virtually every room.

Don't get a cat just for this- big commitment.

Do you know anyone with a terrier or lurched you could borrow for a few days? It's in their blood to find and kill rats.

You could also carefully clear out food stores and your kitchen. Rats are attracted to food.

Put everything in sealed tubs, or see if you can store it at a friends or family members until the pests have gone. Throw out anything the rats have got into. Clean and sterilise all areas that have had food in with strong disinfectant. Take out all food waste consistently, so morning and evening. See if it's obvious where they're getting in. Block it up with wire wool- it's the only thing they can't really chew through.

Finally get an exterminator. Money well spent.

Tbf as much as I am for snap traps or similar only. Even we had to give up and put poison once because nearby sewage broke and it was just incredible number of rats who were VERY brazen and openly tried to get in while you were outside by the back door. It's good for these situations, but fpr couple of rats, other ways should be done first

@pd339

Yeah, and to hell with any owl that might happen to eat the poisoned rat and then die itself. People are bloody awful.

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Have you ever had a rodent infestation?

Literally eating through your belongings?

Pissing through the ceiling and needing a require because they've damaged the electrics?

Had vermin take over your home and made it feel dirty and infested?

Had your baby playing on the sitting room floor while one runs right past them?

No?

Then don't try to make someone feel bad for doing what's necessary to eradicate a serious problem in their home.

The stink they left behind in my home after being poisoned tells me no owls were harmed in the process.

Rewire. Not require.

Install cat.

We had rats in our loft and outbuildings, and pest control were brilliant - they came out, put down poison, told us where they thought the rats were getting in and how to stop them, and kept coming back to check for dead rats/nibbled poison, until it was obvious they'd all been killed/had gone. It cost about £70.

We also got cats, but this is a long-term solution (we will always have mice and rats outside as we're rural with chickens nearby, so plenty of sources of food and shelter that we can't control). They've been brilliant but, as PP say, not exactly a practical short-term solution! If you borrowed my best mouser she wouldn't be in the least likely to set about calmly hunting rats in a strange house.

(And FWIW, the guy from pest control said that the stuff they use tends to make rats take themselves off somewhere dark and quiet to die, and is therefore not so likely to get into other wild animals' food chain.)

The stink of rats when they die 🤐or mice for that matter, plus secondary poisoning if an animal eats the dead rodent. Horrendous.

Seriously, get or borrow a cat. The smell of the cat gets rid. Just that.

Or get proper pest control in. You see a mouse in daytime? You have at minimum, a family.

All food stored in containers, always.

If you have any mouse size holes in your house to the outside, then fill them up. Stop easy access to food, by doing things like storing in hard boxes and not leaving on floor.

For killing them, just use snappy traps & peanut butter, and be brave. Other techniques are just nasty. I'm not against humane traps, but I suspect they don't survive well after release.
You can catch them if you know where they are and can corner them. Use a bucket and towel.
Cats! Nice pets, but you'll have more contact with living/dying/dead animals if you have a hunter.

We live backing on to open fields, and never had an issue with rodents in the house, until we got a cat. The bugger brings them in, alive, and lets them go! We generally catch them and pop them back in the field ( and keep the cat in for a day or so, so that she doesn't go and fetch it in again).
If it were a rat, though, I'd have to get a professional in.

We lived by the fields and field mice never attempted to enter the house, unless dragged in😂
Even now I have field mice in the back of a garden sometimes. They are tiny, asoblrable buggers who have no interest in our house. So they are cool

Well on a positive note if you have rats then you normally don't have mice, as the rats will kill the mice.

Rats are trickier to get rid of but I would also recommend the rat reaper traps from Amazon.

I would have died. I would then come back to life to kill my cat and then died again.