The mice are winning. Any advice?

[User534]

We have a mouse infestation. There are droppings. I put a humane mouse trap near the droppings and caught about 10 mice and released them a long way away. Fine. Then the mice learned how to get out of the humane mouse trap. I don't know whether they chatted with each other about how to do this. I caught one of them in the trap, repeatedly hurling itself at the entrance side until it almost managed to get it to open enough for the mouse to slip through. I got that mouse, but others have taken the bait and forced their way out of the trap. So I got two of the killing traps and put them down. This morning the bait had gone from both traps. One trap was open and the other had sprung, but the mouse got away.
Should I move on to poison now? Won't that lead to horrible scenes of dead and dying and decomposing mice all over the house, including under the floorboards and in the ceilings?

What are you baiting the traps with? Some people put too much bait on. It needs to be quite a small smear of something like peanut butter or Nutella. If you put too much on they can get the bait off without being caught.
I would persevere with the snap traps.

We live in a very old house and had an intermittent mouse problem. Killing traps all the way, I’m afraid. Bait with peanut butter, and a chocolate chip nestled on top doesn’t go amiss. Keep re-setting them and you will catch them.

We got someone in to advise eventually, and what finally cracked the problem was the discovery that they were getting in from outside through a slightly cracked air brick. He put a metal mesh over it and hey presto! No more 🐭

I had rats and I tried everything, they too were too clever for traps. I even sent ferrets after them (borrowed from a friend!) and they just run off then come back later.

I used poison (a last resort, I thought it was cruel and feared the decomposing bodies smell) but it worked in a few days and I never smelled anything, I think their bodies get dessicated (is that the right word?) quickly. Mice will go even faster. Don't waste time with other solutions, just poison the little buggers

I have 6 pet mice and they love banana chips and fresh banana might be worth a go?

Try peppermint oil.

I feel your pain!

You need a sticky bait like peanut butter or Nutella. Give it a few days - I went from catching none to about 6 in one day.

Mice are very sensitive to smells so once you’ve caught a few leave the traps back down without cleaning them - the mice can smell the dead mice and will avoid the area.

Clean everything- surfaces, counters, floors - with bleach. This removes the wee smell they use as trails and they don’t like bleach smell as it’s too strong.

Then get the sonic plug ins and put them in as many rooms as possible.

Upgrade your cat.

If you get a pest controller they should be able to find out how the mice are getting in and block up gaps. Otherwise you are going to have a continual problem.

Also keep all food in your kitchen boxed away.

My elderly aunt lives alone in a large overly heated home which is obviously paradise for mice. Over the last month the it's gone from a few rustlings here and there to epidemic proportions of mice.
Ten kill traps were set daily with peanut butter bait. Some of the traps were catching two mice at a time it got so bad and we were catching 10 plus per day. The cleaner refused to return until they were eradicated so we had to call in a pest control company.
They charged £200 for 3 visits and pointed out that there was nesting in the attic and garage. The bait boxes seem to have poisoned them almost instantly and the third visit us next week after which there's going to be some intensive cleaning done. The mice have eaten through the beam hoover hose , destroyed all the pipe lagging in the roof space and ate holes in a sofa so I wouldn't underestimate the damage they can do.

They certainly do smell as they rot. We had them in our garage so put poison down. We could tell immediately we opened the garage door that there was a dead mouse somewhere inside.

😂

I have a terrier. Way better than the useless cat at catching and finding mice, and bloody persistent about it as well. At the very least if you do want to set traps he’ll tell you exactly where to set them!

Yes, agreed - they smell horrific. For weeks and weeks. And they’re likely to crawl somewhere inaccessible so all you'll know about it will be the truly ghastly aroma. For which reason I’d avoid poison (and a snap-trap is quick and more humane).

Get a young kitten. Your cat needs company, you need a mouser. Win-win.

I think a cat is the answer. We had mice and got a kitten. Nice went away. When we moved out landlord tried to refuse to give us our deposit. One reason he gave, there was a mouse problem. We said yes we told you and you said deal with it yourselves. Funny how we take the cat and they return really.

It’s a misconception that catch and release is humane, you just release them back into other mice’s territory, who literally rip the incoming mouse to shreds.

We had some success with electrocution traps, which I guess are reasonably humane as in quick and painless. Caught about 8. Still had an ongoing problem and called in a pest control guy. Unbeknownst to me he put sticky traps down under our kitchen units. We had one horrific evening of them squealing. But I have to say it was the only thing that has totally got rid of them. It was horrific and I wouldn't have allowed it if I had known, but my goodness it was effective.

Not a single mouse now.

Having read your posts OP, my only advice is to get a better cat 😹 (sorry)

Edinburgh tenement flat here. There's no room for sentiment, we get the pest guy out at the first sign and he puts poison under the sink. It's cheap and it works, although we're pretty much unmouseproofable so a future return is almost inevitable. We clean and sweep religiously.

Mice are very, very clever. I'm basing this statement on having watched the docudrama series 'Tom and Jerry'.

It seems that even if you hit a mouse with a frying pan, the mouse will survive but the frying pan with have a mouse-shape embossed in the bottom for ever more.

The only thing worked for me were the sticky pads. I caught 10 mice. I am in a second floor flat. I tried other humane methods for a long time as well as numerous peanut butter loaded traps, nothing else worked and had never had mice before in nearly 20 years. None now. They really make a mess with droppings.

Deal with mice but also deal with how they're getting in.

I stayed in a friend's beautiful old house that had a mouse problem. She got a new cat as the current one was useless and within a week all the mice disappeared!

I've never had cats and it was quite gruesome watching this gorgeous, fluffy little kitten suddenly pounce, then hearing the crunching noises of yet another mouse being dispatched.

One of my dad's abiding memories of his granny was watching her shovel coal into the fire one day. A mouse ran out of the coal scuttle and she wapped it instantly with the shovel and lobbed it in the fire. She didn't even look up.

Don't get a cat, that's a ridiculous solution to having a mouse problem. They'd breed much faster than a cat could catch them and hide in walls and get in and out through the loft or whatever.

Get the council pet control out and get it dealt with properly. We did and they were really helpful.

I’ve got 3 cats (never had a mice problem), one of these is a rescue and is the same as yours. Doesn’t kill but catches and brings vermin in to release and play with for entertainment, one I got from a farm as a kitten and is an excellent hunter/ killer, the other is a pedigree ex-breeding queen and shows no interest in hunting.

Definitely get a farm kitten, likely there will be loads available in a couple of months.