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?

Kill they rather than using sticky pads. Sticky pads are disgusting. A noise will try and chew its leg off to escape.

If you are letting them go, they need to be a mile or so away or they just come back.

I agree with the idea of looking at where they are coming in.

Pest control. They'll look at where they're getting in and block up the hole. It's worth it.

The will be banned soon for public use, if they aren't already. Haven't followed the bill

In lockdown 4 neighbours had mice due to the neighbour that has a house pole Steptoes yard inside and out! The pest controller recommended via phone to put bacon or ham on the spring traps as they have to tug it and it springs the trap.
Steptoes yard is still the same, last summer was rats and she wouldn't do anything about it. The last 6 weeks has been mice.
The pest controller has been to my house and put bait in the eaves twice and this has now got on top of the problem. Mine were in the ceiling/floor void and absolutely loving the fact I have rock wool sound slab insulation so it's nice and warm and toasty!
No more sounds, and I guess in god knows how many years someone will take the ceiling down and find my mice. No flies and no smell. He uses a bait that dries them out?
He is a great guy the pest controller, lives round the corner and dropped me off some bait this week so we can keep putting in down and monitoring it. I think we are over the worse now.

We had a mice problem a couple of years ago. We dealt with it successfully in about ten days with a combination of humane traps, ultrasonic repellents and the sachets of repellent that they don’t like the smell of. Our cat is getting old now and obviously wasn’t pulling his weight, so we got a new kitten too (obviously not a replacement ☺️). He was too small to help with this problem but we thought he would help in the future.

We discovered mice when we moved into our new house. We booked the council pest controller who came out within a week. They charged about £120 for 3 visits.
We have a cat who is useless too. Didn't even smell there was a problem and was acting normally 🙄.

The pest controller put down a poison that was safe to be around my cat and kids just in case they accidentally ate any. They try that a couple of times and then if that hasn't shifted them they try the stronger stuff (he put that under the floorboards in a spare room where he traced they were coming up the cavity in the wall and up through the floor).
We haven't had any issues with them this winter so seems to have worked.

Forgot to say the plug in things had no effect. We had them centimetres from where the mice were getting in.

You need a professional to sort it out , mice are a real bugger to get rid of .

Had them in the loft where we are now and it took months to sort it properly .

These are the best traps. www.amazon.co.uk/Intruder-30442-Better-Mousetrap-6-Pack/dp/B00APWMD3A

Get plug in Sonar deterrents. They got rid of mine overnight.

We bought three of these. Each one with increased promises and price. They did absolutely nothing to deter the mice.

What worked for us was spring traps and a cat. He caught 22 in one weekend (that I found evidence of).

I agree this is a situation that’s going to persist without pest control. Our cats sorted out the rodent infection in the house we brought that the previous owner clearly just lived with. It was easily sorted but we had to have a lot of electic cabling fixed as they’d chewed through most of it!

I would put poison down (sorry!) you need to kill them off as they will carry on mating and reproducing - even if you catch one or two in the meantime!

Trapping and release won’t work and never ends well. The sticky things are being made illegal.

Persevere with better spring traps with a smear of peanut butter or well stuck on raisin.

Wear (disposable) gloves when handling them they can detect human scent.

Place some of them against the wall/ skirting board aimed at the wall.

Find out where they’re getting in through holes and block or they’ll keep coming back. This is really important.

Make sure all food items are in metal, glass or plastic containers.

Make sure there’s no rubbish or pet food they are accessing.

If that doesn’t work then poison is next resort. Dead mice don’t smell much. Only faint smell for couple of days and nothing like a decomposing rat. 😱

But I wold be worried about your cat eating poisoned dead or alive mice so not sure what to do about that.

Lots and lots of snap traps and tie bacon rinds onto them. We had some sneaky little feckers when I was little ( old farmhouse) and I remember my dad doing this successfully. Don’t let the cat in without checking it’s mouth. Close the cat flap if you have one. My cats would do the same so they knock on the window when they want in now😂

I bait spring traps with peanut butter as it’s so sticky they can’t just pick it up and make their escape.

I don't think any home can ever be mouseproof. They get through the tiniest holes.

Keep cat in for a couple of weeks. Obvs provide litter tray

This is what we have always done if we had mice. Cat gets bored and move get got.
Mid cat can go out it's got no incentive to sort out the house as it's far easier to catch a mouse outside than in. No furniture in the way!

Be prepared for a few noisy nights

Get the mouse man in. Cats smell isn't always enough to deter nor their litter.

*mice get got

We had one that died under the floorboards on a hot heating pipe. That stunk.

Bait the kill traps with something sticky that they won't be able to yank away before they spring. Stick a bit of mars bar to them or a dollop of peanut butter

The poisoned mice will die out of sight and reach; which is fine because their decomposing corpses are so tiny they don't stink.

Don't ever poison rats in the home, because they are big enough to stink for weeks:-(

Don't ask how I know....

Going to disagree with mice not stinking when they're decomposing. An area of our workplace absolutely reeked for weeks until 2 dead mice were found hidden away in the back

You know what I would like to know, how is it if a rat dies in the wall like in my old house, the flies end up in the house? How do they get through the wall?