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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be fed up about mouse problem

26 replies

rainbowdoc · 30/09/2023 10:46

I am at my wits end. Have had 3 mice in kitchen cupboards over the last week. All caught with humane traps. We have had to stop using our bottom kitchen cupboards as the mice seem to run riot! DP incredibly anxious about cleaning and has been compulsively scrubbing everything down for hours after each mouse visit. Apparently you have to drive them miles away, so have been doing this too. Im very tired from work and it's another problem I have to deal with when I get home. Im at a loss for what to do. Any suggestions?

OP posts:
chipsandpeas · 30/09/2023 10:48

get a cat ?

SisterMichaelsHabit · 30/09/2023 10:49

Block the entrances. It takes time and effort to find them but it's a damn sight quicker and easier than driving miles with a bloody mouse, that's ridiculous!

gotomomo · 30/09/2023 10:49

You need to find out how they are getting in, ours were sneaking in via a too large hole for the tumble dryer vent pipe!

Hermittrismegistus · 30/09/2023 10:50

You need to put poison down.

OldTinHat · 30/09/2023 10:50

I've had problems with rats and mice 😬

Apparently they hate strong smells so I filled several plastic takeaway type containers with bleach and slid them behind the kickboards in my kitchen. My house smelled like a swimming pool (and the smell of bleach makes me feel sick!), but after that night they never came back.

Harrriet · 30/09/2023 10:51

Could you get pest control in? You need to block up their entrance and if you can put poison down ( I know it's horrible) Pest control would do this for you.

Alltheprettyseahorses · 30/09/2023 10:51

Just get pest control in to sort it.

Timmytap18 · 30/09/2023 10:52

Lose the humane traps, honestly. They'll die when they're released anyway.

Snap traps, block any holes. Even the tiny ones.

Don't have any food souce available for them and try and make your home as unappealing as possible. Those plug ins have had some success for us and peppermint oil on cotton wool dotted around.

They are an absolute nightmare, I sympathise.

MereDintofPandiculation · 30/09/2023 10:54

It’s cruel to drive them miles away where they won’t know where to find food or shelter. Snap traps for a quick death.

Justifiedcheese · 30/09/2023 10:57

Hermittrismegistus · 30/09/2023 10:50

You need to put poison down.

Only if you want the smell of decaying corpses from undetectable places. Snap traps where you can retrieve them and dispose. Yucky but essential
Humane traps don't work. They either return or if you release them miles away they starve.

Star0Fire · 30/09/2023 11:04

Hate to say it but we got a rescue cat when our mouse problem was like this. We had mice in our bedroom on a night :( could hear them rustling and I had a trap next to my bed which caught one. I couldn't cope any longer so we got a cat, she left us a dead mouse on her 3rd day! She's had several since and we've not had a mouse in the house in months

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 30/09/2023 11:20

Another suggestion to get a cat. A cat's presence in a house will often tend to keep rodents away (unless you get one which brings live mice in from outside and then lets them go 🙄)

Paperbagsaremine · 30/09/2023 11:26

Or do any of your friends have a terrier or whippet who could come visit for a few evenings...?

Have a very beady eyed look for possible entrances and block them all up with extreme prejudice.
Shut away all food and don't leave crumbs or liquid about.

I have resorted to poison as I was ok to wait out any stink if they died somewhere inaccessible; preferable to not being able to sleep. Personal decision and I always felt awful the couple of times we found corpses. But not awful enough not to do it.

Pro pest control may spot possible entrances you miss (e.g. climbers on outside of house, providing access to roof space and from there, everywhere...).

stitchy · 30/09/2023 11:28

We got our first rescue cat purely as mouse management. Neither of us were cat people (my dh would even have described himself as anti-cat) but we had a toddler and couldn't put poison down as he was into everything.

Best thing we ever did, mouse problem sorted almost instantly and would never be without a cat now. In fact we now have 2 cats and the whole family adores them (especially dh)

Beautyfadesdumbisforever · 30/09/2023 11:30

If you struggle with the idea of a snap trap get an electronic mouse trap. They work with batteries and kill quickly and cleanly.

TruJay · 30/09/2023 11:40

We had an awful mouse problem a few years ago. Our children were so poorly for months, vomiting bugs we thought.
We eventually found dropping and it was awful, we set traps and it’s took a few weeks but we were finally free of them. It was such a depressing time though.

Out of the blue, our next door neighbour recently got a kitten. Kitten is about 6 months now and a few days ago I found 5 droppings behind our armchair. Absolutely gutted, our traps went straight down and mouse caught that night. It’s very rare there is only one mouse though! Traps still down, no more have been caught and no more dropping found but it’s really put me in a downer as we now have a baby crawling around so it feels all dirty for him ti be exploring as I know they’ll be mouse pee on everything 😫

The kitten was clearly got for mouse prevention but all it’s done is push their problem onto us. The same happened in our house growing up. Mum talking to attached neighbours and they said oh we only got the two cats for all the mice. We NEVER had mice until those cats and then we were infested with them!

We tried the driving the mice away last time but it doesn’t solve the issue. Traps or poison is needed.

Hope you get it sorted OP, I totally sympathise. I thought we were done with mice 😞

imnotthatkindofmum · 30/09/2023 14:21

chipsandpeas · 30/09/2023 10:48

get a cat ?

This is what I did when I had a mouse problem. After her catching one on day 1, never had them in the house again! After 6 years she's now a very important emotional support for my anxious teen and I still don't have mice 🤷🏻‍♀️

ClaraBourne · 30/09/2023 14:50

I used one of those sonic things. Seemed to work 🤷‍♀️

littlripper · 30/09/2023 14:51

Yeah you have hundreds of mice, not 3. Get professionals in.

YukoandHiro · 30/09/2023 14:52

Proper pest control might seem expensive but it comes with a guarantee so you can keep getting them back

SleeplessInSolihull · 30/09/2023 14:58

I had an infestation last year and, after battling and spending loads of cash seeming to get nowhere, I paid someone to deal with it. The relief was massive. It was well worth the money.

Isabelle70 · 30/09/2023 15:10

I would get pest control in. I had issues this spring with them coming through from my terrace neighbour in the eaves in 140 year old cottage. He was great looked around, put bait in the eaves and behind my wardrobe. Only found some dead ones in the eaves they never came into the main house.
He did tell me that the lovely sound proofing insulation I have is like a 5 star hotel for mice! He also said if you are going to use snap traps put bacon or ham on so they have to tug and snap.

ohdamnitjanet · 30/09/2023 15:15

I’ve used humane traps successfully. I don’t want to deal with dead mice. I release them a couple of streets away, in greenery if possible. It takes a while and it’s horrible, but better then having dead mice rotting away in the house.

Vettrianofan · 30/09/2023 15:18

Do you know if it's a field mouse?