MOUSE IN THE HOUSE

[WineLover21]

We've got a mouse in the house.

I'm TERRIFIED! How do I get rid of it asap!? It's even coming out in the day!!!!!

Don't worry - I won't be using sticky pads! I hate the thought of the suffering.

They must be getting in through gaps/holes in the outside walls etc. The issue for me was a few missing mortar joints near the ground. They only require a gap as big as a pen to get in. Fill any such open joints with mortar. Can be tricky in flats etc. Once they are in the cavity they can travel a long way.

this is inhumane and cruel. Either get a cat or pay the money for pest removal service.

The council don't come out for pest control in our area. They recommend a few places and you pay the going rate. It was about £200 when I used them for rats.

please don't use those, they are just so cruel. Far better using a spring trap which is, at least, quick

To an PP, I have caught many, many, mice with my bare hands over the years. They are fast, and they jump, but with practice they are easily caught. You just have to not be afraid of them, and pounce like a cat!

If I fail however, I do use snap traps, the tunnel ones, baited with nutella. Never fails.

Yep, theres no council pest control here either. When there was, it was free if you were council tenants or on certain means tested benefits, and cheap if you were not, compared to private companies.

The whole 'theres no financial benefit in actually killing all the pests' myth has been going around since time began.

The truth is, most of the pests we call out pest control to get rid of, have always lived in close proximity to us, and it is not possible to 100% eradicate some of them from our buildings/homes/properties.

This is why places like food factories, hospitals etc, have ongoing pest control contracts to manage pests pro-actively, to keep numbers at an acceptable level.

It is expected that home owners do most of the things (keep homes clean and tidy, don't leave food sources around, don't provide shelter) on a small scale, that pest control contracts would do for such places on a larger scale - so then the home owner only has to call out pest control if theres a surge in numbers for some reason.

I get mice on a semi regular basis. I put strong poison granules near the holes. Then I keep relaying the bait until it's untouched, which means they are dead. Then I fill the hole with wire wool and expandable foam. Keeps them at bay for a good while.

Crikey... a population explosion? We live in a row of terraced houses so I assume I can't properly get rid of them all?

I've bought a lot of traps and the boxes with the poison.

Bleaching all surfaces/setting the eufy off on the hour.

So is the one mouse I've seen... probably not the only one visiting? 😭😭😭😭😭😭 I can't believe it's been so ballsy. It runs across our kitchen every night back and forth.

We're in SW London and after spending £50 on traps...

The council do the service. £171! 🤦🏼‍♀️

It's (or several of them) are running across your kitchen to get to food/water/shelter... so it may well have a family close by, under your kitchen units, in the wall cavity, under next doors kitchen units... The way our houses are built, they can pretty much have a ratty or mousey highway system taking them from one end of a terrace to another without us ever seeing them!

If one person in your row is leaving loads of food around, this then supports a population explosion... then the mouse families start shoving their offspring out (as I say, territorial little sods) so some of the braver ones venture further, and they need to to find food... so they take risks they otherwise wouldn't take... and you start seeing them.

Your last sentence is so sad. We’re in a major biodiversity crisis in this country. We’re sleepwalking into a massive disaster. Britain’s massively depleted when it comes to nature. Yet everyone is so happy to kill away just because something doesn’t fit their aesthetically pleasing mindset.

There are human ways of trapping and releasing mice. It might take some effort but it’s possible. The incessant needs to kill everything that crosses your path is awful.
And one day people will wonder why the survival of the human race is doomed and not be able to equate it to their own selfish actions. I say that as someone who has small children and has had pests before.

Call the council they will send someone round. They will come back a number of times if not gone for one price.

We found we had them on Christmas Day. My husband thought I'd munched the carrot wed left for Rudolf! I found it so funny! He did not. Especially as we had all the family coming round in a few hours!

And it doesn't mean your house is dirty. I had the same question. But part of our house is old and the back is new. So it came in gaps at the front.

I was genuinely just thinking it was ONE mouse.

The thought of an infestation has me packing my bags.

Please someone convince me it's just one solo mouse that's got in when I've left the doors open

Get some snap traps ASAP. We had a massive rat in the house recently after ripping up some decking. Caught it within an hour. It was just one. Don't give it time to multiply.

It’s hard to know to be honest. Sometimes there are many, sometimes it can just be one who is scouting around to see what food is available.

They’re not judging on house price 😂they judging on size because a one bedroom flat is easier to deal with than a four bedroom house.

Huntsman Pest Control were good in London. They did an emergency call out for us. Came out for us, filled holes, laid traps and haven’t had an issue in a year.

lol you never know! @Penguinmouse

My bleddy cats are the ones that bring them in! Can’t put any more bells on their collars or they’ll sound like wind chimes. Poor mice must be deaf!

I currently have a mouse and two cats. Cats are seemingly completely unbothered by its presence in the house so I’ve ordered humane traps as hate the idea of killing it.

It can be but often is multiples as they do breed very efficiently. My mum had one mouse randomly living in her car. I put a humane trap in, caught it and she never had the problem in her car again so you may be lucky.

We had this a few years ago, thought it was one mouse but ended up catching nearly 40 in humane traps. We had several traps and they were filling up every 10 minutes or so! Every time we heard a trap trip, we would take it and release the mouse in nearby woods, howeved, apparently you need to release them several miles away, so perhaps it was the same few mice coming back to us!!

Good luck, OP

We used to have cats bring them in and let them go so they could hide under the kitchen cupboards. Sometimes I was able to catch it in a pint glass and take it down the garden, sometimes the cats would get them first. It seemed a bit mean to set traps seeing as they never came in of their own accord so far as I could tell! We never had an infestation so you could definitely have just the one.

Get some humane traps OP.

Peppermint oil made into a spray - it's a good deterrent!

But once they're in, you have to catch them somehow. They live with you now!

Sorry - there's pretty much never just one.

You need the snappy snap kill traps. Do as others have said. Keep a special pair of rubber gloves as the 'mouse gloves', and keep checking the traps. Keep setting them for a week or two after you think you've caught the last one, in case of babies.

I had an infestation a few years ago, when neighbours were having work done. I caught 14 in the end. I became rather blase about it in the end.