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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

MOUSE IN THE HOUSE

186 replies

WineLover21 · 16/10/2024 13:25

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!!!!!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
ThatsNotMyTeen · 16/10/2024 17:40

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 16:36

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.

Mice breed like crazy. Their numbers need kept under control. Plus on a shallow level am I hell driving miles with the fuckers in my car to get rid!

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 17:44

ThatsNotMyTeen · 16/10/2024 17:40

Mice breed like crazy. Their numbers need kept under control. Plus on a shallow level am I hell driving miles with the fuckers in my car to get rid!

Their numbers don’t need to be kept in control by humans. They need to be available for owls and other birds of prey and various mammals that are struggling to eat. When humans start interfering that’s where things go wrong.

Yes house mice populations are good, but tell that to a barn owl in the winter who just wants to eat.l to stop it from starving which is quite likely due to a lack of food availability.

ThatsNotMyTeen · 16/10/2024 17:46

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 17:44

Their numbers don’t need to be kept in control by humans. They need to be available for owls and other birds of prey and various mammals that are struggling to eat. When humans start interfering that’s where things go wrong.

Yes house mice populations are good, but tell that to a barn owl in the winter who just wants to eat.l to stop it from starving which is quite likely due to a lack of food availability.

Yes I’m sure the one mouse I’ve killed is going to make a massive difference

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 17:47

ThatsNotMyTeen · 16/10/2024 17:46

Yes I’m sure the one mouse I’ve killed is going to make a massive difference

‘It’s only one plastic bottle’
said a million people.

upshot · 16/10/2024 17:48

Ex FIL used to use humane traps and release in his driveway. He was quite slow moving himself, so we used to imagine the mouse was back in the house before he was.

BabyCloud · 16/10/2024 17:48

Get pest control. There will be more than
one.

wonderingwhatlifemeans · 16/10/2024 17:50

I live in SW London in a terrace. We had mice for nearly two years and must have caught nearly 20 in that time. They would stop for a bit then come back. One brought a chicken tikka sausage over from one of our neighbours! Either side of us are council owned properties and they came out on four different occasions. Since then no more mice thank goodness!

We did do all the wire wool, foam blocking gaps etc and I think that did help.

Fluufer · 16/10/2024 17:59

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 17:47

‘It’s only one plastic bottle’
said a million people.

Can we all come and release the mice in your kitchen then?

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 18:02

Fluufer · 16/10/2024 17:59

Can we all come and release the mice in your kitchen then?

There it is. I knew someone would pull this engaging and mature response out. So obvious.

At no point did I say that the OP shouldn’t remove the mice, I said it should be done humanely and that the previous posters suggestion that they’re ‘vermin’ and therefore should die is sad.

Fluufer · 16/10/2024 18:06

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 18:02

There it is. I knew someone would pull this engaging and mature response out. So obvious.

At no point did I say that the OP shouldn’t remove the mice, I said it should be done humanely and that the previous posters suggestion that they’re ‘vermin’ and therefore should die is sad.

Where exactly does a Londoner appropriately release a mouse?

PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 18:07

Fluufer · 16/10/2024 18:06

Where exactly does a Londoner appropriately release a mouse?

Depends on where they live but there are lots of green spaces in London.

WineLover21 · 16/10/2024 18:07

@PlantHeadNo5 I'm not sure people would thank me if I dropped several mice off at Clapham Common!!!! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

OP posts:
WineLover21 · 16/10/2024 18:09

Does anyone know with pre baited mouse bait stations what I do? Just put them out and then do I bin the whole box once one is in? Or empty? Or do they come back out?

OP posts:
PlantHeadNo5 · 16/10/2024 18:09

WineLover21 · 16/10/2024 18:07

@PlantHeadNo5 I'm not sure people would thank me if I dropped several mice off at Clapham Common!!!! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

it wouldn’t matter, they’re a wild animal. Thats their home.

Lulubear50 · 16/10/2024 18:14

best solution is a cat, added bonus you have a cat

IcedPurple · 16/10/2024 18:14

WineLover21 · 16/10/2024 14:49

Any idea why one would be out in the day!? I thought they were nocturnal?

I hope it's just one 😭

People will tell you otherwise, but sometimes it is just one. If you're seeing it during the day, there's a good chance it is lost and can't find its usual 'home'.

I live in a flat and to my horror saw a mouse calmly strolling across the kitchen floor one fine day. I called pest control and they said they could find no evidence of nests or a large infestation, so presumably this one had snuck in from a nest elsewhere in the apartment building.

I had similar sightings again but when I got my kitchen renovated last year, I spent the evening after my old kitchen was pulled out plugging the walls with steel wool and expanding foam. They say a mouse can slip through a hole the size of a pencil but there were massive holes in the wall. A mouse superhighway! Thankfully I've not seen a mouse since then. The only long term solution is making sure you keep the little critters out.

WineLover21 · 16/10/2024 18:21

@IcedPurple oh this is good to know! The mouse is so so brave. It almost wanders over to me every evening! When I first saw it run across the kitchen I genuinely thought it was a rat though 😭

OP posts:
ElaborateCushion · 16/10/2024 18:23

Snap traps. I know it's not nice, but there are millions of mice in the world and it's the only guaranteed way to get rid of it out of your home.

When I bought some on Amazon the advice said to not touch the trap with your bare hands as they can then smell you on it and avoid it. I used some latex gloves to load it. We caught it the first night.

Find where it's coming out into your house and place the trap with food in it nearby. It'll then go "dum de dum, let me have a little look around here for some food, ooh - look, there's some food right near where I'm walking - yum!" and snap. Seeing your picture, I'd pull off the kick board (they should just clip on and off) and pop it behind it, near the gap.

If you use the non-kill traps I think the advice is that you have to take them a good few miles away as the crow flies as they'll find their way back otherwise. If you're in London, this might be a trek in itself!

Our cat regularly brings in live mice, so we've become quite expert at catching them now, so normally catch and release, but one little bugger was persistent and ended up running around in the kitchen ceiling, so the traps had to be set, as the cats had given up on it by then!

They are bloody brazen things though. I was sat eating dinner the other week and caught a glimpse of movement out my eye. Looked round and there's a bloody mouse trotting across the floor like it owns the place!

Being typical cat owners, we locked it in a room with an outside door, opened the door and went back to eating our dinner! Watched it on a camera and saw it scuttle out the door!

With yours, catch/kill the one you've got then see if another one arrives. If it does, you will have to do more investigating as to where they're getting in, but it IS possible that it's just the one.

Blinky21 · 16/10/2024 18:24

Please don't use glue traps. It's just a mouse, catch it humanely and drive it somewhere to release, it's just living it's life, no need to be cruel

MorrisZapp · 16/10/2024 18:25

Libertysparkle · 16/10/2024 16:36

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.

Edited

I always hastily remove Santa's mince pie after DS is in bed for this reason! Refuse to have chocolate tree deccies. As for those gingerbread houses people leave up night after night, think we can assume they don't live in Edinburgh tenements 😁

ThinWomansBrain · 16/10/2024 18:29

@ttcat37 I never get them at home, although there are reports of mice in the building.
When I take her on holiday, my normally indoor cat is surprisingly proficient at catching mice.
Although there was one cottage where it was shrews rather than mice - and for some reason she preferred bringing them in to chase them, then losing interest. Nearly every evening the entertainment was playing 'catch the shrew'.

Igmum · 16/10/2024 18:38

Hello. Can I help?

#WillworkforDreamies #Satisfactionguaranteed

MOUSE IN THE HOUSE
wonderingwhatlifemeans · 16/10/2024 18:46

We used snap traps with chocolate spread or peanut butter. I was the only one who saw them but we heard them everywhere!
We also threw them away in traps so did get through a few. We still have some left over but hope we don't have to use them.

They do like hiding behind the fridge and oven and just running out to say they are here! One also ran out from under our sofa then panicked and ran out to the kitchen. I also saw one in our downstairs loo that had run out from the wall and in the upstairs bathroom again from the wall where the pipes come out. My husband saw the grand total of none!

Peppermint oil helps but the sound things don't work. I saw a mouse literally sat under it.

whoputallofthatthere · 16/10/2024 18:53

We have them at work at the moment. Pest control are laying snap traps. I don't like to see the mice killed tbh but also understand that they can't be in the office, it is not hygenic. Fully agree with everyone saying glue traps are barbaric, please never use them. If you must kill then kill humanely.

A note if you're considering using poison - please be really careful if you or neighbours have cats etc - the poison often doesn't kill the rodent right away, they continue running about for a while so when they finally go, any cat/wildlife that consumes them up can also be poisoned.

nOasistickets · 16/10/2024 18:55

Be careful OP - we had what we though was just ‘one’ mouse too - turns out it was a whole bladdy family of them - also my daughter caught salmonella (conveniently when mouse droppings started to appear) and they had to shut her nursery down as a precaution, I was pretty sure it was from the mouse droppings tho. We paid for a pest company. We were end of terrace and the neighbours told us that the mice run between the attics and become especially bold when it gets colder… we bought snap traps and the pest control company used poison.

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