How do I get rid of the mice?

[MickeyMouseInTheHouse]

I live rurally in an old cottage so of course, there’s mice. Normally they appear during winter in the outbuildings and I ignore them. This year, they’re in the walls. All the walls. All I can hear on an evening is the scratching and it’s in every room. I have humane mouse traps down, they’re in cupboards and under the skirting boards all the time. They never catch anything, the mice aren’t inside, they’re literally in my walls. If I turn the lights on outside at night, I’ve seen them run up the draining pipes. It’s a really old rented cottage, it has gaps and cracks and that’s clearly how they’re getting in, but how do I get them out? I don’t want to put traps down because I can’t face emptying them, and k think it’s probably quite a big scale problem now. But I’m worried if I put poison down then any cats that chase the mice might get poisoned too? I’ve looked and animal safe mice poison is a complete oxymoron and not happening. What do I do? I can’t live like this, it’s waking my kids at night, it’s waking me, it’s awful!

We have a similar issue and use traps. They do catch them though. Your issue sounds worse than ours so I would 100percent get a professional in. They will lay loads of traps and use stronger poison than you can buy. Will cost £100+ though but I think it’s your only option.

Sorry the only things that work are the kill traps. We also have Glis Glis around here which are horrendous and cause a lot of damage so we have to use the killer traps.

Before you spend anything on an exterminator, how would you feel about using bucket traps? They catch the animals alive, you then have to decide how to deal with them. You could dispose of the bodies and know you aren't poisoning any cats or owls.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LQaf-AT1TPI

Start charging em rent !!! Or a pussycat.

You could put poison traps outside. Proper enclosed plastic box ones. With a good one kill bait inside. Then have a good look around for any kind of mouse food sources that might be close to the house, such as grain, berries, etc…… remove. Clear an area all around the house at ground level, so that you can see any entrance points into the walls. Inside the house the same, all foodstuffs put into proper containers such as sealed jars, plastic boxes. Put some poison inside as well, obviously in childproof locations. You can also get sonic pest deterrent devices to plug in at various locations. If it’s a rented cottage, have a word with your landlord about getting in pest control, but you could do this for yourself as well.
It’s not easy, but try not to stress over it. They won’t hurt you, and will be more frightened of you than you are of them. Most houses, rural and urban can have mice occasionally, but deter, detect and destroy are all you can do. Good luck with it.

Hi OP, I live rurally and mice do get into houses at this time of year. It is a big step to take, but I would really consider getting a cat. I do not think a cat will actually kill many mice but it will keep them towards the margins of the house and should get them away from anywhere the cat can get to. Traps do work, though if all you can hear at night is them going off that can be equally perturbing.

I think your landlord should pay for pest control.

I’m not sure what a ‘humane’ trap is.

Is it one that kills them quickly?

Or is it one that doesn’t kill them at all?

If it’s the latter, I don’t see how it solves the problem.

Well, unless you also have a largish snake.

The only way we got rid of ours was to get a terrier.

We have/had mice in our garage, the humane traps are working. We put some calci worms and sunflower seeds as bait.

Dh takes the traps with him when he's walking the dogs and lets the little guys free at a local field.

Is it really necessary to kill them? It seems really cruel 😢

My cat likes to play with mice

You think it’s a big scale problem but you won’t put traps down? And you have humane traps that aren’t catching anything? Sounds as if you want them inside!

It catches them in a container then you release them. The trouble is studies have found they can find their way back if not released far away enough. Researchers a few years ago marked mice with a harmless dye and released them a mile away. They came back. They were released two miles away. They came back. They were then released three miles away and did not return. The conclusion was that unless you take them at least three miles away a humane trap is pretty useless because they have strong homing instincts and just keep coming back. Sorry OP, traps are the only way to get on top of this. I've had them in walls before and it's horrible. Just a tip, cheese didn't work. Surprisingly they loved cooked chicken and kept taking it.

Yes, that’s what I suspected. So three miles away they either get into someone else’s house or die, disorientated and terrified, in a field.

As you suggest, inhumane traps are more humane.

My cat kills them. He is not just a cat. He is Cat the Ripper. Two in the past two days. My older cat has seemingly given up hunting. With a cat you never can know whether you're going to get a hunter or not.

We installed Black and Decker rodent repellers in our house in the US. We used to have mice in our walls but the repellers forced them out and we didn't have anymore problems with them.

The cats weren't bothered by them either.

See I bought those and they did nothing. In fact when I bought my new house I found one dumped in the bin and thought oh shit! Not here as well!

Not helpful and probably against your lease to get one but we acquired a cat. She only caught 2 and the f*ckers got the message. She still lays down in certain places like by the kitchen cupboards because she can smell or hear them, but they don't come out anymore.

Previous to her arrival, we used sticky traps which are cruel and utterly gross. Snap traps jyst didn't work for us. So Cat was got, so she can deal with them.

If you are allowed a dog and would like one get a working jack russell :)

I'd echo the suggestion of a cat. We also live rurally and had mice in the walls. Since getting a cat we have never heard from them again, despite the cat being thick as mince and never once catching one.

If you don’t want a cat, do you know someone with a male cat who uses a litter tray. Put the smelly cat litter near the holes etc to put the mice off.

We had a similar problem (maybe not so severe) a couple of years ago.

we found that those plug-in high frequency things worked for a little while until they got used to it and returned.

But one of the reasons they returned was that I discovered DH found them cute and was secretly leaving crumbs out for them!!!
This actually worked in our favour as it turned out because when the situation became more worrisome, they had a taste for the cracker crumbs and were easily caught in the humane trap.

I was surprised how many we caught. I thought we only had one or two - we even gave them names. But, we caught 10 over a couple of nights (and released them near a field).

We have since inherited a cat. She is a rubbish cat hunting-wise (apart from spiders), but I believe just the scent of a nearby cat keeps mice away. Not had a single mouse since.

Maybe get a cat, a sound repellent thing, or a DH who can infiltrate them and then betray them?

Another vote for a cat. One of my cats is really annoying and meows all the time but he is very murderous - you can have him if you like 😆

I rented a room in a house with mice and it was awful. They were in my bedroom at night. I fished one out of the bath for a fellow tenant one morning.

The landlady used humane traps, but she was hopeless about it and found it all tres amusing. She told me once that she'd peeked inside one of the traps one morning and then decapitated the mouse when it made a bid for freedom and she closed the lid of the trap on it. She would try to throw them over the stream at the bottom of her garden and laugh about failing to do so.

I used to have cats when living in my own house but they weren't much good either. They'd catch mice outside and bring them in to play with, then lose them.

Poison has been the most reliable remedy in my experience. I know people who have had some success with the sonic repellers, or traps, but the poison seems to be more reliable.

We had mice in our wall cavity, they make such a lot of noise. In the end we paid a professional who managed to find where they were getting in (the meter cupboard where the cable entered the house and the circuit box) and put poison down but safely so it couldn't be accidentally eaten by anything else. He came back twice to make sure everything was gone and sorted. It was worth the money. We have since had mice in our detached garage but that was dealt with ourselves with normal snap traps.

I think humane traps are neither effective nor humane. It doesn't take long for a mouse to starve to death which is much worse than a quick neck break imo. And I am equally squeamish dealing with living or dead mice
🤦😂.