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To be freaking out about this - rodent issue

7 replies

CreatingHavoc · 16/01/2025 12:42

Me and my daughter have both had toast this morning. I've just noticed a hole in the bag and it looks like a rodent has nibbled on the bottom corner of the crust of the bread. We ate the 2 pieces behind the crust. It was left out on top of the microwave last night and I'm now terrified that a) we'll get ill and b) we have an infestation of rodents in the house. I'm freaking out massively. What should we do about having possibly eaten something contaminated by rodents?

OP posts:
KnickerlessParsons · 16/01/2025 12:48

You'll be fine. They don't touch the bit you ate.

Stop leaving food out and the rodents will stop coming in your kitchen.

CreatingHavoc · 16/01/2025 12:52

We have a stupidly small kitchen but I'm not leaving anything out again, believe me.

Thing is they've been on the bread packet and the bits of bread we ate were touching the bit that the rodent ate. And the pieces we ate may have touched the hole where the rodent bit through.

OP posts:
SilenceInside · 16/01/2025 12:53

There's nothing you need to do about having eaten the bread, as it's already happened.

Then, clean and clear up the whole area, and look for signs of mice. Get some mousetraps and set them around the edges of the room in places that are out of sight. Check that all food is in solid containers that can't be accessed, even things that are in cupboards.

PiggyPigalle · 16/01/2025 13:01

KnickerlessParsons · 16/01/2025 12:48

You'll be fine. They don't touch the bit you ate.

Stop leaving food out and the rodents will stop coming in your kitchen.

"Stop leaving food out and the rodents will stop coming in your kitchen."
If only that were true.

Two years ago I had a pair in the kitchen sink cupboard, nowhere near food. Got in under the eaves and ran along pipe work.
This year my daughter had them in her bathroom. Ate her expensive soap and face cream box. No food involved.
They come in for warmth and to breed, as this time of the year, there's plenty of bird food in gardens for the taking.

DoAWheelie · 16/01/2025 13:07

You won't get ill from the bread no matter what touched where, so you can stop worrying about that.

Have a look around for any nibbled packets and check the back of the cupboards etc for holes to try and track down where they are coming from.

I had a mouse who chewed into the small storage room I keep the cats kibble in, I found the hole and blocked it up and never saw them again.

LT1233 · 16/01/2025 13:46

Unlikely to get mega ill. Not from mice anyway.

I have unfortunately become an expert in rodents in the last few years. There will not just be 1 mouse. There will possibly be double figures. You need to figure out where they're coming from, traps are great but won't actually solve the issue when the next family rock up. There's a very good chance they're entering your kitchen from the space under your cupboards/sink. If you have a suspended floor, then it'll likely be via that space, or via waste pipe spaces. Have a look around the outside of your house for any gaps in the brickwork/pipes or paving. Fill any gaps in the aggregate around your kitchen internally - we had to push wire wool into gaps in the bricks where the original (now extended) back wall was (and where gas pipes etc fed in) and then spray with expanding foam. If you have an suspicion where they're coming from, you can buy cheap cameras (I recommend Tapo) and set it up to notify you when there's movement. I watched 8 mice get trapped in 4k not long ago.

The reason it's important to find where they're getting in, is more because of rats. Where there's mice, there's often rats. I have finally concluded that I've got rats in my loft aswell as the kitchen - found one stuck in a gap between bricks under the kitchen cupboards last year, up there with one of the most disgusting things I've ever experienced, but hoped it'd been keeping the mice company as a one off. It was not a one off.

Over Xmas I've watched at least 2 rats visiting my loft (don't seem to be living there thank god) carry away 11 packets of poison in 4k. I also watched one of them get winged by a trap last week and since then nothing. Likely there's rotting rats in my cavity walls atm. BUT even if they're dead, bredrens will be back before long because no amount of poison or traps or wire wool is going to remedy the fact that there is very obviously an entry point somewhere in or around my house. From my extensive online manic research, it'll almost certainly be the current or previous (pre extension) waste pipe. Rats and mice use the entire network of wastepipes as a motorway and then as a B road into your home. Rats LOVE climbing cavity walls, especially ones with wall ties. Mice are happy squeezing through impossibly tiny spaces in your ground floor. Both will eat absolutely anything and everything. They'll also eat through the back of your cupboards to get to the food stuff (over 2kg of dried pasta amongst other things last year in my house). My next method will be a one way valve you fit onto the waste pipe outside (the one in the manhole you should have access too on your property).

Basically tldr, you really need to find and fill the entry point ASAP.

CreatingHavoc · 16/01/2025 14:30

@LT1233 thank you for all the info. I'm not even sure if it happened in the shop or in our house but we are deep cleaning the kitchen atm just in case. My cat caught something mouse shaped outside last night so she could very possibly have brought one in. Going to try and keep her downstairs tonight to see if she catches anything. Also going to check entry points and the loft as I know our neighbours have had rats in the loft previously. They've been in ours too in the past but weren't living in it. Might have to get on to pest control again.

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