To be horrified at what I’ve come home to?

[deedeemegadoodoo]

I’ve been on holiday for two weeks and just arrived home to mouse droppings all over the house. My DH mentioned he saw a mouse in the hot bin composter just before we left and it seems to have snuck inside and run amok.

What can I do? I have a small dog so poison is a no no. I’m not scared of mice but obviously want a quick solution to get rid.

Snap traps and try and keep the dog away? It is horrible but they breed very quickly and we’ve unfortunately always found that if there was one, there have ended up being more. We’ve had them a couple of times. Loose cereal has generally been the thing that has attracted them in. We are now very careful about having everything like that in Tupperware.

Snap traps its better for the mouse to get a fast death

Traps?

We had one a few years ago and it was seen off by traps within a few days

Get a cat.

Snap traps. You can put them in box's with holes cut out to protect the dog

Snap traps, put a bit of snickers on it, get more than one trap, x

Call pest control - money worth spending.

Get mouse traps quick. The quick snap ones that kill instantly. The humane traps are anything but and cause the mice huge anxiety and stress. My husband at the time we had them refused to use traps and just set out bits of food in the hope he could lure them out but in the meantime they destroyed the whole back of our kitchen units and ate through the washing machine hose and caused a flood.
Cost us a bloody fortune.

@deedeemegadoodoo
I had 4 of these. Also bought wire wool to block up any entry holes.

I had three cats, bloody useless 🤣

Borrow a tomcat

Thanks all. We’ll be going to pick up snap traps tomorrow. As much as I love cats (and my sister has several), we also have a dog at home who wouldn’t be good with a cat suddenly appearing in the home, for the cat’s sake! Everything will have to be washed tomorrow too as I’ve found droppings in the spare bedroom bed as well.

Please tell me this is a normal occurance as I’m in my 50s and it’s never happened to me before.

I had some in my loft and as a lone parent, I had to deal with them myself. I bought 6 snap traps and caught 17 of the little beggars but eventually cleared them all out. Chocolate spread was my most successful bait.

Mice and rat poison must legally only be used in a secure bait box in the UK. You absolutely are not allowed to just free bait. So having a dog makes no difference; your dog won’t be able to access the poison as it will be secure in a bait box. So use poison or snap traps. But they get smart with the snap traps, you will catch the most the first night you use them, so use lots all along the walls where they are most likely to run, facing inwards to the skirting so they can run into it from both sides.

We had a mouse once. We have 2 cats. They were terrified of it !!! Retreated to the cat tree and then wanted to sleep on our bed when usually they love their warm spot snuggled on the sofa with a fleece !!!!

Traps that kill them baited with Nutella. I found only Nutella worked. Chocolate spread from Tesco was completely ignored.

We had these - very effective

Honestly? I’d call a professional. Get the rat man out they’re good value. I couldn’t sleep!

I've got two dogs OP and I've always use these.

They're very affective and the dogs just leave them alone, especially if you place them in hard to get at areas.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rentokil-PSF135-Action-Killer-Multi-Color/dp/B000TAY2HI/ref=sr_1_9?crid=DB7TDIX3T1Y9&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.92yRN48YWf_tCoHe30H-LNOYWRQ7MQdyp7UDiHm90ilGPFT7QmXpz73O4l083vVWfmW6e-m4ZAxfVWJh34AwbGpzqWmDfKmZWdCyR_zolehXn0ahPsDhXE5HfZeLyr5ykJ3088PVrzebmA1TgIKx6iQqPhfnGBLAAjLQPpoxwS-DIqgKcEvZ_XWWcFQNPWtyD0NJiCDmY5Sitt4m_F0919rvbk03R6pRY5x14jVCW-mLKkkWQIcmUNyUYfbvZYBrjWKL149WDjcnhHXJmA8EkesMXsfHO7PQLl6jOFi1BE8.Sy207Q_OwA9FM2Kk2-TzZr86HWbiS_H_u66mv_6yeqY&dib_tag=se&keywords=mouse%2Bbait%2Bbox%2Bpet%2Bsafe&qid=1775939675&sprefix=mouse%2Bbait%2Bbox%2Bpet%2Bsaf%2Caps%2C365&sr=8-9&th=1

We had mice at work once. Make sure all food is secured so mice can’t get to it. I.e. put cereals in plastic boxes or tins. Mice can get through a hole the size of a pencil so just putting food in a cupboard or drawer isn’t enough. We paid a loopy of money for pest control who achieved nothing. Standard traps worked with a. Dab of peanut butter But mice constantly dribble wee so you do need to get rid of it.

We found the best bait for traps was Bite Size Shredded Wheat with peanut butter or Nutella. Cheese is a waste of cheese 😉

We have had one mouse twice (about a year apart, so unrelated). We used a “humane” trap and caught both on the night we first became aware of them, so very successful. Obviously we left the trap set up for weeks afterwards, just in case there were more. I agree with PP though that humane traps are really not very humane. It was nicer for us to release into the wild rather than dealing with dead mice, but I think it was worse for the mice.

PS we have 2 cats but they didn’t give a s**t. Too busy sleeping

Borrow a cat. Good mouser won't be scared of your dog! Or send the dog to whoever lending the cat for a few days.

Lent my cat to a friend and she did 5 mice in the first night. Hard to find a good one, her sister couldn't catch anything. They'd both been living half wild for the first few months of life so assume she'd learnt from her mum. Would bring "presents" every night of things she'd caught in the fields behind the house!

Most councils offer competitively priced pest control services from properly qualified and licensed professionals - mine charge £115 for rats and mice and this covers the initial visit and two follow ups if needed. Have a look on your council’s website.

A number of years ago we had rats in our loft. They had come into our garden from our (unattached) neighbour next door (they had a big veg patch, composting area and often left food out for garden birds etc). The rats had made a nest under one of our patio flagstones and then got up our drainpipes and made it into our loft. They also managed to get into our attached neighbour’s house on the other side via a tiny gap in our loft space - it’s amazing how easily they can get anywhere and everywhere.

Myself and the attached neighbour split the costs for the exterminator and it was sorted pretty quickly. And after a polite word with the neighbour to blame, and him implementing some changes in his garden, we’ve thankfully never had any repeat visitations!

We also had a dog at the time, but thankfully the furry critters hadn’t ventured further than our loft and the patio, so they could use poison pellets as well as some traps to sort it.

Hope you get it sorted out soon. I can still remember the shame I felt over having rats in my house and what that said about my cleaning standards, even though the logical part of my brain knew it was not down to me.