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.

Get a friend or neighbour to take the dog for a couple of weeks (or put him in kennells) and use poison. Set it out in little dishes so you know exactly where you put it and can see it disappearing. You will be surprisedby how much they can eat.

We’ve recently had work done on our chimney / loft and our neighbour is mid renovation, so could have come in that way. Our ‘relaxing’ day at home tomorrow before going back to work will be, instead, a day of pest control. I was spiralling earlier from the shock but feel a bit better now. We always had a cat until around 5 years ago; no wonder I hadn’t experienced this before!

Train the dog to catch em

Terriers are generally better than cats for catching rats and mice

I’ve checked the upper kitchen cupboards ( with dry goods etc) and they seem to be clear. All food in containers there anyway. The cupboard under the sink is full of droppings but this is also where we had baskets and dog treats. I’ll be checking for openings tomorrow and clearing this area out too.

I’ve got one of those torches from when my dog was a pup…will keep checking.

From the amount of droppings around the house, I think you’re right. We had a dog toy we used to stuff with treats and it’s been destroyed.

We have had bait taken from bait boxes and left around by rats just FYI. Luckily our dogs either didn't find them or weren't interested.
We changed to snap traps with nut butter inside.

Little Nipper traps all over. Be persistant. Night after night. There's no such things as having one mouse as they live in families. Peanut butter as bait as they've to lick it off. Some clever ones snatch the cheese off before it triggers. The sticky pads are great too but said to be cruel. My record is 6 on one pad one night, all squealing away with feet stuck next morning.

The dark ages called, they want their advice back! Just get the plugs that make a noise the mice hate and they will leave of their own accord and not come back.

When we had them we were told that it was likely that nearby building works had disturbed nests.

Yes he is home most days but has been on holiday with us. He has a prey drive despite looking cute as a button.

Get a cat

YES. If any building work is being done in neighbouring homes, their mice will move to yours. No food left out, everything in tins, plastic boxes. Don't feed them.

Wear kitchen gloves when you bait the traps so they don't smell of humans, bait with peanut butter, put behind the sofa etc along the skirting boards but not right next to, a few inches out, that's what I read when we had a mouse in our house. It was thoughtfully bought into our house and released by our bloody cat. These tips worked for us and it took a few days as I remember. Bad luck, a vile feeling.

I live away at times and came back after a couple of months to find rats in my garage - thankfully they never made it into the house! I tried all kinds and it hit to the point where they were literally waiting to fed poison. They stole the skewer things in the traps I had like it was a kebab!! This went on for a couple of weeks until I found some stronger poison and then a flurry of 'sleeping' rats in various hidden places as they had obv died sleeping.

It was awful! I hope and pray it is just mice and no rats as they are sooo hard to get rid of and HUGE when they scurry across your path!!

Took forever to get rid of the wee smell too 😩

Find all holes/ gaps and tape or use metal wool. The dog being back should see off the mouse?

Thanks all so much for your contributions. I don’t feels as bad now. We will try the dog / traps / bait approach initially but will contact pest control if needed.

Snap traps never worked for us, we used to live in a house next to a farm so loads of mice came in and on loads of occasions woke to the mouse squealing as it had a paw or tail stuck. Use a live trap, put chocolate spread in and the mouse will go in, then release far away. Our cat and dog our useless mousers!!

What’s this?

We have a similar situation. We've just in the past couple of days discovered evidence of them in our kitchen. We blocked off a couple of suspected entrance points in our brickwork and one of our cupboards. We've 3 times in the past couple of days seen one running in and out of the same point under a fridge unit in broad daylight 😱 I am hoping that this is more because they're disturbed right now than because there's hundreds of them. We have set the poison bate traps and they've just ripped the bait straight out of there. They're clever little buggars. We have 2 cats who are pretty good mousers. They have only so far caught one and even then all they did was torment it 🤦‍♀️ I had to finish the job and move the mouse outside. It's driving them mad as they can clearly hear them in the skirting/floor boards but the mice are too clever for them. Don't rely on cats!

Totally normal, we had a big infestation when we moved to our Edwardian flat. Getting a cat sorted it, but as you said that isn’t an option for you. A friend had excellent results with something like this ( she had rats under the floorboards) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Padonco-Ultrasonic-Pest-Repeller-Plug/dp/B0GCCBDY9Z/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bmLktR6QNcfYL61Rp7nzLhLsgE4HJlWThUAmk3d3wS6nisoithnaPtR47w-IfisQxV0KBHXgZAFsIFBqJ4FRQuijQZVBE3gWCecmTL_yLXg5yFtgyUMSH9wxgiBoyQZDWsrWrB54OWEWR7lyfgzD3QeuoRhETwbSg-UMcd5icJOcNVRYT6mHJ_EUEY0epveRM9muBOUd-Ei97OSaAVwNLg.802GKuzPs2jfJ5x99_83wIQ25-7ZyOSwIhf2dXP-PkY&dib_tag=se&keywords=ultrasonic+rodent+repeller&qid=1775944240&sr=8-4

I agree. Our cat runs a live mouse relocation project in between the garden and our house!!!

This may not help the OP but for those with a rat/mouse in your loft we use on regular basis Repel Shield Rat and Mouse spray. It sounded like they were practicing for River Dance at one point but as long as we spray on a regular basis they stay away. Get on line at Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/RepellShield-Mouse-Repellent-Spray-Alternative/dp/B08DKSX32W/ref=sr_1_7?sr=8-7

Snap traps with peanut butter will get the bold ones. But where there 1/2 there’s many 🤢 only thing that worked for me was calling out council pest control. Was actually pretty cheap at £120ish for x3 visits. I have two cats who aren’t natural mousers and I was worried they’d find the poison. They didn’t and can’t get into the secure boxes though. Best thing to do as they take it back to the nest and it’s kills the rest off. Mice carry hantavirus which is so worrying. I’d use pest control each and every time.