Mice!

[LouiseInLondon]

I'm so fed up. I have put down traps (various types, various baits) but no luck catching them this time (have been successful in the past), poison in those prebaited plastic things, some evidence of having been taken.

I saw another mouse today this has been going on for ages.

What do I do?

Rentokil? Have you tried those plug in repellents?
Also,mice love chocolate so try that in the traps.

Get the council in. They charge about £100 but they use industrial strength poison and know where to put it. Good luck

Thanks so much for replying.

I've heard that the repellents are no good once the mice are in?

I've tried nutella in the traps, thought that would be chocolate and sticky.

If I got professionals in what would they do?

It's just horrible.

Crosspost with allgoodindahood!

Thanks, have you had succes with council pest control?

We put mars bar and peanut butter on ours, seems to work. Maybe obvious, but the bait can take a while. We were told to put some down, wait two weeks then put more down. Otherwise you are repoisoning the same mice iykwim. Also to make sure the bait or traps were in frequent flyer areas. Another improtant thing with the bait is to make sure there is no other option food wise so they have to take it.

Having said all of that, we never fully got rid of the buggers, but I think that's country life for you!

Chocolate buttons melted onto snappy traps.

A female cat

Yes Louise, we got the council in and mice were gone within a few weeks. Strong stuff they use and visit 3 times to lay more bait in the right places. Also gave lots of advice about closing up interior and exterior holes. Some parts of London really do suffer badly with mice and its worth getting the professionals in. Could they be coming in from next door? Anyone in your street done any building work?

Hi, my cat once brought in a live mouse and we were trying to catch it for about a week, i ended up seeking advice from a pest controller in the end.
I had two kinds of traps - humane and the snappy ones , and in the end it was the humane one that caught it. You need to position the trap so it's facing the wall ( so the snappy bit is facing the wall/the entrance on a humane one is facing the wall)
Mice tend to go round the edges of walls you see.
I baited mine with chocolate.
One point to add is, if you use humane traps you need to check them every couple of hours as they can't stay alive in there for long.
Good luck, hope you have success, that put years on me!

In our last house we were literally indundated with them. On all three floors, heard them scurry in between the walls, saw them race through our washed laundry - dreadful. Council wouldn't come in because they were on more than one level and it would involve removing the floor to get them (which is strange because a friend on four levels got the council in, however, to no avail). So dh brought the same kit the professionals use online. We also brought some of those alarms. Eventually, my dh resorted to using a foam cricket bat to kill them (disclaimer here that dh grew up on a farm in outback Australia, used to all sorts of plagues of one type or another - his not crazy, just grew up in much different enviroment to me!). He could get at least one a night. Eventually we got rid of them, and then moved to the other side of the road. We've only seen a couple here, and not for about a year (fingers crossed). The mouse problem is endemic in our street and I have small kids and a fear of creepy crawlies!

Get a cat. Keep it well fed so hunting is sport not survival. Both our neighbours have mice, and sometimes rats. We just have a tiny timid kitty lean mean feline killing machine.

I'm freaking out - it's all been quiet on our rodent front the last month or so despite the odd poo but in the last 3 days I've seen 4. I'm scared to walk round the flat now - not scared of them - just seeing them though makes me' feel desperate. So council poison and small kids (toddlers)-does it mix? I've been using the sonic things but obviously not working and gave caught chuff all in my humane traps. Landlord suggested poison not an option with kids. Any thoughts?

Chocolate, raisins and peanut butter / peanuts are all good. We like Big Cheese traps, especially the ones which kill quickly but mean you don't have to touch the mouse to release it. We add bait though.

We tried humane traps, but they took the bait & then escaped. The next mouse was too fat to get in the trap.

We had a mice problem last winter. We used the simple snap-shut traps (they seem to be the most effective, and the cheapest!) We baited them with peanut butter and put them in the hotpress, which had holes in the floor and ceiling. We caught 23 mice in 6 weeks! I got the council out too, as there seemed to be no end to the whole thing. The pest control guy searched around the house outside to identify where they were getting in and discovered a vent just peeking out of the concrete garage floor (attached to house). The holes in it were tiny but the pest control man was certain that was where they were getting in and then climbing up the cavity of the wall and along under the upstairs floorboards. He laid poison traps where we had seen droppings (under utility room sink and in hotpress) The following few nights we heard a lot of noise as they were dying (they don't go quietly!) We covered the vent with very fine, but strong mesh, and since then have had no more mice.

Just relaying our experience. HTH.

lolly the poison boxes the council laid in our house wouldn't have been easy for a child to get into. They are designed so that the mouse has to enter the box and turn the corner to get to the poison (IYSWIM). Also, they will probably try to identify where the mice are coming from and lay the poison at the point of entry, rather than in the middle of your flat where your DCs could get their hands on it.

Thanks ladies - I think I'm going to call the council (hopefully landlord will do it for me'). I was all for doing this the humane way but having caught bugger all I think we just need to go with the poison as I only see it getting worse

Lolly, I was worried about poison, but they are pretty impenetratable boxes. Also, the critters follow the same path all the time and it takes roughly a month for a 'colony' to die out. Sadly, if you start seeing little mice, it means you are getting somewhere, they are coming out for food because the parents are gone. I was all for doing it the humane way also. But the fuckers just bred!!! We were quite literally overrun and their crap was everywhere. We had to do something. There is some horrid statistic that for every mouse you see, there about 16 unseen. Urgh!!!! I am lucky in someways that my husband is unaffected by battering them!! A reality of life growing up in the middle of nowhere in Australia. Congrats on dc4 btw x

Hi!

We have had mice a couple of times as well. Hate them, because they kept me awake at night, they were so noisy.

Get pest control in.

By wire wool from hardware store, and plug up ANY little holes you have in your house. Round pipes, in airing cupboards, in the skirting boards. Mice HATE wire wool. It would be like us eating barbed wire you see.

Pest control will put lots of traps down in the best places : in the attic, airing cupboard etc.

Keep house clean and hoovered.
Put boxes of cereal, biscuits, pasta rice and bread in air tight large tupperware tubs.

Buy these high frequency plug in contraptions. They send out beeps that we can't hear, but that mice find repellant. Put one on each floor of your house. They will make sure that once your mice have gone, others wont want to come in.