mice :(

[happyhopefulmummy]

I've got them. I have seen them in the kitchen a couple of times, and that is bad enough, but I've since found mice droppings under my sofa cushions, when I picked up a blanket to use in the living room, droppings fell out. I know it sounds pathetic but I am terrified of them and feel totally violated!! I can't sit on my sofa, I just have images of mice running around under the cushions. :(

How are they gettting into my living room? What can we do about them? We've got traps and poison down, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. CAn I call someone? Is it worth it? Will they forever be there? Where are they hiding when we are in the room. (PLease don't tell me under the cushions!)

poor you, i think you need experts, call enviro health for advice ,if you are LA they will deal with it.In the meantime go outside and look really closely at the bottom of your walls,plug any gaps with wire wool or metal scourers(they cant chew through it)then set loads of traps in all the downstairs rooms, the plastic ronson claw traps are good.
Do this for five days,you will also need to clear out the affected rooms,hoover every square inch,also wash all toys and fabrics at 60 degrees.if you can try to throw sofa away.good luck.

Where have you got the traps and what are they baited with? I've had little furry visitors twice and I put (humane, because I love their little twitchy whiskery noses too much to hurt them) traps baited with peanut butter along skirting boards where I'd seen them run. Sorted the problem both times.

They will not be hiding under your sofa cushions while you're in the room, they're far more scared of you than you are of them! They'll be down a little hole or behind a heavy piece of furniture you never move or something.

You also need to find where they're getting in, block it if you can, and make your house unattractive for them - lock up all food in mouseproof containers, don't leave piles of cardboard/fabric in corners for them to nest in. If you've found droppings in the sofa I'd probably give your soft furnishings a good clean but I think throwing the sofa away would be going a bit far! They're only mice, not harbingers of a biblical plague :)

Nutella is very good as mouse bait on traps. Use the nipping type of trap.

I suggest that they may be living under your kitchen units. Thats where ours were. Put traps down and poison under them and it will get them. Position traps in rooms along walls where they run - not in the middle of the room.

Also we found they were coming in via the air bricks from outside. We covered our air bricks with very fine wire mesh and they stopped coming in. Wire wool round pipe/wire inlets is a very good idea too.

see if you can borrow a cat

Look on your councils website
Mine sends a man round for free!

thankyou all. I will phone the council and see what they will say. other than that, I'm thinking rent a kill? I have a 13 month old that is learning to walk and spends a lot of time on his hands and knees, so don't really want to put poison and traps all over the place!

Rentakill used to come round to my old work and they put poison traps down, not that I ever noticed a problem there. Talk to whoever you call out first, if their response is just to put poison down you might not be happy with that, plus you can do it yourself (it should be fine along the wall behind the sofa). I would say that filling any holes and a good cat (one which kills them rather than bringing back live presents) is probably the best long term solution.