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Housekeeping

Find cleaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Housekeeping forum.

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Original poster

second night running I have found a mouse running across my living room

74 replies

QueenBeety · 24/06/2006 22:31

what do i do?????

OP posts:

honeychild · 25/06/2006 17:14

Humane traps not at all humane - even if the mouse survives to be released, it will die of shock soon afterwards. Also, you still have to deal with live mouse which might run up your leg, eeeeeeeeek.
Best ones (from long and tiresome experience) are the old-fashioned traps - though clever mice can often get the food off without getting trapped. Put several down - one is not enough. Good luck!

WideWebWitch · 25/06/2006 17:19

Call pest control, they come round, put down poison and they go. We had them in the last house, ewww. They can get through a gap the size of a pencil apparently. Mine were running across the floor in DAYLIGHT!

Lemmingswife · 25/06/2006 17:25

We had them too, in our old house. They were horrible - they got into some of our kitchen cupboards & chewed through teatowels & DS2's bibs. They also got into the garage & chewed through the mesh on DS's travel cot.
We tried traps, but they didn't seem to work. In the end we got the pest control people out & never had anymore trouble with mice.
Big sympathies to you though, beety. Mice are the pits!

kid · 25/06/2006 17:35

We had mice when an old building next to us was being renovated. We never saw the mice at first, they were to nervous but we found some droppings. After a couple of weeks the cheeky mice started to come into the same room as us!
We put traps down and caught 7! (Apparently, you don't get 1 mouse living on its own!)
I reported it to pest control who came round and put poison down. They came back 2 weeks later and there was no evidence of any more mice. We haven't had any since and that was over a year ago.

I don't mind mice, I think they are cute, but I don't want them running around in my house.

horseshoe · 19/07/2006 09:13

eeekkk I saw one last night in my house. I screamed like I was being murdered.
I left some food on floor to see if I def had em. (wight watchers cake of course) and the little bugger loved it. I'll be pissed off if he loses at his next weigh in!!!!!

themoon66 · 19/07/2006 09:53

We wondered why our dog was obsessed with sniffing around the edges of the kitchen and in the pantry. Then I got up one morning and there was a mouse sitting on top of the fridge. We made eye contact, I screamed and dropped the milk and the mouse shot behind the fridge. I got DH to pull the fridge out when he got home and we found a next of babies on the warm bit at the back.

Later on we found a perfect little round next of baby mice on top of the car engine. They had used the insulation of the inside of the bonnet to build the nest. Must have been the best travelled mice in England,

themoon66 · 19/07/2006 09:59

next?? what is wrong with my fingers today.... I mean NEST of course.

Joceybean · 19/07/2006 10:45

We had exactly the same thing happen. Sat there watching telly and mouse ran past. Freaked me out and was all ready to move out. Fortunately our cat got it the next day. I found it inside out in the spare room, yeachh!!!

melrose · 19/07/2006 10:48

I ahve seen 2 recently in my living room too, they are just tiny field mice. Have a "humane" trap but have not caught one yet. DEfinitely still around as several sitings. Amazingly unfreaked by it, dspite initial yelp when I saw one. Should I be concerned? They dion't carry diseases like rats do thewy?

horseshoe · 19/07/2006 11:08

I dont think so...I hope not as DD2 crawls all over the floor.
Their poos are so tiny too easy to miss.

themoon66 · 19/07/2006 11:11

They are buggers for chewing wires though. Plus they wee all over the place. Not enough for you to see, but it smells horrible after a while. Like your kitchen is a hamster cage that hasn't been cleaned out for a fortnight.

CarlK · 19/07/2006 11:48

I'm not sure about field mice/voles etc, but your average house mouse is basically incontinent and they leave little trails of wee wherever they go,

Now you're all feeling better

Best bet is the professional exterminators, the poison they use puts them to sleep quite quickly.
city mice apparently need different poisons as the turn up their little noses at anything that doesn't smell like fast food.

Our cats still catch them despite having bells on their collars

KTeePee · 19/07/2006 12:09

Get a cat!

horseshoe · 19/07/2006 12:47

Well Hubby went home and opened the door and a litte mouse was sitting on the doorstep. He thought it had opened the bloody door to him.

themoon66 · 19/07/2006 12:58

Don't get a cat..... they bring more wildlife into the house than they take out!!!

MerlinsBeard · 19/07/2006 13:01

we got rid of ours by forst of all finding out where they were coming in and then we got these covered baited traps from b and q. they died pretty quickly and now we have none (3 days it took) however, if u do get one of thiose traps, make sure u remember to check IN them every so often. liquid mouse does not smell pretty and WILL make u sick (sick not envy)

SoupDragon · 19/07/2006 13:03

I've got bl@@dy mice too.

SoupDragon · 19/07/2006 13:04

can I put those b&q traps out and not check them, just throw them away each day without looking??

fistfullofnappies · 19/07/2006 13:11

traps dont work. Either find out where they're coming in and block it, or get a cat. Poison is a second best alternative.

fistfullofnappies · 19/07/2006 13:11

soupdragon, no you cant because the mouse could be alive.

fistfullofnappies · 19/07/2006 13:13

sorry, just read last post about b+q traps...ime, you can get rid of so many mice with traps, but if you havent blocked where theyre coming in, more will come, so you are always setting the traps, and its a no-win situation.

Aero · 19/07/2006 13:31

I'm with Turq and Carlk - they wee everywhere and if they're in your kitchen at all it's a constant cleaning process until you're sure they've gone, so I have little sympathy for them once they've entered the house. Set traps - imo the best traps are the snappy ones - and at least you know the mice you catch won't be coming back. Poison works too, but seems more cruel somehow and you never know where they'll crawl off to and cause a most unpleasant odour when they die.
Getting a man in is another option, but tbh, he'll only set traps or put poison down - nothing more than you can do yourself at a fraction of the price.

I recommend getting a cat though - we've had very little bother with mice since adopting our pair.

horseshoe · 19/07/2006 13:52

I was wondering about cats and thought of borrowing one but not sure it would work!!

I have just had to rehome my dogs and suddenly they are everywhere. I think I probably had a problem long before now and it's only cause dogs have gone that they are popping out of the woodwork!

MerlinsBeard · 19/07/2006 19:12

sorry, should have explained properly. we got baited traps from b&q (would link but they aren't on the site) the bait is inside a plastic "box" so the boys couldn't get at it if they were foraging around. mice go in, eat the bait and its really quick acting, they are dead in minutes (seconds in the case of 1 mouse!) I didn't want the snappy ones, apart from the fact that we had tried that and the mice were just robbing the choclolate, i didn't want to see a squished mouse!

When we knew 100% where they were coming, we blocked that up too and have had no problems. We did forget to check the traps after we sealed up the hole though, one must have just been dying as we sealed up the entrance because the kitchen STANK and DPO had to move liquid mouse.

Would def recommend the traps. Think they are called baited mouse box (clearish plastic with green bait in)

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