HELP! We’ve got mice (I think)

[Muchtoomuchtodo]

I’ve found small animal droppings around the house - I think they must be mice.

Christmas decorations have come down today so I’ve hoovered really well all through the house and we’ve put some traps down. What else do I need to do?

I have no idea where they might be getting in which is bothering me.

You are not alone....plenty around at this time of year, because the cold weather drives them indoors. We get them in the loft, and occasionally they come into the rest of the house. They are pretty noisy, especially in the late evening, rustling about.

I put poison down (I find it more effective than traps, and less upsetting to deal with) and it all goes quiet.

They can get in under the floor, or along pipe runs....they really are tiny little buggers.

Check all your food cupboards and packets for chew holes.

I invested in lots of decent boxes and jars for all my dry goods after a mice invasion in a house years ago. Felt like an expense at the time, just realised it was 14 years ago, the boxes are all going strong and never have to worry about little nibble holes.

If they're in your loft and you use it for storage you may want to invest in big storage boxes to keep stuff in nice condition. Little so and so's can nibble through precious stuff especially things put up to keep like baby blankets and cause so much damage.

I'm in Edinburgh, where they're very common (as lots of period flats). I recommend stuffing wire wool in any gaps/holes in the wall.

The traps should do the job, we caught one, put it outside (it was dead) and a buzzard had it.

I think we have them at the moment but not sure. We occasionally find dead and decomposed ones under our (very low to the floor) sofa. Our cat loves catching mice so I never know whether the ones we find were living in the house or what the cat's brought in. We have quite an old house and had mice before we got a cat so they could be back. We've put humane traps down but the cat catches them first! Then we find bits of mice as offerings from the cat on the floor of a morning, which is grim.

I’ve not heard any evidence of them, only found droppings.

I wondered about poison but thought there might be a grim smell of decomposing mouse!

Checking the food cupboards is top of tomorrow’s to do list. They can’t climb into wall mounted cupboards can they?!

Thanks for the advice - I feel a bit gross knowing they’re somewhere in the house.

We had mice recently, heard them under the floor and DH saw one run out of our room!! Found they had got up through the floor and through the fireplace in DC bedroom. We put poison down and havent seen or heard anything since.

I really hope the traps work but would really like to figure out how they’ve got in to try to stop it from happening again.

I’m not a housekeeping goddess but far from being a slater and this makes me feel really unclean.

They probably can't get into wall cupboards, although ours managed to get into a drawer in the utility room, and chewed up my running earphones!

Regading poison and dead bodies....if you have mice in your house you will also have dead bodies at some point - regardless of whether you have hastened their demise. I have never noticed any nasty niffs. We did try humane traps, but 90% of the time they were able to pinch the bait without tripping the trap. And if they do get trapped you have to find/release them within a few hours, or they die, which isn't exactly humane. And the snappy traps - just....no.

They cant climb a smooth wall but do climb tiles, pipes, rope, wires, inside cavities etc so yes they do make it onto shelves and into wall cupboards. If your cupboards have fully sealed backs this is less of an issue. Many backs are not full though, they have cable space.

Slattern

We had mice in our shed recently and found that a sonar plug thing got rid of them straight away. We did put down traps after we had found and destroyed their comfy nest made from j cloths and pond filter wool but only caught three. I haven’t found any droppings since.

I had a sonar plug that worked like a treat until 2 months ago. useless Yorkshire Terrier didn't help either! I put down peanut butter baited snappy traps (bulky, black plastic) because I can't set the wooden ones

Caught 3 of the buggers and nothing since.

Nothing caught overnight. More droppings though. Urgh.

Think I’m going to be looking for a sonar plug today!

We had them recently. DP and I both saw them running across the floor. Then we found droppings behind the sofa and in our ottoman bed frame (grim). Traps did nothing. In the end we called in pest control and they were fab. Put ppison down and told us where to block holes. Do you have airflow bricks? That was where ours were getting in. No more mousies.

No sign of the little blighters overnight. Nothing in the traps and I haven’t found any droppings today.

Perhaps i’ve scared them off!

We do have an airflow brick - I guess it can’t just be blocked up so how do we get around that?

To clarify, DH thought he saw droppings but didn’t investigate further as he had a very early start. It was just the pattern on the carpet!

Are mice nocturnal?

They are definitely here and i’m guessing that they’re not nocturnal.

While I’ve been hoovering upstairs, a fresh dropping appeared in the front room . No idea where the little blighter is now though.........

Get some wire fencing from B&q and screw it to the wall using a drill. That's what we were advised to do. You need to make sure the holes are narrower than a pencil, as That's the size they can squeeze through

A pencil?!

Still nothing caught but there seems to be less droppings today.