Bananas not in pyjamas but mouse droppings!

[OhYuck]

I went down into the kitchen this morning to make a cup of tea and noticed 3 dark-coloured little 'things' in a used cereal bowl on the side. My mind flashed back to seeing a similar thing yesterday morning but thinking they were little seeds from cooking. I had a very uncomfortable sinking feeling and started to look around. What did I find?! A large bunch of bananas with the skin gnawed through on one and the banana eaten the size of a 2p piece! The bananas and around them including a DC's toy were covered in what I very much assume are mouse-droppings! I didn't know mice ate bananas?! The DC and I certainly won't be eating those bananas now and I think it's put me off bananas for life!

We have an indoor cat and haven't had any evidence of mice in the many years we've live here...until now. What is the best thing to do please, oh wise women of Mumsnet? TIA.

PS The cat is very senior now. We can't get a young mouser as he wouldn't like an interloper.

Three. options -

Mousetraps
Pest control
Move

Traps purchased and put down where the mouse/mice have been. I've removed the food source (the bananas) but put some of the nibbled, pooped and weed on skin by the traps to tempt the beasties.

The hardest thing is leaving the mouse mess rather than clearing it up. The advice on the trap boxes is to leave it as it is so that the mice don't become suspicious.

Rightmove searching on standby.

Look for any (tiny) entry points and block them with wire/steel wool - they won't run over or through it. Expert advice is that humane traps and releasing a mouse outside is actually cruel as it'll be a house mouse being dumped outside where it'll starve or be killed, so go for kill traps if safe for pets & kids.

The problem with our house is that it is very old and draughty, so there are probably a lot of those little mouse-sized access points. We've been ok though for decades, until now. I wonder if it/they came in during the recent cold snap and snow and got stuck or decided to stay.

I'm all for wildlife and animals so it has been hard to use these traps. I would have preferred to use the humane ones if they were really humane or to at least give the mouse or mice a chance. When a kitchen, food and toys are involved though and there are more vulnerable DC to consider, and not knowing how many mice we are dealing with or whether there are young in a nest somewhere in the house, I didn't feel I had any choice.

The trap by the pooped in cereal bowl doesn't seem to have been visited, although there was more poop in the bowl the first morning, nothing since. The second trap where the nibbled and pooped on bananas were has been visited the first two nights but I'm not sure about last night. Fingers crossed it's worked or is working, although of course I don't know how many mice we are dealing with.

Best to secure all other food sources while you’re dealing with this. Anything not in a tin or glass jar goes in secured plastic boxes. Might be a pain if they don’t fit in your cupboards, but they will move onto your pasta, rice, bread, etc.

I’m in a similar position although my cat wasn’t a mouser. I always assumed his smell kept the mice away. Also live in an old house.

Mice come every year once it’s cold. And I have to be extra careful about not leaving food accessible (including low cupboards). yesterday, I found a wee turd on my hob where I’d left spilled food. No chance of that kind of laziness in the winter it seems.

But they don’t hang around if all food is out of their reach. I’ve also blocked a couple of obvious holes (I used tin foil as the holes were small)

I didn’t think would gnaw through banana skins though. Good to know. Oh and don’t forget your bin is their buffet so you’ll probably need to empty it way evening.

This old house has never had a fitted kitchen, DownThePubWithStevieNicks. There's nothing much in the way of cupboards except the dresser bottom. Pretty much everything is on open shelves etc, which makes having these uninvited and unwelcome guests especially tricky and hazardous. That they've probably been scurrying about on everything doesn't bear thinking about, so I'm trying not to! Thanks for the tip about the containers.

There's never been any evidence of caught mice here over the years, so like you Lurkingandlearning I suspected just our cat's very presence kept them away. He's on my lap supervising me posting but that's as far as it goes for pest control help from him, at least these days.

We're not a minimalist household, nor with OCD levels of cleanliness thankfully, so being completely fastidious isn't coming easily or naturally. Not having a fitted kitchen and having pets and DC who understandably drop crumbs and leave toys about no doubt isn't helping. I suspect mousey had been nibbling remnants of cereal in the bowl and pooping at the same time. 'Oh yuck' indeed, or something similar.

Luckily there is rarely any food in our kitchen bin as it goes separately for recycling. I haven't noticed any disturbance to the bag the food waste is collected in either. Thanks for the tip about silver foil. I didn't have any wire/steel wool as recommended by RoamingGnome so I used foil last night to block a tiny worn away gap in the corner of the old wooden back door and also the bit where the draught excluder is missing along the bottom - now wondering whether the mice were responsible for that! Good luck with your own battle - with winter laziness and mice - Lurkingandlearning!

The latest on the traps is that the cereal bowl - no more poops - trap still hasn't been visited. I've moved that trap now to the hall, where I thought a mouse might also have been nibbling a bar of chocolate left on a chair. I can't tell whether or not the banana trap had been visited again last night. I don't want to disturb it too much as it seems to be the trap of choice and I don't want to put any mice off it.

What a pain, especially the week before Christmas. Hoping the little buggers don't get into any gifts or DCs' little chocolate stocking fillers - if they go upstairs it will be war!

Sounds like it won’t be easy, but now that you have them you need to give them zero access to food. No cornflakes left in bowls, no chocolate lying around, no pasta packets on shelf. Everything scraped away when finished, and if you need to stack sealed boxes in corner of kitchen for a while so be it.

New Year Mousegate update:

There has been no clear proof of further activity or trap visits in the kitchen, which is hopefully good news. However, we have a real Christmas tree up in there and I noticed a bauble moving about. I'm not sure whether I had knocked it, the house ghosts of Christmas past were having fun with me or there was a mouse sitting in the tree! For the first year ever we haven't put tree chocolates on. It felt a tad sad not to, but it seemed wise in the circumstances and we are doing our best to follow as much of @DownThePubWithStevieNicks ' and all other pps advice as possible.

The latest discovery is that a candle on the mantelpiece in the sitting room has been nibbled on and there are mouse droppings in and around the candle holder. I can't be sure when that happened as that room is rarely used. As the trap in the hall hadn't ever been visited, I moved that to next to the candle, resisting the urge to clean up the mess. That trap has now been visited and one and a half lots of bait eaten or taken, which is hopefully more good news.

The later candle trap visit - several days after the kitchen trap visits - does make it seem though that we had or have more than one mouse, or they are resistant to the bait. Does anyone know if some mice are resistant to it or if it takes some days to work?

I've now found a packet of granola in the kitchen with a hole gnawed in the bottom. I lifted it down and the granola started to pour out. I thought it was ok as it was a new sealed packet in a very strong plastic bag and on quite a high shelf. I can't tell when it happened and I'm really hoping that it pre-dates the traps.

No more mouse activity seen with food, droppings or traps for a whole week. I could be missing something hidden but hopefully not. A week seems to be very good news, especially in this freezing weather when I'd expect any mice to be more hungry, but I will keep the traps out and remain alert. After experiencing this once, especially at Christmas, I really don't want to have the little buggers as uninvited guests ever again.