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Housekeeping

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Original poster

there's a mouse about this house...

14 replies

luckywinner · 02/06/2008 09:42

bloody hell, me and dh were woken a lot of times last night to scratchy scratch and found a mouse in our room, which scuttled off v quickly but now have been left the task of getting rid of it. anyone got any tips? i have 2 dc (3 and 1) so leaving poison about the house is not an option. no idea what to do. never had mice! no idea where it came from as we live in a flat a couple of flights up.

OP posts:
tiredlady · 02/06/2008 09:46

My sympathies.
We recently had a problem with mice. I think there was a commune of them living in our kitchen.They get EVERYWHERE!

What you need is those humane traps .The mouse crawls in to them to get the food, but then the trap tips over so they can't get out again. I think you can get them in B+Q.We caught 4 in as many days, but I think there are more of them lurking...

florenceuk · 02/06/2008 09:51

humane traps don't work, they just come back (or infest somebody else's house). Mice can breed astonishingly quickly, so you want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Buy a good trap, put it behind the toaster.

We had a very stubborn mouse (who refused to take any bait). Eventually we had to call in the professionals as he had taken to sauntering around the living room floor as we watched TV. They laid some poison behind the skirting boards in the kitchen and also some rather horrible but effective sticky traps covered in glue on which the mouse, well, stuck, to be disposed of later.

bran · 02/06/2008 09:55

The bad news is that if you've actually seen one then you almost certainly have more than one. I find the snap traps are best, baited with peanut butter. You also need to try and work out how they are getting in and block it off, either with expanding foam stuff or with wire wool (buy them from a diy store).

clam · 02/06/2008 09:56

If you manage to catch one (and they don't half move quick!), take it WELL away from the house (like a mile or two) to set free, otherwise it'll just come straight back in. And I believe they prefer chocolate to cheese as a bait - cheeky gits.

LittleMyDancing · 02/06/2008 09:58

Chocolate works well, as does crunchy peanut butter, for some reason. We found the humane traps worked well, but as clam says, take it at least 3 or 4 mile away from the house to release it.

madamez · 02/06/2008 10:03

Milk chocolate bounty bars on snap-traps did for the little bastards in my house, followed by a rampage round with wire wool putting it everywhere.

They are horrid, a thorough nuisance and seem to be just millions of them this year.

Original poster
luckywinner · 02/06/2008 10:35

bugger bugger i thought it was just a sneaky one that had got through our gap under our front door. lol at bounty bars, if i bought them there might not be many left for the mice.

OP posts:
Fizzylemonade · 03/06/2008 16:12

We bought a sonic device that you plug in from Maplins but Dh did say something about B&Q selling the same thing.

Ours leaves poo in the garage and we have seen it dive across our lounge.

We did get a humane trap and laced it with peanut butter but to no avail.

GustWriter · 03/06/2008 18:05

peanut butter or tuna fish - they love that.
if you can trap (and kill) a handful in as many days they should leave you alone.

its likely that they were drawn in by the flats below / by any rubbish bags on the street outside the flats below - and then they just come up for warmth / alternative menus.

we had them with a baby and you want to get rid of them fast as their poop carries diseases.

mummypig · 03/06/2008 23:41

It's a horrible feeling, hearing or seeing them scuttling around, isn't it? And they poo and wee all over the place and spread all kinds of germs. I am pg and have two ds and got really obsessive about cleaning the floor after we spotted one in our house. I added peppermint oil to the detergent we mop the floor with, as they aren't supposed to like the smell. We also bought one of those sonic things but it didn't seem to make any difference.

We did catch two in humane traps (one was baited with ham and honey and the other with a chocolate button) and then none after that. You have to keep moving the traps around and changing the bait as the mice are clever and seem to work out what's going on if one of them gets caught.

We were about to buy some snap traps but then found out where the mice were coming from. Our neighbours had a wooden box in their garden and had stored lots of seeds in there. The mice must have thought it was heaven . Luckily after our neighbours took care of the nest we didn't have any more visitors - at least we haven't spotted any, or any tell-tale droppings either.

It might be worth you talking to the people in other flats as you can't do much if they are just visiting your flat and the main problem is somewhere else.

mammya · 04/06/2008 00:12

Make your own humane mouse trap from household implements: this works! I have caught "my" mouse this way. Then you just have to let it out far away from your house (so it won't come back)

megandtyler · 04/06/2008 00:30

get a cat
or though mine brings in mice,birds,worms

still alive for me to kill

maybe don't get a cat

air rifle?

Original poster
luckywinner · 04/06/2008 19:04

sorry for not replying, been away from computer. have been to ryness and bought lots of traps where you can put poison in but babies and children can't get to it. i am going to bed with my earphones in as i can't bear the thought of being woken up by a mouse scuttling past my ear, yuck!
can't get a cat as am allergic, air rifle sounds good though

OP posts:
Elizabeth19 · 05/06/2008 15:13

Hi - just thought I'd sympathise as I am in exactly the same position having been woken earlier in the week by the unmistakable scrabbling of a mouse in our bedroom! We have seen it running up and down our hallway too - we live in a first floor flat. It's awful and the mouse has evaded all our attempts to catch it using snap and glue traps. It has also chewed a hole in our carpet trying to escape. I find it really hard to sleep just lying there waiting for the scratching to start!

If anyone has any more tips for trapping a mouse, I'd be really grateful. We are going on holiday on Monday for 2 weeks and I hate the thought of the mouse still being loose pooing and weeing everywhere and chewing our furniture. I also have an 18 month old so poison isn't really an option.

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