We've got mice in our house... help!

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but we've got a mouse (or several...shudder!) in our house. We just returned from holiday yesterday, after being away for 3 weeks. DP opened the food cupboard, which is a floor to ceiling cupboard, in order to have some chocoalate. The chocolate was eaten, & lots of mouse droppings everywhere (ugh!!) No mouse droppings anywhere else, thankfully.

Today a pest control person came (100£ there and then) & managed to find a small hole in the cupboard, connected to a hollow bit of the wall. This bit probably goes up to the attic. He looked there (hard to get in) & wasn't able to see any obvious mouse droppings. The guy put poison everywhere & will come back for follow up & to seal the hole. He said he's seal it with a wooden piece.

I just wanted to get some advice from people who are experienced in this, who have had mice. Do you think what the pest control person did is adequate? Is there more we can do to prevent more mice coming in?

I think his fee was a bit steep.

We live in an old farmhouse and cannot stop mice from coming in but snap traps with peanut butter on the trap bit are very effective and cost less than a £1 each.

You can dust the worktop/ cupboard or wherever with flour and that way you can see where they are running. Mice pee wherever they run so there is a distinctive smell.

The other solution is to get a cat.

Hi Maria,

I am in no way experienced, but I have had mice (shudder indeed) and we used the council pest people to sort it out. They suggested areas to block access, and they put poison everywhere too. The £100 I paid also covered 2 more visits, where they checked the poison boxes and (ARGH!) removed some corpses.

The mice have not been back, touch wood.

I since have availed myself with an assortment of food jars in ikea, where I keep flour, pulses, sugar and pasta to discourage further rodent forage.

Hope yours go as well, it's really disgusting to encounter mouse droppings in your larder, specially with children about.

Well yes we have a toddler (17 months) so that makes it a bit more worrying.

Our 100£ also cover follow up visit & disposing of corpses (ughhhhhh!!!!) So if that's what council charges then I wasn't ripped off...

Pacita, the one thing pest control guy told us was that plastic jars/containers don't work as rats/mice can chew through them. Glass and metal are suitable. Are your IKEA ones glass/metal?

Am now panicky about the whole thing & am seriously thinking of throwing away my compost bin with everything in it, because I've heard rats love compost bins. Was a bit naive when I started it as I didn't know about all this. Am thinking though that disposing of what's inside will be hard to do, so perhaps I'll just stop adding (it's almost full anyway) & let it rot away, in the hope that rats won't go near it & if they do that they won't come near the house (SHUDDER!!!!)

Its a shame that a fee is set up to get rid of the mice (and amongst other rodents)a problem when we pay council tax !,
anyway after paying a number of fees Irealise they seem to always come back ,my consilation is that they were visiting the entire neighbourhood!,so it just was`nt me.
so after looking around,I found the cheap version of catching mice....sticky pads.the mice run along and get stuck to it...cheap and nusty!
but it works like magic and you can find this at the poundland or similar
good luck!

Thanks Inaiz,

In our case there was a lot of food in this particular cupboard (some of it opened in bags e.g. dried fruit) & there was a hole leading into the wall which we were unaware of. That's where the mouse/mice were coming through & having little midnight feasts apparently. Thankfully we haven't found mouse dropping anywhere else in the house.

Hi Maria,crafty little buggers I tell you,anyway I had to move all my stock from the walkin cupboard into a sealed box and all open bags in an airtight container,yes I HAD TO REARRANGE MY LIFESTYLE FOR THESE BUGGERS!
I think that the U.K is heading for another mice rush as it did in the haydays........so U.K. BE WARNED! [WINK]
Take Care

Hi Maria,crafty little buggers I tell you,anyway I had to move all my stock from the walkin cupboard into a sealed box and all open bags in an airtight container,yes I HAD TO REARRANGE MY LIFESTYLE FOR THESE BUGGERS!
I think that the U.K is heading for another mice rush as it did in the haydays........so U.K. BE WARNED! [WINK]
Take Care

blimey
council charges £21.40 in our area for 3 visits!

they came 5 times in the end, so I had to pay again. Left lots of bait, checked it each time and put down more if it was still being nibbled. Though I think the first lot got most of them-dh never saw any more mice after that and I stopped finding droppings. we have blocked little holes around pipes etc with wire wool.

Maria

Sorry to say we had rats nesting in our wooden compost bin - urghhh! they never came anywhere near the house thank goodness.

We emptied contents of compost bin into a lg black plastic compost bin and dh put soil and stones/slabs around the base so they couldn't dig in from around the edges/underneath. Seems to have worked.

I have used glass coffee jars (lg refill type size) for pasta etc for many years in my pantry. We now have a mice problem in living room ceiling/bedroom floor dh has heard them but no signs yet in house. Not sure how to investigate without ending up with loads of corpses between ceiling and floor...

You don't need the council and their poison:

a) get a cat

or

b) set mousetraps baited with raisins/chocolate/peanut butter.

Poison bait is an anti-coagulant and a painful death by internal bleeding.
Traps are quick and clean.

Blocking holes will not work: a mouse can get thorugh a gap the width of a biro.

We have had mice before and usually the cat takes of them,I'm not a great cat lover but he is worth his weight in gold!!
The peanut butter trick is the best and if you put cling-film over and then make small holes in it,you have that extra second or two for the trap to work.
Fiddly,but I can't use poison because of children and animals and much better than being woken at silly o'clock by that creepy scracthing!!

Those plug-in deterents are good but the waves (sonic?? ultrasound??)only work in straight lines and will be blocked by furniture etc

Grim indeed. We have had an infestation this year (live in the country). We stopped counting at 55 corpses.

Beware of the poison - make sure your DC are not going into that cupboard and check regularly to see that there are no dead mice anywhere in the house - when hoovering or whatever

Keep your food in plastic boxes - Ikea or supermarkets. If possible not accessible from the floor, and the sonic (expensive) mouse deterrants work ok. The best thing is the old fashioned wooden traps, using peanut butter. Cheap enough to chuck away when you catch one. Buy a big bag of rubber gloves. Sweep up every day

And solution we have not done yet is get a cat - but DONT use poison if you do get a cat as it will hurt the cat if they catch a poisoned mouse or eat the poison.

Hope you get it sorted - I hate the little gits