Mice in the kitchen - eek and help please!

[fedupwithdeployment]

We've been in our house (typical Edwardian terrace in London) for about a year - fab kitchen. In fact generally fab.

BUT, last week we found that one of our food cupboards had clearly had a visitor. We chucked out everything that looked like it had been nibbled and scrubbed and bleached the cupboard. We have rearranged things so that anything that might be attractive to mice is elsewhere.

And then last night a small brown mouse (definitely not rat) ran across the kitchen floor (nowhere near the ex-food cupboard).

What should I do? Mouse traps, poison??? Can we deal with this ourselves or do we need to get people in?

Help please! Thanks.

I can almost hear them squeaking at me......any suggestions??

We've had recurring visits in our house, mostly in the cellar and garage but they did make it behind the kitchen cupboards where they chewed the dishwasher pipe and caused a leak. We always use poison, you put little trays of it down (behind the plinths or in cellar/ garage where dc won't touch). The only problem we have had a couple of times is that one has clearly died under the floorboards where it then decomposed and absolutely stank, this only lasts a week or so though.

we put put humane traps baited with chocolate..

they were like little green boxes which tilt like a seesaw .. mouse goes in seesaw tips up door closes.. mouse contained in box

You can then just take the whole box somewhere appropriate and release it..

I thought it was much better than snap traps.. and we had 100% success rate... 2 traps.. caught 2 the first 2 nights.. one the third and then no more after that.. despite being out for a week.. so clearly gone

how horrid, this is what puts me off houses and gardens as opposed to flats (well, almost) - it's one of my personal worst nightmares, though be thankful it's not rats!! Most people caal the council as they would do preventitive measures, some diy it so to speak but these are people who don't mind seeing the creatures again and dealing with them..

but you do need to find their entrance point or you will get more...took us ages to find ours ..

hilly, now that i have a garage I'm worried about it too slightly - but why would they go to garages if there is no food there? I'm a bit paranoid storing any cardboard there (which i do now) - should i be? there is also a washing machine (inactive) there - would they chew pipes?

Where do you get humane traps from, Frasersmummy? And how do you find their entrance point?

we used to store rabbit food, bedding and straw in our hut.

twice we found the week buggers in the food.. we thougth the containers were mice proof and that we had left the lid open the first time.. but when it happened second time we decided that was rubbish and brought the food inside

We still have warm dry bedding and straw out there and the mice have never been an issue .. so I reckon they will only move in if they smell food

We had this in our last house - I actually trod on one of the little buggers in my bare feet in the dark kitchen one night!

We got the council in who put poison down. It turns out that it was actually (despite all the downstairs sightings) living in the boxroom next to our bedroom and commuting. (We moved.)

humane traps we got in b&q... finding the entrance is a whole other question...

took us ages.. they were coming in through our fireplace.... eventually we tracked down where the gas pipe enters the house and discovered there was a gap round it.. once we filled it with little chuckies from the drive.. wee buggers dug them out ... foam filler and wire wool we plugged the gap with .. that stopped the cheeky beggars

We had a big bag of bird seed in the garage which attracted them, there is a gap under the door so they could just wander in easily, from there, they could get into the cellar.
The first time, they had actually eaten a 10kg bag of dried cat food, there were some very fat, very happy mice about at that time! We're a bit more careful now and the poison stays down and is checked regularly.

oh God, we've just moved into our house, and when I got there I found letters from the council about a mouse infestation. (the landlords hadn't told us). Thought we were ok, but ds1 saw a little brown mouse in our kitchen a couple of weeks ago....

I keep thinking I am hearing them too, but haven't seen one since.

Mice love peanut butter and/or crisps, whatever kind of traps you use. We had a problem with mice after DS1 was born.

After hitting them with a frying pan didn't work (they're much too fast), my husband went mad with the foam filler, filling in every little space in the kitchen and cupboards. I went mad with the hoover and keeping the kitchen spotless at all times. But we did have to use traps as well.
We got rentokil in who gave us poison. But it's a bit grim and it didn't really work and there was always the chance they would go off and die under the floorboards giving us additional problems.
Eventually increased hygiene and traps got shot of them. But I think they are always there waiting for us to let our guard down.

We had mice in our london flat (third floor, cheeky penthouse dwelling rodents)
Get rubbish out every night.
Fruit in the fridge not in the bowl.
I remember going to get a drink of water in the night, turning on the light to find Little Mickey (as we called him, we like to kid ourselves that there was just one) sitting in the fruit bowl having a cheeky apple midnight feast, - we had a stare-off across my kitchen
Anything that isn't in a tin is fair game.

You need to be totally ruthless and get yourself down to Lakeland/poundshop/wilko's/supermarket and buy a whole load of tupperware to put any dried goods pasta/rice/cereal etc in
They can easily smell through the plastic inner of cereal boxes andt they even eat sweets through plastic wrappers

Good luck

We have a recurring problem with mice in the flat we live in. It is a very old terraced property and all the walls, floor are joined. So we aren't just combatting mice in our building we have to do it for the whole street. It's a nightmare. About 6 months ago we caught 4 mice in one night (mother and babies by the looks of them). We use glue traps mostly.
I have wire wool and foam in every available crack possible and our food is in containers, no fruit out.

We have poison in little black boxes (apparently our mice are very discerning and didn't like the taste of the first lot of poison ). I've put peppermint oil (strong smelling stuff) on cotton balls, apparently they don't like the smell.
I haven't caught any in a couple of months so I am hoping now it is warmer we will have a break from them for a while.

I can't wait to move (although our flat is lovely in every other way).

Yes. We live in a flat as well. Although we haven't seen any sign of the mice for 4 years, I still feel as if we are just holding back the tide. It' s impossible to know if the rest of the street are dealing with their mice. I think our mice have been in the building since it was built 150 odd years ago.

I haven't heard of glue traps. Hadn't heard about the peppermint oil either. Will consider these if they come back.

We had a problem with mice in our house when I was 3 or 4. They used to get through an entire bar of soap overnight. We'd go in to the bathroom in the morning and all that as left was a small chewed cone-shape of soap and a few crumbs.

I used bait boxes outside and old fashioned spring traps inside. Don't mess around with humane traps. The little bastards will find their way back in.

Put all food in to containers.
Leave nothing out.
Find their entry point and block all holes with wire mesh - its the only thing they can't eat through.
Humane traps are only good if you can cope with dealing with them alive.
Poison on glue pads mean they die and you get the corpse.
Failing everything get a cat, they can't stand the smell.

It's war!!!

they chew your wire, eat your food and pee on their feet and paddle it everywhere, how kind do you want to be to someone who pees in your biscuits?? hmm???

SNAP traps! bait them with stick stuff, peanut butter, choc spread. Place them around the edges of rooms, it's rare for a mouse to hit a trap running across a room. Humane traps are rubbish....a mouse will die if you remove it from its own territory, make a decent job of it in the first place.

Also they can squeeze through a space that you can poke a pencil through so block everything with wire wool, or those metal squirly pan scrubs you can buy. Check outside around plumbing/drains/electrical access, and same for inside the house.....and especially the undersink cupboard.

Also, no matter how many people mention that they have had A mouse it is not true....they are NEVER alone!

sticky stuff...not stick, that would only work for an idiot labrador obviously!

I have a friend who was so worried that her mice would raid her kitchen cupboards that she put food down on plates for them... to steer them away from the food???!!! She now has a bigger problem, namely rats.

You need one of these...we had an episode with rodents but have not had a peep since we got this. Worth every penny.

www.primrose.co.uk/advanced-rat-and-mouse-repeller-whole-house-p-36.html

Get rid of all food sources, even a fewcrumbs, or an overflowing bin. Put everything in airlock plastic tubs. They will not come into the house except for food. Then bleach all around the edges of your surfaces, skirting boards etc and get right into every nook and cranny. Have a massive deep clean and keep it that way. They always run along the edge of the wall and they follow the scent of rachothers urine trails. Get rid if these trails and they won't follow them in. This was the advice we got when I rang a pest control company (which was nice of them as it was free) and it worked for us, in a similar London terrace!

We had this. We found the hole, stuffed it closed, took the plinths of the units, put in mouse traps, plus peanut butter (V attractive to mice) and bought two kittens (which we also happen to love). No mice in here now!

We had mice a while ago. The bleeders chewed throught the cable for the dishwasher and blew the fuses for the whole house. DH filled in all the holes and we didn't have any for a while. But they can chew through builder's foam. he used wire mesh and we put poison down. I had to refill the poison a few times but it hasn't been touched for a couple of weeks.
We have a smell now though, which is probably dead mice but they must be under the floorboards as we can't find the source.