Mice in the walls?! AAARRRGGHHH!

[Lindsay81]

I live in a very rural setting and have been here for 2.5 years. I see small field mice run across the roads or on paths when I am out and about but never worried about them getting into the house... Until now!

Recently (last ~2 months) I can hear them scratching in one of the walls late at night or around dawn. It sounds like a badger it's so loud! I have no droppings at all in the house so don't have proof they are actually getting into the house, but I swear I heard one rustling about in the cupboard under the sink one morning just as I put the light on.

What do I do?! If I place traps (which i am dreading!) am I really going to stop the problem- they are obviously getting in somewhere. Apparently you can get someone in to go around the perimeter of your house, cementing up any tiny gaps but that sounds an expensive solution for something which isn't really causing me a lot of bother.

Or am I overreacting and I should just accept this is part of rural living?!

Not sure how you solve the mice in the walls problem but putting spring traps in the cupboard loaded with peanut butter will kill those blighters and long term you can't beat a cat as a deterrent.

we've had an epidemic of 4am clog dancing too - also semi rural. A kilogram of poison has resulted in one corpse and an awful lot of green husks!

do check for all accessible food. Keep bird feeders away from the house. You can go round yourself looking for ways in. Keep plants trimmed back if you can; we have a wisteria which I'm not sacrificing though. But removing the nearby bird feeders each night and blocking gaps with expanding foam and chicken wire does seem to have solved it for now.

they are a damage risk so you need to do something.

Get a cat.

When I lived in the country I had the same problem - I eventually got pest control in to sort it out. It had got to the point where they were waking me up in the night running up and down the inside of the wall behind my bed. My house was stone built, very old (18th c), but in excellent repair and very solid. The guy who came to sort it out told me that it's impossible to make a house mouse proof - in my case he reckoned they were running up the drain pipes and getting into the roof space. He put poison up there and that sorted out the problem, although every now and again I'd get the odd one or two coming back, but they didn't stay for longer than it took for the poor little blighters to eat the poison, leave and die. The poison that he used makes them very thirsty so they are driven out to find water (I was worried about a stack of little mice bodies building up in the attic). I felt very mean, but mice can cause series and potentially very dangerous damage - I was terrified that they would chew through electric cables.
Getting a cat will also definitely help!