My dishwasher smells of death...

[KreechasKeepa]

suspect there might be a dead thing stuck inside it. My husband has taken the side off but can't find anything so now we think it might be stuck in the base. This is kind of the final straw.

I guess I should be proud that my two moggies are great at catching mice, but to be honest I wish they would just quit it.

PFB is due in Feb and the idea of having mice (dead or alive) all over the house is upsetting. Any ideas on how to thwart my little monsters' killing sprees?

Set traps (in out of the way places where the moggies can't get to them) so that there aren't any mice around?

Loan them out to the umpty people on this board who want mousers?

Nope - no idea. You've got mousers. You're stuck with them.

Traps might be the way forward. I do have a humane trap that I could use, but I'm not sure I could bring myself (yet) to use a killy one. Problem with the humane one is that the mice will just be re-caught and lovingly returned to me.

And also, our house backs onto fields, which is where - I presume - the cats are catching the mice so eradicating the mice at source isn't really an option.

Well that's a likelihood - bringing their new toys back home to show mommy. On the other hand, you might have them living in the house. Or both!

I really don't know. If you have a mouser, they're a mouser and that's pretty well that in my experience. I suppose you could slightly adjust their diet in the hope that they'll be a bit keener and eat all the little blighters up - but I've never found that to work much.

The only other thing I could suggest is locking the cat flap (if you have one) and calling them in of a night. That way you could hope that any presents would be left on the back step. But that still won't stop internal carnage and now is the time of year when mice traditionally come into houses themselves as the weather outside worsens.

Out of suggestions. Maybe someone else can advise.

PS - remember to worm them real regularly if they're catching that many mice.

The snap type traps are far more humane in the long run.

My cat once half killed a mouse that eventually died in the innards of the piano. It reeked.

Of course you may just have rotting food debris in the piping of the dishwasher. Have you run it empty on a long hot cycle with white vinegar to flush out the pipes?

You can't stop them if they're hunters, unless you keep them in.

My mum's solution was to have the cat flap on the utility room door and keep that door closed to the rest of the house at night, so that the mice at least didn't get further into the house than that. The downside of that plan was discovered the day she found a dead mouse in the powder drawer of the washing machine once. Or rather what was left of a dead mouse. She used washing powder balls, so she very rarely opened that drawer and it had been there for months. All our clothes had been washed in essence of mouse for quite some time.

Urgh, Systems - yuk! If I had a utility room then I would definitely banish them to it, but sadly the cat flap enters straight into the kitchen. I'll be checking my washing machine drawer very carefully in future, though.

Math - due to my terribly lax standards, it could well be the case that I have a putrid dishwasher, but it did seem to both me and DH to have a particularly deathly edge to the smell. I will try your suggestion anyway as it probably has both rotting food and mouse in it.

Thanks for the suggestions.