DCat has brought in a mouse. What do I do?

[FlatStanletta]

Fairly new cat owner here. DCat has brought in a live, apparently unharmed mouse which was last seen heading towards the sofa. Despite looking everywhere last night I can’t see where the sodding thing went and DCat is happily curled up asleep as if it’s nothing to do with him!

I have ordered one of those humane traps to catch it but is there anything else I should do? I’m a bit overly anxious about hygiene and things and slightly struggling with the thought of the mouse in our (open plan) living room- kitchen

Trap it and release it there is not much else you can do. cat could have finished the job though 😄

Thanks, that’s what I thought. Any tips for catching it?

The mouse is probably in a dark corner, if you have a Wellington boot put it up to the dark corner and hopefully the mouse will crawl inside and feel safe. Then you can remove the mouse safely outside in the boot, fold the top over itself so the mouse can’t escape while in transit.

They like chocolate apparently. Put some of that in your trap. And get rid of your cat - its supposed to get rid of mice, not rehome them!

Ooh good tips thank you! I will grab an old welly and once the trap arrives I will see if I can bring myself to sacrifice some chocolate!

DCat is clearly hopeless! He is an excellent hunter, when it suits him! 🙄

He is gifting you a mouse 🙄😄

The Welly trick is genius. We used to use humane rattraps and rolos.

Kill it. DH used to keep a cardboard tube for this purpose, turns out mice are very easy to kill which made us wonder why our cat was so hopeless at it.

Whatever you do, don't encourage the cat to have another go at it. 3 hours of mouse torture later, it was still alive, the cat lost interest and I was forced to do the decent thing. Should have done it in the first place.

I have found mice hiding on top of curtain poles but if the cat isn't bothered I'd guess that its found its way out.

I wouldn't worry too much about hygiene - its one tiny mouse who lives outside

I always found peanut or nut butter excellent for catching mice that the cat had brought in and then left for us as our cat loved bringing us presents. Now, at 20 she doesn't bother anymore!

@Ted27 one tiny mouse will pee everywhere it goes.
Cats are fed so have no need to kill, but a mouse is a nice toy. I never had problems with mice til I had cats.
I'd just set traps out along the wall, either end of sofa. This may well turn in to a recurring problem.

@maofteens yes I had heard about the wee everywhere! That’s what I was thinking about. And my kids seem to trail crumbs wherever they go! 😫

The mouse trap is arriving tomorrow but I’m wondering if I need to go and buy one now!!

The cat will make it pretty obvious if it's still inside I would think.

We had a little mouse family in the garage. We got the humane trap and release type traps and baited with chocolate spread. We caught one every night for a week and released them about a mile away. None since then.

They go crazy for Nutella (other brands are available 😂) if you have any in?

Welly trick works. No need to feed the mouse.

Invest in a pair of long tongs. You’ll need those when you are gifted a dead mouse.

Update:

Just spent an hour buying and setting up traps behind the sofa having googled what to put in the trap etc etc

As I turned around from hanging down the back of the sofa to place the trap I saw something poking out from under the table.

Turns out DCat (who was locked in here overnight) did finish the job after all. RIP mouse.

Be glad it wasn't a very much alive frog, last night's offering was a little jumpy at being indoors. If you have another one you need a dc1 who is very dextrous and undeterred by creatures. Will miss her when she is gone.

We have had a toad in the garden which I had to rescue multiple times!

DCat and I are celebrating with a couple of Dreamies and chasing of a pipecleaner inside the Wendy house (him) and mopping the floor with some Dettol (me).

He is now lying in wait under the Wendy house for any future mice or pipecleaners, purring loudly! I think finding the mouse in here actually surprised him!

My DH recently moved the clothes from his chair of doom in the bedroom to find the remains of a mouse. For some reason he was adamant I should look at the tiny corpse. I imagine it was his passive aggressive way of saying I should be hoovering more thoroughly. ( I say move your damn clothes more). D/cat also brings them in and leaves them dead by her food bowl. I think she must be trying to teach us how to do it.

The mouse killer himself!

Not a bad thing that they can hunt,they can feed themselves if they go missing. Our cat came back heavier after a month away and then caught us a mouse every night at 5pm which he brought in on his return. Took a week for him to stop

Ha! Mice are easy. Wait until you've had a very cross magpie flying around the house. There is a thread on here about what cats have brought home. I'm sure someone had a snake.

I've had multiple rats,that he's dragged through the cat flap and upstairs

Rats and magpies!!

This is precisely the reason we don’t have a cat flap. But yesterday the back door was open with the warm weather so he must have brought it in through there.

The other day he caught a squirrel. I’m glad he didn’t bring that in!!

I have 2 prolific mousers and I hate the little things. A shoebox with a hole in it provides somewhere ideal for mousey to hide, and you can swiftly evict him.

Obviously your DCat got there first!