Getting rid of rats/mice (merged threads)

pineapple

This morning I found several dropping type things in the bath :eek:.
Like a dark coloured grain of rice with a teeny bit of 'hair' at one end. Could this be mice? If not what?
There have been no signs anywhere else.
Can mice (or anything else) come up the plughole?

ed110220

Hi all,

our garden backs onto a farm and we keep two hens. Recently the spilt chicken food has attracted a rat or rats.

I'm having great difficulty trapping it/them - does anyone have any advice?

I followed the instructions of putting the trap down baited but not set for a week so they are not so wary of it. I baited it with peanut butter. Each morning the bait was gone.

Then after a week I put it out baited and set and in the morning found the trap still set but the bait gone. Did this for several days.

After that I tried some bacon in the hope that tugging it off the spike would spring the trap. That resulted in the trap being sprung overnight but no rat caught (perhaps set off by the weather - it was a very windy night).

Now for more than a week I have put the trap out baited with bacon tied on with cotton, but the rat takes no more than the slightest nibble.

I'm wary of putting out poison in case the rats carry any into the chicken coop and the neighbours have four cats that are always in the garden.

Ed

emmmski

Sorry if this post is in the wrong place...
As the title suggests I was most alarmed as I sat this morning a 5am eating my breakfast when a mouse scurried along my skirting board and vanished behind the bin!!
Can anyone suggest ways to get rid of this problem. I understand they are harmless but I cannot share my home with them, I feel quite unnerved by their presence and cannot relax in my home. Any advice gratefully received.

Emmski

jbainbridge

1. Find out where they are getting in and seal the hole.
2. Keep putting out traps until you get them.

Do both of these!

kazwookie

Get a cat, or borrow one!!

Dumyat

And if you've seen one there will be more, they come with their friends. So you need to do as jbainbridge or Kazwookie says.

We've used traps in the past, and they seem to love pate, with garlic. I've heard they also like chocolate.
They tend to hang around places that are warm like behind the fridge, or the tumbledryer.

emmmski

Thanks all..... Should I call a pest control person out? Or can I simply get rid by sealing these places up? I have a toddler so can't really put anything down on ground level or I'll be taking him to a&e with trap/poison related injury. Can I insist landlord takes action? The more I think about this, the more freaked out I am :-(

Bennifred

The trouble with mice is they have no sphincter on their bladder, so there is a constant trail of urine wherever they go.....:(

wallbash

1. Find out where they are getting in and seal the hole.

Not so easy. A small mice can squeeze thru a hole so small you would not believe it . Also that hole may well be hidden .

So ...solid floors ?
Detached ( or semi) home? has your neighbour got mice?
Garden ?

As for traps. I like the Humane ones, baited with chocolate.
when caught release a LONG way from house.

wallbash

Should I call a pest control person out?

will just put traps out and charge someone!

Can I insist landlord takes action?

Yes but again it will be a trap and won't be quick