Getting rid of rats/mice (merged threads)

Aura

We've had this problem. The best thing is to sweep any left over food, keep food in air tight containers so they can't fid anything and hopefully go away.

snowcat75

Beckyy wrote: »

Has anybody had mice in cavity walls or roof space with no access to this (and no loft)?

Although there would be mice sized access somewhere, there's none for putting down traps or getting a proper look.

Sometimes access can be found and made in things like downlighters celling roses plugs points etc, I will often put traps or bait then tie string on to allow retrieval, If there in a cold cavity baiting isn't too bad an option as the smell wont penetrate into the house. but you can also push break backs and glue traps into these spaces in a similar manor.

snowcat75

Aura wrote: »

We've had this problem. The best thing is to sweep any left over food, keep food in air tight containers so they can't fid anything and hopefully go away.

Unfortunately mice can live on little, in the winter months once they have found some ware warm the chances of them leaving are nil, however cutting down there food supply will make them easy to trap, break backs or glue traps with a bit of chocolate for bait and placed strategically will have them....

Aura

being a country girl i don't like mouse traps and prefure more humane ways.

Browniez

Not so long time ago I started to see here and there topics about ultrasonic pest repellers. Absolutely harmless, no pollution, no poison, pretty effective. It isn't dangerous for pets and humans, though it may cause discomfort for those animals who can hear/feel extremely high sound waves, like bats, or other little ones, I don't know which. But this stuff didn't let any fuzzy mongrel to even get close to my apartment but my own cat... I can't say for sure, but I think he even likes it (he often sleeps near it but he already dropped it down twice). I have a "70K" since the end of the summer and I'm surprised that it survived after falling down. You may check this link where's a review on a variety of them - there's a type that is designed for gardens.

Mattn09

Hoping someone might be able to advise. Recently moved into a new house and found this small pile of droppings in the loft. I’m not sure if they are mice or rat?

Not seen any other signs of either but pretty concerning. We also found some old poison traps up there and a rat box trap in the garden.. unfortunately didn’t notice when we viewed and our survey didn’t mention anything, but now we can’t get any response from the previous owners on whether it is an ongoing problem or not. 

Ganga

Put a couple of mouse traps up there with a bt of chocolate as the bait ,bits of Mars Bars work well and see if you catch anything ,if you do keep baiting the traps till you catch nothing then hopefully problem gone.

Primrose

Rats and mice are a pretty common problem everywhere these days and if your house has cavity wall insulation check your lower external brickwork to ensure you have no external small holes where vermin could be entering. Mice are exceedingly agile climbers.  They once climbed into my car in the garage, nested under the bonnet and chewed up all the wiring which went into my dashboard.  Cost me a fortune!

these look like mice droppings to me.  Try putting bait pellets in a saucer inside the loft near the trap door and see if they,re being eaten and also some baited traps.  Spring is their main breeding season so adopt a robust programme now to try and nip it in the bud.

FreeBear

Fat cat decided to bring a mouse in just after midnight last night. Dropped it at the foot of the stairs and promptly caught it again before it scampered too far. Then took the aforementioned rodent in to the lounge and let it go again. This time, it disappeared off behind some furniture (I think) and hasn't been seen since. Cat is showing no interest in catching the darned thing, and expects me to do all the hard work.

At the moment, I don't know if it is still in the lounge, elsewhere in the house, or is dead. A variant on Schrödinger's cat I fear....

At least it isn't another rat (yes, I had one presented last month, fortunately very dead).

Smithy99

Can anyone help us find where rats are getting into our cavity wall? We can't find the access point, pest control can't find anything, we've had the drains cctv'd, a couple of old pipes runs capped off and one way valves put in and lo and behold today we hear them again. 3rd time in 6 mths. 

We can't see any holes in the walls, we've checked the guttering and roof tiles, fascia's (single storey extension). Could they have just dig up into the cavity wall area? In which case how TF do we stop them coming back?