Anyone had any success getting rid of mice?

Nicki

We have some intruders hiding out in our kitchen at the moment and are completely failing to catch any of the little blighters.

I know this is going to sound like overkill but since last Tuesday, when we discovered we had a problem, we've had the following down:

1 12 old fashioned snap traps baited with a selection of peanut butter, chocolate spread, biscuits and cheese. These are all close to the wall behind furniture as we have small kids. Some are under the baseboards of cupboards where we think the mice are nesting

2 4 glue board traps 2 baited with chocolate 1 with peanut butter and the last one unbaited all in cupboards where we have seen droppings

3 4 trays of poisoned pellets, all under furniture where children can't reach.

Despite all of this we haven't caught a single mouse, but they are openly running across the floor in the evenings so we know they are still there. . I absolutely hate the things and am finding it hard to go in the kitchen at all.

The council pest control person is coming out tomorrow but I know he will just put down more poison, and clearly this isn't working too well as they haven't touched any of the existing bait. I am reaching the end of my tolerance levels and am worried about them breeding as I know we definitely have more than one (two have been seen simultaneously).

If it makes a difference, we live in a city environment so these are urban mice not country field mice.

Any ideas for things we haven't tried would be greatly appreciated. We can't really have a cat, as there are urban foxes where we live and our last cat came to a sticky end as a result, but I am prepared to consider anything else, even down to moving out for a few days and putting something super toxic down, if that will do the trick.

wendym

Our mice were country field mice. I bought 2 of the sonic mouse deterring plug-ins on ebay, and they seem to have worked. One in the kitchen and one in the pantry.
I have to admit that I couldn't face poisoning or maiming them, which is pretty soppy, and I wasn't dealing with scary urban mice.

londoner1998

Nicki wrote: »

We have some intruders hiding out in our kitchen at the moment and are completely failing to catch any of the little blighters.

I know this is going to sound like overkill but since last Tuesday, when we discovered we had a problem, we've had the following down:

1 12 old fashioned snap traps baited with a selection of peanut butter, chocolate spread, biscuits and cheese. These are all close to the wall behind furniture as we have small kids. Some are under the baseboards of cupboards where we think the mice are nesting

2 4 glue board traps 2 baited with chocolate 1 with peanut butter and the last one unbaited all in cupboards where we have seen droppings

3 4 trays of poisoned pellets, all under furniture where children can't reach.

Despite all of this we haven't caught a single mouse, but they are openly running across the floor in the evenings so we know they are still there. . I absolutely hate the things and am finding it hard to go in the kitchen at all.

The council pest control person is coming out tomorrow but I know he will just put down more poison, and clearly this isn't working too well as they haven't touched any of the existing bait. I am reaching the end of my tolerance levels and am worried about them breeding as I know we definitely have more than one (two have been seen simultaneously).

If it makes a difference, we live in a city environment so these are urban mice not country field mice.

Any ideas for things we haven't tried would be greatly appreciated. We can't really have a cat, as there are urban foxes where we live and our last cat came to a sticky end as a result, but I am prepared to consider anything else, even down to moving out for a few days and putting something super toxic down, if that will do the trick.

Hello

it doesn't sound overkill: we live in London and had a mice problem since we mobved to our flat. Every year, around May, they do an appearance. We put traps with peanut butter and we managed to catch a few. They appeared, then go away until the next warm spell/ But last year we had three sightings in a week and for weeks we heard them under the bedroom wall, scratching and moving around... I find it disgusting and really creepy. Noise deterrents, traps... nothing worked, they came back and feasted on the peanut butter in front of my (terrified) eyes: one of them was too light to even set the traps and spent three days hanging around until my husband killed him after a three hour siege. It was disgusting.

In desperation we called a pest control company that seemed to have had very good results: they turned up, looked around checked for holes and set some traps with poison in key places (the ones that they go through and munch the poison, then go out). They came back two weeks later and checked again: poison had been eaten so they had been around, but we had heard nothing. They also offered to seal small holes (we had already done that), and make recommendations on bigger structural problems. They also advised speaking to neighbours as they obviously moved underground from one place to another, The theory is that with that poison, very slow-acting, they keep eating as they don't know it will kill them. They go wherever they came back from and they die. So they can't reproduce, or al least not so fast. Since then, we haven't seen or heard one... we still have the traps down and some traditional ones just in case. I highly recommend them. And much cheaper than some big names we got quotes from and that inspired no confidence whatsoever. If you are in the London area PM me and I can give you a number.

I_wanna_live_for_free

Are you leaving anything out food-wise that would mean they're getting fed without them risking a trap? Remember they can easily climb and get through the smallest gap (they dislocate their head to make it smaller)

Otherwise you should do as you already have. Put the traps along the route they take, like you say along the wall is the obvious one as they will rarely go across a floor in full sight.

citykid5

wil scound the sonic devices.my son moved out off his house,while the sale was still going through.then 1 day forgot to close his conservatory properly.and got a family of rats move in.tryed both traps and poison over the next couple of weeks,with no joy.getting deperate even considerd getting hold of a ratting dog on loan,but was advised this could cause injury to the dog,so bought a single sonic device,and the rats were gone within a few hours

Nicki

I_wanna_live_for_free wrote: »

Are you leaving anything out food-wise that would mean they're getting fed without them risking a trap? Remember they can easily climb and get through the smallest gap (they dislocate their head to make it smaller)

Otherwise you should do as you already have. Put the traps along the route they take, like you say along the wall is the obvious one as they will rarely go across a floor in full sight.

It is hard. We aren't leaving food obviously out, and are trying to clean up spillages immediately and sweep up after meals, but with 3 small kids in the house inevitably there will be small crumbs around I think despite our best endeavours.

Nicki

citykid5 wrote: »

wil scound the sonic devices.my son moved out off his house,while the sale was still going through.then 1 day forgot to close his conservatory properly.and got a family of rats move in.tryed both traps and poison over the next couple of weeks,with no joy.getting deperate even considerd getting hold of a ratting dog on loan,but was advised this could cause injury to the dog,so bought a single sonic device,and the rats were gone within a few hours

Do they go back outside though or just disperse elsewhere in the house?. I can just about cope knowing they are at the moment just in one room, but if they end up in the bedrooms as well, I will never sleep again

Bambam

Hi Nicki
I remember watching a programme about 18 months/2years ago where the pest control people said that mice seem to have developed a taste for tuna, of all things. You could try that? They also said that if you can insert a biro into a hole then it's big enough for a mouse.
Good luck!

viscachaz

Humane traps filled with gerbil/other small animal food, and then captives released far away in a field.. Ours were field mice, they never caused any trouble besides just wanting somewhere to live, happily moved them on to a field outside the back of the house, and never saw any again.

Mands

Nicki wrote: »

We have some intruders hiding out in our kitchen at the moment and are completely failing to catch any of the little blighters.

I know this is going to sound like overkill but since last Tuesday, when we discovered we had a problem, we've had the following down:

1 12 old fashioned snap traps baited with a selection of peanut butter, chocolate spread, biscuits and cheese. These are all close to the wall behind furniture as we have small kids. Some are under the baseboards of cupboards where we think the mice are nesting

I could have written that a year or so ago. We bought, out of desperation, some of these and within two days there was no more mouse activity.

I know that many products claim to work but, in my experience, these do.

http://www.swissinno.com/en/pest-control/mouse/mouse-trap-supercat/description.html

Best of luck,
Mands

ali-t

wendym wrote: »

Our mice were country field mice. I bought 2 of the sonic mouse deterring plug-ins on ebay, and they seem to have worked. One in the kitchen and one in the pantry.
I have to admit that I couldn't face poisoning or maiming them, which is pretty soppy, and I wasn't dealing with scary urban mice.

I did the same although if there are nests with babies it can take around 3 weeks for them to shift as they will put up with the mouse scarer until the babies are out the nest.

I used to hear them scrabbling in the walls when I moved in and bought a scarer thing and now nowt! :T