Mice - Who's responsible landlord or tennant?

JJWood_2

Hi,

I've been living in a rented house for 10 months and this morning we found a pesky mouse had nibbled at one of our bagels in the kitchen cupboard.

We are tidy and clean and keep the food stored away.
When I called my landlord to discuss the problem with him, his reaction was simply that we should only keep food in the top cupboards and that this is London so we should just deal with it.

I can categorically say I will not just live with this without doing something about it - sounds like a sure-fire way to make a small problem into a big problem!

I was after some advice as to who was responsible for dealing with the mice me of the landlord? I couldn't find anything that directly referred to it into the tenancy agreement...

Any help appreciated!

G_M

The simplest solution is to buy a couple of traps. These work well: £3.98 for two! (use peanut butter)

You could hastle the landlord but it really isn't worth the agro.

The bottom line for your question is, it depends....

If the mice are there due to property defects (gaps in walls etc) then the landlord.
If he can show you are responsible (crumbs on kitchen floor), then you are.

If on being told the LL had responded "no problem, I'll sort it", then fine, but as he didn't it honestly isn't worth arguing over.

more_money_for_me

Just looking at it from a common sense approach, I would buy myself a couple of very cheap traps, either springy neck breakers, or humane ones for the veggies, bait them and wait. This is probably less bother than getting a landlords agent to come in each evening and set them, and morning to check them. If it was a pest infestaion with lots of rats swarming through your kitchen I would see it differently, but one mouse isn't really something a landlord could have any control over I don't think.

Werdnal

Do you know how it might have got indoors? If a pencil will fit through a hole, a mouse will. Check for routes of entry - gaps around waste pipes under the sink is a common one. Block them with rolled up pieces of tin foil - this does not stop the mice getting in, but if the foil is chewed or removed, you know the mouse is using that route. If there is a hole which needs repairing, then you could ask you LL to get someone to attend to it, once you have proof it is the access point.

Catching the one indoors might not solve the problem unless you can stop any more entering. Obviously, if you have a cat, it could have brought it in, let it go and its set up home in your kitchen cupboard!

Whilst I believe it is within the LL's remit to provide a "pest free" property, TBH, if you had only just moved in and found a mouse, I would say the LL should attend to it, but as you have been there so long, it is not the LL's problem unless there is a plague of them! Mice entering homes is a fact of life, whether you own or rent!

phill99

A tenant is duty bound to act in a tenant like manner. This would include acting in a way that doesn't encourage vermin. Vermin will always be attracted to places where food s available. So you need to put food out of their way. Unfortunately, you need to deal with the problem. Just buy some traps.

Londonsu

Wire wool (or a brillo pad ) stuffed into the hole works wonders they cant chew through it - got rid of my pesky little blighter last year

BTW the cat was worse then useless just glanced at it with a bored expression when it ran passed him

silvercar

What came first the tenant or the mouse? If the mouse then the landlord should deal with it, if the tenant then it is the tenant's responsibility, generally.

Ericparke

JJWood wrote: »

Hi,

I've been living in a rented house for 10 months and this morning we found a pesky mouse had nibbled at one of our bagels in the kitchen cupboard.

We are tidy and clean and keep the food stored away.
When I called my landlord to discuss the problem with him, his reaction was simply that we should only keep food in the top cupboards and that this is London so we should just deal with it.

I can categorically say I will not just live with this without doing something about it - sounds like a sure-fire way to make a small problem into a big problem!

I was after some advice as to who was responsible for dealing with the mice me of the landlord? I couldn't find anything that directly referred to it into the tenancy agreement...

Any help appreciated!

It's your place of residence so I would tend to it myself. It's a pretty simple solution if you ask me.

bouicca21

I had/have mice too - it was obvious where they were getting in and my landlord happily sent a contractor round with scads of wire wool to block up as many holes as possible. The landlord upstairs won't do a thing.

The mice were climbing up the wall from below into my kitchen (and no I don't leave food out or have any in low cupboards). Easy peasy for the mice since behind the cupboards is bare brick and below them are the original ill fitting floorboards. The flat below has no problem since fitting a sonic deterrent. Recently another mouse appeared but it seems to visit only occasionally and this time I can't work out where it is coming in. Really the freeholders need to get together to pay someone to block up the point of ingress but that's clearly not going to happen.

I've had no luck with traps (though have caught my own fingers). The current mouse either hasn't visited since I put fresh bait down or is fussy. I haveno idea how long bait remains attractive or whether it goes off. I have wondered about a sonic deterrent but I can't see anywhere it can be put that doesn't have something potentially blocking the signals.

The mouse man said mice are particularly bad this year. The local shop said the best way of catching them was putting a sticky sheet on the floor. The mice get stuck. This is (a) cruel and (b) requires me to have the guts (and a hammer) to dispatch them.

So on the whole keeping food out of their way and cleaning all traces of crumbs from the floor seems to be the best bet.

Notmyrealname

So glad I live in the country. Mice have enough to eat that they don't need to engage in home invasion.

It seems daft that there's less of a mouse problem in rural areas than cities but that is how it is.

timberflake

G_M wrote: »

The simplest solution is to buy a couple of traps. These work well: £3.98 for two! (use peanut butter)

You could hastle the landlord but it really isn't worth the agro.

The bottom line for your question is, it depends....

If the mice are there due to property defects (gaps in walls etc) then the landlord.
If he can show you are responsible (crumbs on kitchen floor), then you are.

If on being told the LL had responded "no problem, I'll sort it", then fine, but as he didn't it honestly isn't worth arguing over.

THIS!

I'm a tenant and we had mice in the run up to Christmas, we tried humane traps, then poison, neither seemed to work, so we got a couple of the "brutal" ones and job done!

We didn't even bother our LL with the problem, just dealt with it. It's got nothing to do with hygeine, it's simply that your house with all the warmth and food on offer is more appealing than the streets!

Steer clear of poison as when they die you may have a smell and it may be awkward to get hold of them if they die somewhere inaccessable.

Turns out we had two mice, took a couple of weeks to catch them, they loved running behind our sofa..........kinda miss the little !!!!!!s.........