Can't cope in this house...please help!

pearl123

xxkelly888 wrote: »

how you would feel if there were mice in your house.

I live in a rural location and in the past I've had rats in the house, so did the neighbours. I called the local council pest control and the problem was resolved within half a day once the bait had been put down.

barbarawright

xxkelly888 wrote: »

It's not two threads in two days. It was two threads started at exactly the same time as each other and I done two because one was more about the legalities of ending a tenancy early and the other was for the more personal point of view of getting rid of mice and how you would feel if there were mice in your house.

Serious question - what will you do if you move and there are mice in your new home? They're not exactly uncommon - most people have to deal with them sooner or later (I've had 2 plagues in 20 years though, touch wood, I'm free at the moment).

grey_lady

Sleep deprivation? post-natal anxiety? causing you to overreact - not unusual.

Mice arent so bad - just block off any holes in the floor / skirting board.

dktreesea

xxkelly888 wrote: »

I can't sleep I can hear them scuttling about in the loft!! I have shut off all the electricity for a bit to see if I can hear them in my flat...how long should I give it before I can be a bit more certain that they are not down here...5 minutes? 10 minutes?

Dunroamin...I know that you are just teasing but please stop Will they multiple? How long can they go without food? All my cupboards are high up so they won't get any food here...unless they can climb up?

Yes mice will multiply. And they are actually quite good climbers. You need to get pest control out. The council should be good for this. Also, you need to go carefully through your flat looking for the places they might be coming in from. Behind the toilet or from the seam of the bath if your place is quite old sometimes lets them in. Get some plaster in a gun from somewhere like B and Q, and some wire mesh, e.g. steelo or the other kind used for doing dishes, first plus the hole with wire mesh and then plaster over it.

If your landlord ignores your requests for help report him/her to the environmental health person at the council.

dktreesea

OP, maybe check out this site. This is for Scotland, and has details of what to do if you have mice.

http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/advice_topics/repairs_and_bad_conditions/other_housing_problems/pests_and_vermin

seven-day-weekend

We used to get mice every so often when we lived in Spain. A week or two of traps and they would be gone.

BUT you do have to deal with the dead mice. Yes, you can put them in the bin (my husband actually used to feed ours to the feral cats ).

Please will people stop being unkind to the OP and laughing at her, this is a real fear that she has. How cruel.

OP, firstly I would lay some traps and secondly I would see a DR about your anxiety. Chest-tightening panic is not a normal state to be in.

And get the landlord to check the boiler, that is number one priority. Get a CO detector too.

Wishing you well.

terryw

dktreesea wrote: »

If your landlord ignores your requests for help report him/her to the environmental health person at the council.

Why? The Op has been in the property for eighteen months before the mice appeared. Here is a link from
http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2010/08/30/tenants-legal-help-%E2%80%93-vermin-who-is-responsible/?doing_wp_cron=1373008502.8458249568939208984375

"What about infestation where no-one is ‘at fault’?
Well in that case it will depend on when the infestation occurs.

If it is there at the time you move in (even if it is not discovered for a while), it will normally be the landlords responsibility to sort it out
However if it happens after you have been living there for a while, then you will be responsible. After all it is your property now (until the tenancy ends"

As other posters have mentioned, a few mice is no big deal. Even Poundshops sell traps and poison.

misfire

My parents had mice after their neighbour put a conservatory on and broke the void space below the houses (1930 terraced rows)... they were in the house - my excessively neat and tidy parents freaked! they had traps and a mouse burial ground in the garden.

The thing that worked for them - my dad got these sonic things you plug in from the daily mail magazine. He has one in the kitchen and then put some under the floor in the lounge and hall way on extension leads (their builder friend did this for them so its done in a safe way reading it here looks bad!) these devices sort of ping occassionally (you can only hear the one in the kitchen) but you get used to it - its really not annoying or anything and they have been mouse free ever since (they had pest control out several times but the mice moved from mums house to the next house and so on and back again it was never ending).

I totally understand your fear and want to protect your newborn (i freaked when our cat bought a mouse in when i was pregnant) - I also think that you NEED to talk to your midwife or GP just to make sure this doesn't push you into post natal depression.

princessdon

I don't like mice, but I can't harm a creature either. A few years ago a field mouse moved into my garage and had a little family. As far as I know they never entered the house, but were in the garage.

I bought humane traps - ones where you put chocolate spread inside and it traps them. I released them into the local nature park. In under 4 days the family was gone (not killed), I never touched them (don't think I could) as simply opened the box and they ran out.

I then got one of those high pitched alarms just in case.

So I can see where OP is coming from but instead of drama just set some humane traps.

ash28

The best weapon of mouse destruction we used was Rentokil Mouse Killer......they were gone within 24 hours. I put bait trays under the kitchen units - removed the kick board and in the loft. We looked for dead mice but never found any......the bait was eaten and the mice disappeared.

If you decide to go down the poison route you have to be careful where you put the bait trays especially with young children or pets.

Apparently they die in their sleep.

It certainly did the trick for us - I bought it from a hardware shop but you can buy it online.

This is the stuff
http://www.primrose.co.uk/-p-9438.html?adtype=pla&kwd=&gclid=CJWf-IH4l7gCFQ_LtAod1k0AmA

We tried humane traps but they didn't go near them - we must have used the wrong bait or something.