We've Got Mice-Help!!! (merged threads)

Dr.Lou

Your local council should have a Pest Control department which you can contact for advice, come out and set traps or poison etc. This service when we used it a few years ago was free.

I think you can also buy some humane type traps which the mouse/ rat runs into and dislodges the door so they get trapped inside and then you can dispose of them in the wild.

Pink.

Hi purplepixi,

We have an older thread on mice in the house so I have merged your thread with it as it makes it easier for Old Style readers to find all the suggestions in one thread. As always posts are listed in date order so you'll need to read from the beginning to see all the replies.

There are another couple of threads on the In My Home board that might help too:

Help we have a cheeky mouse!!

Whats the best way of getting rid of rats/mice?

Pink

MIRRY_2

Yesturday I went to my kitchen to start a baking frenzy,
when I opened the door to collect my flour I thought Id seen something move quickly :eek:
But dismissed it as my imagination

However I then realised my lovely organic flour bag had a small hole ripped in it and this is when I realised I have a mouse :mad:
We put mouse traps in place (the ones that dont kill) but do they work ?

As my daughter has been in hospital for the past week with a nasty virus I am now concerned that she may of picked it up from this source.

ANY TIPS PLEASE

Tallymanjohn

Get a cat. Still the best mouse trappers & every home needs a pet of some sort (unless you have allergy problems) & cats are a lot less demanding than dogs.

Gingham_Ribbon

We have a long running mice thread. I'll look it out for you and merge your thread with it. You'll have to read from the beginning to see all the answers.

tim_n

Pff... you've never met my cats and we have more mice brought in because of them!

In my experience Mirry mice will only come into your house if there is a ready source of food available. I used to get field mice (a little bigger and quicker than the average house mouse) in the summer. They love all sorts of food, but the smell of fresh berries seems to attract them. A little ribena in the traps might be a good start. I didn't have any sucess with peanut butter. They also love sunflower seeds.

Generally the mice can be fairly clean depending on the enviroment they're in. They can however be carriers of Weils disease.

Ideally:

1.) Clean every surface regularly before preparing food - including chopping boards - they run everywhere and don't have good bladder control.
2.) Pull out all your appliances and clean round them. Get every scrap of food in and arround the house. Stop anyone from eating outside of the usual areas and don't keep biscuits etc.
3.) Seal everything that's not a can in your cupboards preferably in airtight containers. Leave anything fresh in the fridge and don't even be tempted to have fruit out. The less it smells of food the less chance the blighters will stay in your house.

I seem to remember from River Cottage with Hugh-FW that he got some mouse busters in who held a seayance to drive them out. He claimed it worked for him!

Good luck!

beachbeth

Mice aren't actually keen on cheese so if you lay any sort of trap its best to put chocolate or to buy some hamster/mice food. Make sure you find where they are getting in and seal any holes (you can sometimes find out where they are coming in by the droppings).

What Ive done in the past is put some food in the bottom of a bucket and then made a ramp with a piece of wood so that they can climb up it and jump into the bucket. They then can't get out. Thing is then you have to deal with any mice you catch (don't set them free anywhere!). Otherwise, mice traps and poison are effective.

If you are not sure where the mice are running about in your house then don't use poison because they can curl up and die in an awkward place and the smell is diabolical (as has been previously mentioned)! We had two mice die behind a stud wall which was inside a cupboard and spent weeks trying to locate where the smell was coming from! We then had to remove the wall, which was luckily not that big, in order to remove the dead mice! Yuck!

Kelinik

Please please if you have to kill meeces people don't poison them! Apart from it being a very horrid and slow death for the mouse, as people have already pointed out, they will likely crawl away and die in a tiny space where you can't reach them and if they get outside may be eaten and therefore poison animals higher in the food chain too. :sad:

beachbeth

Kelinik wrote:

if they get outside may be eaten and therefore poison animals higher in the food chain too. :sad:

This doesn't happen. The poison only works on the animal that consumes it. If another animal then eats the dead, poisoned mouse it doesn't kill that animal too.

Kelinik

It doesn't kill them but it can and has made some cats very sick.