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

youluckypanda

Sadly not no, wish I did. Have been trying to convince OH to get a Highland Terrier or similar perhaps this may work in my favour in a round about sort of way! Haha!

BitterAndTwisted

That poor little mousie was probably a hundred times more terrified of you than you were of it. Take advice from the pest-control peeps: any space or hole big enough to allow a biro to be poked into it is big enough for a mouse to crawl through, so every single gap and hole needs to be filled.

bananadog

lol don't be scared...when I was younger (teens) and lived with my Dad I used to have Guinea-pigs in the garage over the winter when it was too cold for them outside. Anyway we used to have 2 plastic trays in the bottom of each hutch to make it easier to clean out but mice used to sneek between the trays for food bits...when I opened the doors they used to jump out! Me & my mate would grab them, stick them in our coat pockets and mountain bike 3 miles away and let them go in a field
We heard if you let them go too close they come back but we woudln't kill them so we would just cycle with pokets full of mice instead! hahahaha

Hope the council get back to you soon xxx

foxgloves

Hi, yes, we had them the year before last. I think they were living under next door's shed, then when he demolished it, they wanted somewhere new to live. I don't like killing things & I agree that it's horrible removing the dead ones from the traditional sprung traps so I got one of the humane traps & baited it with a variety of tempting nibbles (mars bar is a favourite!) & we caught 6 mice over that next week. Then we thought we'd got them all as nothing for a bit, then one was messing about behind our dresser in the kitchen, I tried to reach him with a grabber & he ran round the front & hid in my cookery books!!! We managed to catch him, then nothing again for a couple of days. I thought we'd really got them all that time, then one night, we were watching TV & one ran out from the fireplace, across the floor & through a TINY crack in the skirting board. I grabbed it from behind but couldn't get a grip as it was so small & wriggly. Decided we were well & truly beaten! I'm not at all frightened of them (would have been a total wreck if it'd been spiders!) but defo time to call in Pest Control from the council. He was really helpful. He asked straight away if we had a wooden floor (we do, in the lounge) & he said he thought they started next door but are running under the hosue & up through the cracks between the floorboards. Apparently mice only need a space the diameter of a pencil to squeeze through. He left us lots of baitboxes & said we wouldn't find any bodies as they take the poison back to the nest with them. Not something I enjoyed. The 7 mice we caught ourselves, we took them across the village & let them go in a field. They went scampering off & I just felt happier about that, but we knew when we were beaten. I was having to sanitise work surfaces & everything because while I am not scared of them, they are pretty unhygienic as they pee & poo constantly. Council pest control man was very good. We did have to pay (think it's free if you have rats!) but he visited 4 times so we did fell we'd had our money's worth. He said that if we've managed to catch 7 mice ourselves, then it was a significant infestation as they live in social groups & are fast breeders. Remember that they can't hurt you & are much more scared of you. I know this is difficult when you have an irrational fear of things.....as I said, I'm hopeless with spiders....& hopefully the pest control people will get it sorted out for you.

Pink.

Hi youluckypanda,

Don't panic, lots of us have had mice before and managed to get rid of them fairly quickly. This thread has lots of advice that should help:

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

I'll add your thread to it later to keep the ideas together.

Pink

mrs_baggins

I had problem with mice for a while. opened a kitchen drawer and there it was!!! Did nt like doing it but they were wrecking the place so had to put poison down and they soon stopped. the council should sort it out for you but you may have to pay depends on where you are I think

Sally_A

They seem to get in our roof space every winter, have tried blocking up the air bricks so they can't climb up the cavity wall, the drainpies are sealed into the ground. No idea how they get up there. They do however seem to evacuate at this time of year and move back into the garden.

GettingItRight

If only you was looking for a pet, you'd have saved some money there

Seriously though, we once had a mouse eating away at our vegetables in the garage. We only knew one was there, when we realised some of the vegetables had small chunks taken from them. During a day off from work, I was able to confirm it was a mouse (very small). When the mouse saw me, it ran out of the garage and round a corner. I would never have wanted to kill the poor thing. It did come back, but we never saw it again once we moved the vegetables into the kitchen cupboard.

My brother has a cat and while they do not have a mouse problem. The cat seems to bring them in from outside and then plays with them in the kitchen. If he is lucky he can catch the mouse and leave it outside to run off. If he is unlucky, the cat kills the mouse in the house, tries to swallow it as a whole only to then later bring it back up (sick) somewhere in the house.

craftdaft

We've got the same problem. I thought I heard mice in the wall on Saturday so put some poison down on Sunday. On Sunday night my sister saw a mouse in the living room :eek: She mentioned it to my DH who said it was a poor wee mouse who needs somewhere to live and it comes in every night. She asked if I knew to which he replied yes and I was quite happy to give it a home :mad::mad::mad:

This one 'poor wee mouse' has managed to eat 50g of poison in two days!! It must have told all its friends that this is a great place to live and if you wait until craftdaft's in bed you can run around the edges of the living room :eek::eek::eek:

I'm persevering with the poison until it's no longer getting eaten then I'm going to start mopping the floors with diluted peppermint oil as a preventative measure (have read that they hate the smell and won't cross it). If it doesn't work at least the house will smell nice!!

BitterAndTwisted

Sally_A wrote: »

They seem to get in our roof space every winter, have tried blocking up the air bricks so they can't climb up the cavity wall, the drainpies are sealed into the ground. No idea how they get up there. They do however seem to evacuate at this time of year and move back into the garden.

Please unblock those air-bricks! They're very necessary for ventilation to prevent damp. I think you could affix some fine-guage metal mesh to the air-bricks if you think they're able to squeeze through them.