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

retepetsir

Well we've got mice in our ground floor flat. Built in 1969, they appear to be coming in via the communal service shaft (pipes for gas/water/waste/etc) which is accessed via a built-in cupboard in the kitchen.

We purchased this place after living in a 2nd floor flat in the same block for 2 years, and also had mice there just before moving!

Due to the location of the cold water tank in the cupboard (up high) it's going to be impossible to fully block off the service shaft. It's currently boarded over but not tightly fitted to pipework running through it.

We first noticed it again when there were chunks missing out of the veg which we store in that internal cupboard (the only food we store in there, everything else is in bottles), but they then moved to a corner cupboard where we store cereal and things like nuts/seed mixes. That must mean they're moving under the units.

I've been laying traps the past 3 days and so far have caught 5 mice, they just keep coming for the peanut butter! Tried the humane version but they just didn't work. I put a trap down last night underneath the kitchen units and within 2 minutes of leaving the kitchen the trap went off. My fianc!e isn't too happy!

Think I'm going to contact the managing agents for the flats as we've been advised that it'll be a large scale problem if they're running up and down the service shaft, so we wouldn't be able to sort it out ourselves.

Anything else that you can suggest we do? We could do with using that cupboard for storage but really don't want to if we have mice roaming around. Is expanding foam any good at stopping them from coming through?

quizzy_rascal

We live in a very old house full of voids and boxed in pipes, a mouse paradise it would seem. Every year about this time they would start coming indoors. We used traps and poison and managed to control them but never stopped them returning. Then when they finaly chewed through some plastic pipes under the bathroom floor and caused a massive leak and subsequent damage we got really serious. After a lot of trial and error we got some of those sonic plug ins for vermin. They send out a sound wave that is out of humans hearing range, but they don't bother our dogs. We have not seen a mouse since.

shebangs

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FairyPrincessk

When I was in Uni I lived in a first floor flat that had a family of mice move in. The slum-lord wasn't the least bit concerned. My flatmate and I set traps (which she then dealt with as I'm squeamish!:eek:) I kept my wellies on a bookshelf near the front door to don everytime I came in:rotfl:

I don't think we ever eradicated them, even with a sonic noise plug in, countless traps and storing all of our food in sealed plastic boxes (good idea for any cardboard/paper packaging).

The worst part was that my flat mate forgot one of the traps. We came back after a warm holiday to a very bad smell!:(:naughty:

MaggieBaking

As it's a rented property definitely ask the landlords to sort it. As well as being able to fit through absolutely tiny holes, mice are also very good climbers, depending on what your kitchen cupboards are like they might be able to scrabble up (although if it's gloss they've no hope.)

I'd tell the landlords to get propery exterminators into to use expanding foam on the gaps etc.

In the meantime, make sure you clean everything just before you use it, including work tops, cutlery out of your drawers etc. Get a large airtight box if you want to store anything in the cupboard they're climbing up through and put all of your food that isn't airtight in your top cupboards.

euronorris

squeaky wrote: »

Yeah, mice don't like cheese, and I've seen peanut butter mentioned...

..in the wild mice eat grain and cereals - so rice works, muesli...

We had mice at one point.....Snickers worked for us, I kid you not!

It's how we first realised they were in the flat, as they chewed through the pocket of his backpack to get to an unopened Snickers bar!

So, we put that as bait in the trap and caught one the first night! The rest soon followed too! Did a thorough clean, and keep the traps out (just in case), but had no trouble since (no sign of them either - no droppings, no eaten food, nothing).

bluebag

I use chocolate raisins as trap bait, cut them in half and use the raisin-ey bit to stick on the trap spike. (the wooden spring type ) Don't bother with those plastic traps complete waste of money as most mice are too light to set them off.

A mouse can squeeze through any hole the size of a pencil diameter.