last night just before bed caught sight on something moving fast from the corner of my eye, first thought was bloody big spider, but then after 10 mins of sitting quietly a little mouse popped out from under the chair and ran off round the corner.

Spent this morning searching for evidence, can’t find any droppings, or any chewed food packets at all. Could it be it just popped in for a look? Reading online it says if you see them you usually have lots.

anyway to find out if I do have mice if I can’t find any further evidence and what is the best way of trapping humanly? Ideally I don’t want to kill them. Read some reviews of traps provided by b&q and they sound rubbish.

Ideally I don’t want to kill them

really, why not?

Simple little nipper mousetrap, baited with a 1cm chunk of bread with some peanut butter on. Lay the trap along the run, against the skirting you saw the mouse at. Come down net morning, and dispose of it. Lay it again and repeat until you have 2 nights without a dead mouse in it.

I have to do it once a year or so, usually catching between 2 and 5 mice.

Don’t like killing things if I don’t have to, even if it is a pest. I suppose the first test should be just leaving some bait out to see if it is taken. Dunno what it is feeding on, would have thought I could find some evidence of activity

I suppose the first test should be just leaving some bait out to see if it is taken.

That’s not a test, it is a dinner party.

Have a think about them being incontinent and filthy little buggers who crap *everywhere* and the damage they do, then get a Little Nipper.

Buggered about for ages with humane traps while they continued to piss and shit all round the house.

Got a couple of good old fashion “head smashers”.

BANG BANG

Problem eliminated.

Don’t like killing things if I don’t have to, even if it is a pest.

glue trap. it won’t kill it, but it’ll stop it eating through your cabling and pissing in your cornflakes.

we used a ‘friendly’ mouse trap (tilting tube). It never really worked, they’d manage to get the food (smeared peanut butter on chocolate FTW) and back out again.

Resorted to the classic mousetrap. Vicious, but effective.

Mum had same issue. We went through same ‘kindly’ / traditional mousetrap process with her, too.

Or invite next door’s cat to wander round for an evening..

Not sure that you will have lots. In my experience you never get more than 3 or 4. Families. Don’t always leave evidence and they adopt runs so set a trap where you see them heading to. The gap under kitchen cabinets is a common favourite. They love chocolate so whichever trap you use thats a good bait. I’m a little nipper man myself.

I have a fantastic mouse catcher. It also catches rats, rabbits, squirrels, birds. The problem is it catches them when they are outside and brings them in.

We’ve currently got a trap set in a kitchen cupboard where I saw a mouse a few weeks ago. Have killed 2 so far, think they are living outside and occasionally coming in, the cupboard in question doesn’t even have any food. I consider myself an animal lover, have even kept pet mice and rats a few years ago, but honestly I don’t think there is a good alternative to just killing them. If you catch it live and dump it outside it will probably just have a nastier slower death anyway. Plus, humane traps are often crap.

glue trap. it won’t kill it, but it’ll stop it eating through your cabling and pissing in your cornflakes.

a glue trap didn’t work out well for..

🙂

I have a fantastic mouse catcher. It also catches rats, rabbits, squirrels, birds. The problem is it catches them when they are outside and brings them in.

We have one of those. I came down one morning to find a magpie hiding in the kitchen sink under the washing up bowl…

Was it wearing marigolds and using Fairy Liquid?

Get one of these off the neighbour, and lock in the house while you are at work:

I had much success with peanut butter wrapped inside a bit of a pair of tights. The tights trap their teeth and if you peg it to the trap they can’t just nick it.

Borrow one of these they do a better job than a moggy.

Oh and yeah they might keep them alive, sorry.

I’m somewhat confused as to why you need further evidence that you have mice beyond actually seeing them.

Ideally I don’t want to kill them.

Expect a considerable amount of evidence to be presented imminently.

Speaking as a fully paid up tree-hugging vegetarian yoghurt knitter, you unfortunately have two options:

1) kill them.

2) have mice.

You can get plug in repellers which emit a high frequency noise that does their tiny nuts in.

Cat wee is also supposed to put the frighteners on em

I had a couple of mice that crept in through the back door last summer. Took me a while to work it out, just thought I was going mad with the movement in the corner of my eye. Eventually one sneaked across the lounge one evening so I got a humane trap, caught one that night, one the next and released them half a mile away in the local woods. Nothing since, so its not all bad. Even left them with half a digestive biscuit each as supplies for their new woodland adventure… 😳

Get a humane mousetrap like this and bait that.

You should catch the furry blighter, then you can dispose of him however you see fit. Taking him/her into a field at least a mile away is the best bet.

Just found you can download a free app that allegedly scares them off with ultrasound… wonder how long it’ll be before you can set your phone to stun…

I remember my first flat – I was sitting at my PC, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Twas a mouse, staring at me before hiding behind the sofa.

I was surprised, because there had been no sign of mice (nothing chewed, no droppings). So I obtained a humane mouse trap, and because I am so humane, put in some hamster bedding and hamster treats (I had a hamster at the time – Raziel, the Angry).

Next morning, there was a mouse all curled up and snoozy. I released him out of the window, and reset the trap with the same little luxuries. Next day – another mouse. Same again – out of the window (I hasten to add I lived on the ground floor).

I repeated the process twice more, when I started to think, “You know, these mice all look mighty similar, even for mice”. So on the final time, I took him out to some corn fields. If he was to die, at least he would die free and provide a snack for local predators (or head to the nearby houses).

Despite resetting the trap, I never saw another mouse, and never saw any mousey signs. I either had a) a family of exactly five mice, one of which I cruelly separated from his kin, or b) one mouse, who knew a good thing when he saw it.

I had a couple of mice that crept in through the back door last summer.

You are Richard Gere and I claim my £5.

We have mice in the attic, no sign of them anywhere else, just above our bedroom.

Tried a glue trap, not cool – being woken up by a squealing mouse rolling about the attic floor boards 6 ft above your head with an A4 sheet of card stuck to him is not nice. Even less nice is then dealing with squealy, pissy, bitey mouse. I went for a single blow to the head with a blunt object. >other less brutal options are available<

Now onto these: http://www.uttings.co.uk/p104705-big-cheese-baited-rtu-mouse-trap-2-pack-stv100/?gclid=CPibjZeS6rwCFUjpwgodqiEAzA#.Uw4Mz-N_ugg

Baited with a piece of kit kat they do the trick, very well, had a job to remove the wire from the neck of one blighter. So far 6 or 7 caught since December, but being that many I’m worried there are a lot more so am going to start poisoning them too.

EDIT: with ‘the big cheese’ traps you need to bend the bait hook down to a better angle so it sticks in the bait better, and stops zee mouse getting avay viz zee food.

Humane traps are for people who ride 150mm full sussers on blue routes at trail centres.

Oh, hang on……………………

You are Richard Gere and I claim my £5.

That was definitely a gerbil. Definitely. Right? 😕

Tried a glue trap, not cool

Next door neighbour laid out home-made glue traps in his back yard a while back.

The problem is that if they work, you then have large piece of sticky cereal box cardboard lying there with “mouse” as bait. Hundred quid at the vets to have my cat de-glued, that cost me. Fartknocker.

Cat wee is also supposed to put the frighteners on em

Depends, if they have been infected with the cat parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, then they are attracted to cat urine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26240297

You just have to remember that normal people are not psychologically equipped to catch mice…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjL_Gf4jdfc[/video]

for the record, whilst I have used glue traps, they were as a last resort because our mousey visitor refused to eat anything or go anywhere near any of the variety of traps that were laid out.
it didn’t even go near the glue traps despite their varied strategic placements.
it just walked through the kitchen, pooed on the sofa then wandered off somewhere else.
eventually it just stopped visiting.

Raziel, the Angry

Made me snort with laughter.

Those humane tunnel-trap thingys look good on paper, but they’re only humane if you check them every couple of hours – otherwise mousey dies a longer & less humane death than the old fashioned head-smasher type.

On the up side, they do work – caught 6 or 7 in my loft last year. Unfortunately I think they’re back – wonder if I didn’t release them far enough away?

If you use a head smasher you can release them into the bin without fear of them coming back.

2x head-smashers have already been deployed. Will be checking them when I get home in an hour.