We’ve had a few weeks of scrabbling sounds under our floors – the sounds are largely confined to the night times and can be heard in a couple of different places – it’s driving the dog nuts though.

The sounds are quite loud (to the point I’ve joked that maybe a neighbour is digging a basement extension or a relative of the mole man of hackney is living close by) but we’ve not seen any trace of mice / rats in the house – no urine stains / droppings, or sightings in the rooms. I’ve already covered over the outside airbricks with mouse mesh and checked for obvious gaps in the mortar so can’t figure out where they are getting in – the most likely place is under the party wall with our mad neighbour who insists on leaving food out for foxes and anything else she feels sorry for.

Because we’ve got tiled floors and interlocked oak floors, the only place I can cut through to the sub floor is underneath the kitchen units – which is where the noises are most pronounced.

To sort the problem I’ve used a baited electrocution chamber and rat traps (so far I’ve tried cooked bacon, peanut butter, chocolate, biscuits) I’ve not managed to catch / kill anything.

As we’ve got a dog I’m very reluctant to use any kind of poison bate as it’s not humane for the mice / rats / neighbour digging under the house, and due to the risk of the dog eating something that’s poisoned… so has anyone got any other ideas for how to get our nightime visitors out of the house before they eat the wiring and pipes?

Obvious question, but if it is just underneath your house why do you care?

I’ve had mice (and rats) in the house and dealt with the problem then – but I can’t say I’m too bothered if there are under the house, as long as they stay there.

Anyway, yeah try to track where they are coming in. Mice can get through VERY small holes so don’t assume the gaps will be obvious (anything you can fit the end of a pencil into a mouse can squeeze through).

For bait lots of people swear by chocolate. I’ve found this to be the most effective though:

And you might want to read:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/getting-rid-of-a-mouse

Cat?

If they’re in the house (rather than under it) then they’ll run along in front of the wall edges, so you need to position traps with bait-side to the wall. Under the house, god knows, start hoisting floorboards?

When I had mice I once caught one right on the end of it’s nose.
Makes my eyes water just thinking about it.

And you can buy poison in little plastic boxes which should be pet proof, basically the same things as you would pay rentokil to put down in your house.

As cougar said mice navigate by touch rather than sight so will typically run along the edges, place bait/traps there.

Traps, humane or traditional. Not poison.

Or I can lend you a very effective cat! He is currently not enjoying being beaten up by the new rabbit so might like a holiday and he is fantastic at catching mice.

worth getting rid of – your insulated waterpipes under your floor wont be insulated for very long.

Check the kitchen for rats

I’m amazed no one else has suggested this.

Head smasher trap and “Big Cheese” bait.

That is eventually how I destroyed my little visitor.

Is it on the stair? There, on the stair?

I had a big problem with mice a couple of years ago.
I used sonic devices and snap traps for many months, with little effect (although killed loads)- they breed so damn quick.
Eventually, the only thing that sorted it was blocking every hole I could find with wire wool and ‘filler-paste’ type stuff (they can get in a hole the diameter of a biro), and borrowing a cat for a couple of weeks.

We had a mouse for months despite having no access to food, crumbs or otherwise. I think it was just passing through to get somewhere else. 00:30am every day unless it was raining when it would come in earlier. I was happy for it to just pass through but the missus wanted rid – I tried everything but it avoided it all including nasty glue traps but I think it learned to levitate. Eventually it just stopped visiting.
I miss him.

Dundee cake had mice years ago in a MOD house thats what the pest control guy who was called in recommended worked a treat when on a neck snapper trap 😈

Get enough and you could….. i dunno.

And you can buy poison in little plastic boxes which should be pet proof, basically the same things as you would pay rentokil to put down in your house.

And then a doped mouse is a handy snack for the dog…

Is it on the stair? There, on the stair?

Where on the stair?

KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!!!!!

Borrow a Staffy. Instant death to mice and amazing to watch in action.

That gif needs to go in the gifs thread if it’s not there already

Mice are dicks. Chewed through the electric cables between the downstairs ceiling and the upstairs floor, and fire gutted the living room in one of our old rentals. Luckily it happened in the afternoon whilst the Wife and me were at work and the boy was at the sitters.

It was a very old cottage on a working sheep farm, so they were not unexpected, but the cats failed to massacre these particular ones.

Bastards.

I hate them.
Death is too good for them.
They ate my wetsuit!
Kill ’em all!

We’ve been having some mice issues recently too.

If I look under the kitchen units I can see the rough/unfinished holes in the floor next to the wall where the pipes and cables come up, pretty sure that’s the route they’re taking up into the house.

I’ve been sat here at the computer about 10pm and seen something in the corner of my eye, turned around and it was a mouse casually strolling into the room coming towards me. I got up and he bolted straight round the back of the bookshelf. Clearly knew where he was going. Managed to capture that one by boxing that corner of the room in and removing everything else. The missus insisted we release him down by the river.

Since then we’ve had others. Missus bought a Big Cheese live capture trap (the box with the entry see-saw) but it was useless and caught nothing.

Eventually I bought a load of traditional snap traps and baited with peanut butter. Went through a period of pretty much catching one a night. One of my traps was up to 7 ‘frags’.

Then suddenly nothing since.

I’ve tried a few types of snap traps and found these ones work best, the shape of the trigger means Mr Mousey is forced to step on it if he wants the bait:

My 7 fragger was one of those.

best sucess I’ve had was a ‘little nipper’ old style mouse trap. 99p from hardware stores. Use either raisins or marshmallows as bait, but wire the bain on with fine grade fuse wire to stop the little buggers lifting it off. Got 4 mice in 2 days using these in a holiday cottage after they ate two of my silk ties!

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=little+nipper+mouse+trap&rlz=1C1NNVC_enGB499GB507&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1oz6UqmKBaPQ7Ab0q4GoBA&ved=0CFYQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=785

humane traps are a waste of time . release it near your house – it will come back – take it 5-10 miles away – it will die.

might as well snap its back.

We tried the humane route, it didn’t work.

We got poison, they loved it that much, they didn’t just eat the poison in the traps we set, they also ate into the box and ate into a few sachets of poison in there too!

No a nice way to go though. Found a live one in the humane trap ironically, looked all sort of sweaty.

Sticky bait works, such as peanut butter, chocolate spread or ketchup!
Traps against the walls, in their ‘runs’.
Anything like cheese or bread, they just bash out of the trap without getting killed…. (buggers!)

Best kill them before they start eating important stuff – electrical cables, plastic water/gas pipes, that kind of thing.

Second the “Little nipper + peanut butter” route.

Humane traps – pointless.
Poison – not with a hound.
Electrocution – didn’t seem to bother them with the mains cables they ate.