Mouse/mice have decided that our dishwasher waste hose makes for a delicious nesting material (or healthy snack). They have thoroughly shredded it – completely cutting it in half and making several other holes along it. Quite impressive in a period of about 2 weeks at most. Now operation catch the buggers, has stepped up and I am confident their time on the planet is limited.

Remarkably we have managed to get away with minimal water damage. BUT of all the things to chew a fairly stiff plastic tube seems an odd choice.

If I replace like with like how do I stop them doing it again (either before the war on mice is complete, or if I am not 100% successful at finding and isolating their entrance)?

Kill the bastards.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rentokil-Advanced-Mouse-Trap-Twin/dp/B00IUE6FSE

+ peanut butter.

Accept no substitute.

A sacrificial fake pipe made of cheese next to it?

Shirley that would only be a Brief distraction?

Edam well better had do.

Feta than nothing

Multiple Little Nipper traps baited with Peanut butter.

You’ll get through the population in a matter of days. As always with traps, check them often so they don’t suffer for too long if not killed outright.

I would probably build a roquefort around the pipe to protect it.

Install a large tabby cat.

Job done.

PJM1974 – Member
Install a large tabby cat.

Then install dog to get rid of cat…

We’ve had this too. They’re either after water or food scraps in the pipe. I wrapped the pipe with wire wool to deter them. Cats are useless, they bring the buggers in and release them.

[/quote] donald – Member

We’ve had this too. They’re either after water or food scraps in the pipe. I wrapped the pipe with wire wool to deter them. My cats are useless, they bring the buggers in and release them.

FTFY, other lethal cats are available.

B+Q do these pre-baited affairs. I don’t know what they’re baited with but when I’ve known I’ve got cheese eating guests, set one or two of these down and within 20 minutes BANG! got one. Reset and repeat until no more bangs. Humane as well, sure the wee fekkers don’t even know what’s hit them

EDIT – new, the bait seems to be irresistible but using the re-baiting mixture doesn’t seem to work. If I use peanut butter, should it be sugar loaded Sun-Pat crap or STW-approved organic Whole Earth variety?

Make your own traps like this guy?

[video]https://youtu.be/wvWD-E-gbkk[/video]

The surprising thing is that something so stupid could know that going to a load of effort to gnaw through a plastic pipe will result in food/water rather than say 240V through their teeth.

I have no huge worries about being able to catch the buggers. Multiple traps are now set, and assuming the number of traps is > no of mice I expect 2-3 days will get me a big impact. The hose is probably > 1m long so while wire wool is the way I was thinking, its not going to be trivial to do and hold in place feeding it through the small gaps etc. I was perhaps hoping there was a magic paint I could spray on that they would detest… or a particular pipe that was rodent resistant/repellant.

B+Q do these pre-baited affairs.

I’ve got some of those. They’re crap, there’s too much resistance in the trigger plate unless you manually half-depress it when setting and risk taking your finger-ends off. I wasn’t killing mice with them, just feeding the buggers. The Rentokil ones I linked to above are far better.

Fiberfix them pipes innit.
Bet the mices won’t chew that.

Fiberfix

[video]http://youtu.be/2SKrNUq22rk[/video]

Kayak… but that presumably makes the pipe rigid which will make it impossible to move the d/w in out if required for maintenance? It has a flexible waste pipe for a reason…

Now I have had an idea, but I don’t know what it is called. I have seen in offices a wire mesh/net tubular cover for wiring – probably just to keep the stuff tidy although it probably makes wild claims about screening EM interference. Firstly would that sort of thing stop them each strand is very thin. Secondly what is that called?

had a few furry blighters using my garage as an air BnB over Christmas.

Got a pair of the black plastic ‘Pest Stop’ jobbies from Screwfix, baited them with peanut butter (hippy nonsense from Holland and Barrett for reference, the missus buys it by the bucket)

Caught a mouse a night for three nights then no more hits for a week, at which point I cleaned them up and put them away…. until the next time.

It was almost weirdly easy.

I agree with hatter above, tried all sorts of traps and the pest stop are definitely the best ones.

Leave them out hatter, they will come back. I can get 2 or 3 in a night for 3 nights then nothing for a week.

Good things about the pest stop traps is single hand operation for setting trap, and same for removing the dead mouse without needing to touch it. Also, never need to re-bait as the bait sits in a cup below the platform which activates the trap and the mouse never actually reaches it.

I used little nippers before and the mice can remove bait from them with ease. Not sensitive enough.

Further investigation reveals they’ve had their way with the oven power cable, and two cold water flex pipes as well fortunately only the outer skin not the inner. Unfortunately I still don’t know where they got in. 5 yrs ago we had some and a found broken air brick which I patched – but it is intact.