mice and getting rid of them.

When we moved into our house, there were mice in the attic. I checked for possible points of entry and mortered up a small hole. That did the trick and no more mice. However, 6 years on, they have now come back and for the life of me, i cannot find where they are getting in. They are only in the attic, upstairs walls, not downstairs or in any of the rooms.

Anyway, i’ll put some poison and traps down, but as i cant find the entry point, i guess others will enter the house. Any tips for keeping them at bay. Do those accoustic devices work, as that would be ideal!

Borrow a friends cat

I have a dog so the cat is a no goer

I’ve used one of those ultrasonic mouse repellers before and they’ve worked pretty well. I couldn’t get the crafty buggers to take any bait from traps but the repellent thing moved them on without hassle.

http://www.mousetraps.org.uk/Mouse-Traps/Whole-House-Ultrasonic-Mouse-Repellent-RODE0034MOUSE

teenrat – mice and getting rid of them

There’s an agenda here…

I’ve heard peppermint oil works

They can get through holes the size of a pencil, you’ll never block up everything.

I eventually got rid of the ones that got into my house via use of poison. Traps didn’t work, I used both the traditional ones and those Big Cheese ones:

and in spite of moving them round, putting them by entry holes and along where I guessed the runs were they never caught a thing.

hmmmm, peppermint oil,not heard of that before. Im willing to give anything a go. Those accoustic devices seem to have 50% yes it does work and no it doesn’t do anything!

I think there can only be two sources of entry. Our extension butts onto next doors steep garden, so a corner the garden is at my gutter level. This is where i thought they were getting in. The other option, is that they are getting in via next doors attic – i’m not sure whether there is a link between the two attics. I’ve had Hep2o central heating pipes installed so am a little concerned that they will be nibbled.

I second the ultrasound gizmo, it got rid of my mouse infestation very quickly.

put the ultrasound doo-dah in my mum’s house — not sure it worked really. See also the humane traps – see-saw style.

What did work was one of the big metal traps I’m afraid – and worked for us previously. They soon get the message..

And/or spread some cat wee around, even just let the cat in for a while..

Get shut of the dog. They’re big daft, smelly useless lumps anyway. Cats are useful. You just need to harness their natural malevolence. Our two are like an eight-legged apocalypse to the local rod entry. You’ve more chance of finding a unicorn in our house than a mouse 😀

I used some pretty chunky traps from amazon and peanut butter. At first they were eating the bait and not setting off the traps. Once I’d taken a little slack by VERY gently pressing down the trigger I got them all quite quickly.

Let me know if you’d details of the traps as they were well designed.

We had once had trouble with rats in the attic.

Cats are great at keeping them under control IF they can get at the rats/mice. But unless the cats have access to your attic they won’t do much good.

we used to sit in bed, listening to the rats scrabbling about on the ceiling and watching the cat going mental trying to get at them.

We found long term use of rat poison in the attic was the only way to control them.

Thanks binners 🙂 and thanks for all the other advice.

Little nipper traps and peanut butter as bait. Set BEFORE going to the pub.

Ensure no food left around

Poison = rotting mice = smell

Onset of winter often encourages the little blighters to move inside.

My cat would bring mice into the house, live, and play with them; she didn’t get the ‘kill’ part. Either I had to euthanise them if they’d been played with too roughly, or chuck them out. Thankfully they’re pretty easy to catch if they’re away from small holes.

Moral of the story: don’t rely on the cat.

“Poison = rotting mice = smell”

common misconception. they dont rot – the poison dries them out.

never been an issue here , neighbours swear by the sonic gizmos though.

Got rid of ours a year ago using those traps ^^
I left a couple up there baited with peanut butter but never had any further problems…. until yesterday. Went up there to put away suitcases after holiday and found a dead mouse in one of the traps. Judging by the number of maggots which spilled from it’s rotting inards, I’d say it had been there a little while.

Moral of the tale…. whatever method you use, check it regularly.

I kill a couple per week using these

Procter Mouse Traps

I don’t bother with bait, I just place them round the edge of the garage where they run, sometimes use bricks to block them in so the little micey is forced over the trap. The plastic ones are much easier to set as they do not go off by accident.

The only downside is that they do quite often catch the mice by its leg, and on more than one occasion I have found a leg in the trap and no mouse, I think they have chewed off their leg to escape 😐

Poison takes bloody ages to work on mice. The stuff I had was blue after a couple weeks the only result was that the mouse droppings had turned blue. I lost patience at this point and used proper snap traps.

If you can find any holes where they are getting in then I’m told wire wool is the best thing for blocking them.

ultrasonic things (you may need to try a few to find one that works for your mice)
get the council to come round and put down some of their “strong” poison
traps
cats are the best but I guess you can’t
wire wool in all the gaps that you can fit a pencil in
wire mesh over those ventilation bricks outside

remember you’ll never kill them all, you just have to make your neighbours houses more enticing than yours 🙂

Napalm 8)

peppermint oil is now in place, snap traps baited with snickers and ultrasonic device on the way. Lets see what happens!

It’s like an episode of A-team 8)

Poison takes bloody ages to work on mice

Not the stuff I use, a single feed is usually enough but then I’m a trade user and can get hold of the ‘good stuff’. Saying that Screwfix will sell you some mouse bait boxes loaded up with Brodifacoum which is usually strong enough to kill mice with a single feed. Place one approximately every 2 square metres.

To the OP, if the snickers based bait approach doesn’t work you could always try peanut butter or chocolate spread. Make sure you check the traps every 24 hrs for humaneness.

they dont rot – the poison dries them out

They all rot, trust me. A single dead mouse in a loft is usually enough to stink out the room below and if you don’t clean your van out regularly they soon stink that out as well 😳

Peanut butter and a Shreddie = SNAP! goodnight mr mouse

As above, I got rid of our infestation using old school mouse traps, but baited with bread dipped in bacon fat.
It was quite upsetting, TBH. Wasting a treat like that on a mouse…

Personally I got rid of our mice using the see-saw humane traps. 20% of the time the mouse would get away, but it didn’t take long to catch them all. The key is to drop them off over half a mile way otherwise they find their way back.

Old school cartoon style ‘bit of wood and sprung metal loop’ snap traps baited with peanut butter were the only thing that worked for us.

The missus was dead against them to begin with and tried various humane traps. When none of them worked and she continued to be taunted by the presence of the mice running across the floor in front of her, she came round to my way of thinking.

We had one recently. Humane “rocker” traps out for a week, no mouse. Inhumane Little Nipper traps out for one hour, mouse caught.

Although caught isn’t the right word – it was critically injured but not caught and managed to escape back down the gap into the underfloor crawl space. I then had to go down with a headtorch and a hammer to find and finish it off – fun! 😆

To add to Binners continuing jihad against dogs, the most mice we have ever had have been brought into the house by the cats. Sometimes they’re in separate bits, sometimes they’re are still in one piece. The latter ones are often alive and once in the house the cats largely appear to lose interest in them. Now it’s time for the dog to show it’s true colours. Dispatch time. It’s quite good at it too.

Unfortunately one cat has now gone to hell but the other still hangs on, presumably through some pact with the devil and she’s no longer capable of catching garden animals. The dog is now reduced to dismembering frogs she catches in the garden, frothing at the mouth and then shitting liquid.