^ That was also my experience

Air pistol and periscope?
Think WW1 sniper type stuff.
When you come across and mutilated but maybe not dead one or one that obviously took ages to die the missus will get all sentimental. At this point solder Stanley knife blades to the trap.
Careful setting them though.

OP, if you don’t like touching the dead mice then get something like this

http://www.robertdyas.co.uk/the-big-cheese-quick-click-mouse-traps-pack-of-2

Fire me a pm and we’ll sort something g

“murderer” 🙂
My wife, clever lady, big boss at a hospice has just said, “I’ve heard those traps go at least 5 times in the last two hours!”
There must be a serial killer mouse up there then because we only have four traps. Love her to bits 🙂
Thanks for all the help and the laughs.
Hammy – you have email

A friend had mice, heard a trap go, went to check on it a while later and found just a little mouse leg in the trap. Disposed of it, reset the trap. Checked it the next day and found it had killed a three legged mouse! I don’t think rats are that stupid.

OP, if you don’t like touching the dead mice then get something like this

There are other options:

Or you can dust off and nuke from orbit, it’s the only answer.

We’re now up to 9 confirmed kills and two snap traps have bounced out of sight (don’t have to bounce far for that) so I’m estimating 11.
14 traps are now deployed with peanut butter
as bait. My theory is, they can’t resist the bait and slowly but surely (if not quicker), kills will outnumber births. I’m also going to put sonic pulse things in both lofts and round the house.
In case anybody is looking in the future or stumbles on this through Google:
Mice are very noisy across loft boards. Foot noise. We’ve not heard a single squeak. No noise at all in a very quiet house during the day and evening past midnight if we’re waking around, watching tv etc. They seem to be active only in the middle of the night when the house is very quiet.
Just our experiences to possibly help others and thank you for your help and giggles.

We too have just discovered mice in the loft. We found them downstairs first and they managed to chew through the food waste bin. We got rid of that and i plugged 3 holes in the kitchen which seemed to do the trick. Laid 3 traps, caught 2 mice and all seemed good. Fast forward a week and we heard some noise coming from the eaves. I didn’t possibly think it could be a mouse as it was quite noisy but the Mrs was getting paranoid so put 3 traps up loaded with peanut butter. Caught nothing on the first night but sure enough, caught one on the second.

Still trying to figure out how the little buggers are getting in the house in the first place. Been in the house for 3 years and not had this problem before. They sure are persistent but i’ll just have to find out exactly where they are getting in and stop that route of entry. Failing that i think a shotgun might suffice!!!

two snap traps have bounced out of sight (don’t have to bounce far for that)

Make a ‘special’ attempt to find them… I know you said it’s awkward but if they’ve snapped and got a mouse, said mouse will stink like nothing you’ve ever smelt before. We’ve had 2 occasions where something wasn’t found straight away, 1 stunk for about a month.
Maybe tie some string on the end and pin them with a draing pin, hopefully mouse won’t eat the string.

That’s a goof idea Muddoger. I’ll modify some chicken wire so that I can retrieve the traps (in future). I’ll figure out some way of getting hold of the missing one’s as well.
I’m going to put the radar noise things in the house to try and dissuade them from coming back and I’ll keep traps up in the loft and check them every few days for the few weeks after we appear to have ridden ourselves of our squatters.
This house has more holes in the uneven roof and door frames Chief Inspector that I can see this being a ‘lifestyle’. Not a nice experience and seeing them contorted and stiff in snap traps is not nice for either party. I think if I can reduce this down to maybe one catch per week (we’re in the middle of the countryside, so I suppose it’s to be expected to some degree), I’ll switch to humane traps and release them a few miles away.