There’s a rat in me kitchem what amagonnado?

Like what? I don’t want lethal traps and poison is out of teh question…

Then you’re going to have mice.

I didn’t want lethal traps either, but dead mice are preferable to being overrun by live ones.

Pied Piper to the forum

I didn’t want lethal traps either, but dead mice are preferable to being overrun by live ones.

Yeah I think I’m starting to come around to that idea.. I’ll see if I can catch any with the humane traps, but then that leaves the dilema of ‘offing’ them myself, which is a pretty grim thought…

 I’ll see if I can catch any with the humane traps, but then that leaves the dilema of ‘offing’ them myself, which is a pretty grim thought…

Exactly this.  Humane traps catch live mice, but then you’ve got a live mouse so what next?  Releasing them into the wild they will likely come straight back again and if a previous poster is correct then it’s also illegal.  If you’re contemplating killing them yourself then what does that gain over a snap trap other than keeping them captive for a while first?

I understand your reluctance, it doesn’t help that they’re cute.  I hated it, but it’s got to be done I’m afraid.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000T5N0JE

We live on the edge of fields / countryside.

With an old stone cottage, easy-climb rough stone walls, etc etc  the barstewards readily get into the loft on a regular basis this time of year when the temperature drops. (Can’t blame them when the alternative is damp cold buzzard-patrolled fields).

Just got building happening on ex-farm-and-riding-stables land nearby now (c/o corrupt Robert Jenrick, but that’s another thread) with all the outbuildings and stables demolished last year. The number of mice wanting to use my garage as a holiday retreat went up by the bin-load.

Job lot of snappity-snap traps and Aldi finest peanut butter had to be deployed. + all the chewable kit is in Really Useful Boxes to stop them nesting in my Camelbak or wetsuit bag. Some nights I’d hear the snap whilst I was still in the garage after re-arming.

2nd year of the campaign is going to have to begin again I fear – though the new doors should be better at stopping the buggers.

I thought I’d Google the legalise for releasing trapped mice and rats back into the wild. It’s not as straightforward as you might imagine

So it’s illegal to release a grey squirrel. But brown rats and mice aren’t on the same special list as Mr G Squirrel ,so then “I think” that release falls into the category of cruelty as a mouse or rat will it seems most likely die of starvation or hypothermia if released into an unfamiliar location. Cruelty to wildlife is an offense, so illegal to do some on a mouse. The actual releasy bit doesn’t specifically seem to be illegal as neither mouse or rat are deemed non native.

Slotting a mouse with a trap is deemed not cruel, leaving a mouse in a humane trap for an excessive period without food and water is.

A small humane trap will cause condensation unto which said trapped critter will be subject to, causing damp fur and subsequent hypothermia.

There is an implication untested in law that humanely trapping a mouse, and having found him having timeously checked your suitably sized and catered trap, the mouse is then released within 500m of said trapping, you’re golden. Any deviation from the above and it’s potentially gaol time

Well, that’s a great Saturday night well spent.

That’s (sincerely) really interesting.  I simply couldn’t be arsed to check, so thanks for that.

Like what? I don’t want lethal traps and poison is out of teh question…

If you actually had a rodent problem – rats not mice, then I guess you would change your tune pretty quick. You need them gone as fast as possible, they cause a lot of damage. We had rats in the house last year and the council sent a pest controller, the only option they gave was poison.

That’s (sincerely) really interesting. I simply couldn’t be arsed to check, so thanks for that.

Once you read through it all it did pretty much make sense.

Two options. Sautee or Fricasee.

Rat au vin?

Avoid hypothetical gaol by treating them like bats.

First rule of bat club is tell no one you have bats.

Like what? I don’t want lethal traps and poison is out of teh question…

You need to methodically try to eliminate any obvious entry routes, which can be quite small. Stuff suspicious cracks with wire wool or rodent-proof filler. Apparently rodent urine shows up under UV / black light, so that might help you to identify trails. Trapping/removing/killing them is going to be pointless unless you also stop them getting in.

I used to use the humane traps.
Would release the mouse miles from home in an area of wood land.
One day the mouse must have legged it under the wheel for a bit of cover.
I drove off feeling happy to have saved the mouse , till I heard the crunch as the wheel rotated over it.

I used to use the humane traps…

Which begs the question, what do you do now?

Don’t incriminate yourself 🙂

We keep a couple of plastic catch-kill traps. When the first mouse is visible in the garden the traps are set outside for a week or so

The previous occupants of the house let mice get inside and chew on the cables underfloor. The council man came and said that he’d already laid poison, which the vendor hadn’t mentioned pre-sale.

No active infestation but a whole lot of rewiring; they only chewed the neutral conductor – wily critters

We had rats when we lived by the railway in Hackney. Our westie at the time was a hopeless deterrent. We had to get pest control around to bait the place. They always died near water appliances, so I had to fish out the rotting carcasses from the WC cistern boxing or from under the bath.. rotting rats smell worse than live ones.

We get mice periodically in our current house. Humane traps didn’t work so peanut butter and or Nutella on the plastic snap traps has proven effective. Prior to getting a cat this Easter, we had the traps in the corners of the kitchen and living room and under the kitchen units in the void.

We had a squirrel once which when pursued, dived into a partition wall through a tiny hole in the back of a kitchen cupboard. It refused to engage with the baited trap set by pest control and we could hear it scratching about in the wall. Some days passed and I walked into the kitchen one morning to check the trap and was confronted by the squirrel, sat on the worktop above the cupboard it had disappeared into. We stared at each other for a few seconds and then it jumped out of the adjacent open kitchen window top light.. I assume it was the same squirrel!

https://www.ufaw.org.uk/rodent-control/humane-rodent-control-detailed-advice

The welfare of captured wild vertebrates is covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/notes/contents), which puts in place a duty of care for the welfare of all vertebrates under human control. For example, anyone conducting wildlife management, who holds a rat, mouse or mole in a trap or enclosure, or in the hand, or during transportation, will be considered ‘responsible’ for that animal.

The responsible person may commit an offence under the Act by causing suffering, which is deemed to be unnecessary, to an animal under their control – or by allowing someone else to do so (Natural England, 2010). Whether the suffering is unnecessary requires consideration of a number of factors, such as whether the suffering could reasonably have been avoided or reduced, whether the control operation was for a legitimate purpose and whether the suffering was proportionate to the purpose of the control operation concerned.

The implications of this for releasing or killing captured animals is unclear, but the capture, release or killing of animals in circumstances that compromised or might compromise their welfare may be open to challenge, if the animal’s needs are not met as far as is reasonable in the circumstances. Leaving an animal in a live trap without food, water or shelter, might be an offence if the animal was left untended for longer than guidelines allow. A person releasing an animal may commit an offence if they do not take reasonable steps to ensure that, upon release, the animal is capable of fending for itself and living independently (Natural England, 2010).

Where suffering inevitably occurs in the course of wildlife management, Natural England advise that an offence is unlikely to be committed, provided the appropriate regulations, guidance or codes of conduct are followed. The Animal Welfare Act does not apply to the humane destruction of an animal (Natural England, 2010).

So if you do live trap then you need to then have a plan to check (elsewhere it says at least twice a day) and then destroy in a quick and effective way, and if you can’t bear the thought of effective (ie not the cheapest) snap traps I suspect you won’t be able to do that.

Releasing in the wild – it needs to be capable of fending for itself so dropping a commensal house mouse that has up to now survived scavenging in urban situations in the middle of the countryside is basically starving it, if it isn’t predated by the nasty stuff that lives in the wild. And I’m pretty sure I read elsewhere that you can’t release it to become an infestation for someone else!

So to your ‘Like What’? question.

1/ Big boy pants on and get some decent snap traps.

Or 2/ ask a pest controller to come and do it for you. Which probably means poison, and the downsides to that (most pest controllers aren’t coming to your house twice a day to check your traps, if they do leave traps it’ll be your job to check them anyway)

Or spend an age and a fortune trying to proof against them getting in – before giving up and going back to 1/ anyway.

I had a rat in my kitchen yesterday. He ran behind the fridge and hid behind the compressor. I tried to manoeuvre the fridge so I could shift him from behind the compressor and catch him or chase him out, when the fridge lurched forwards, the door swung open, the contents launched out and I was then over an hour clearing up glass, champagne, coffee stout, grapefruit gin, salad cream, butter, coleslaw and more all mixed up on the floor. This was as Mrs Smiffy’s friends came round to drink gin and plan their city break. only I’ve destroyed the gin and made most of the house inaccessible.

Last mouse I saw at our place disappeared never to be seen again…

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/amp/crocodiles-found-running-loose-i-a7182/

Any neighbours keep crocodiles? These were found after the rats being bred for food escaped to a neighbouring property!

Or spend an age and a fortune trying to proof against them getting in – before giving up and going back to 1/ anyway.

I guess it depends on how you feel about spending the rest of your life either living with an endless supply of rodents and/or killing/trapping the things. The trouble with not looking for and blocking access routes into your house is that rodents follow each other’s urine trails and no matter how many of them you kill, there will always be more.

Wire wool and filler aren’t particularly expensive and there’s a reasonable chance, depending on your house, that you’ll find a couple of obvious entry points. Block them off then trap anything that’s left inside – don’t leave food lying around for obvious reasons. And don’t overlook the obvious – mice can sneak through small cracks, rats often come up from the sewers, in which case a rat flap on the main sewer pipe is your friend.

I know every time rats and mice are mentioned on here, there’s a load of ‘man stuff’ about killing them with traps or poison, but unless you exclude them as well, it’s not really a solution, unless you view killing rodents as some sort of pleasurable, long-term sport.

Thing is I can’t see any entry points, I can only assume they got in through the open back door whilst I was taking rubbish out or whatever, or have come from next door.

I put 4 traps down yesterday, and caught one about 11:30pm, disposed of it, and re-set the trap. all 4 traps are still empty today… all quiet on the western front… going to the shop later so I could re-bait them with peanut butter

Maybe that mouse was the return of #1 rather than a third one… #2 is dead… maybe I’ve got lucky? This all started a couple of days ago.. never noticed any signs before so maybe, or wishfull thinking? lol

We had a couple of baby field mice in the caravan awning during our summer holidays. Fascinating watching them run around looking for crumbs and quite tame. They’re very cute but I don’t think I’d want them in the house.

I’ve watched mice squeeze under the kick boards under the kitchen units. Up til then I considered them flush to the floor tiles!

They can get in the tiniest gap. They don’t need a forecourt and 24hr porterage to move in

Thing is I can’t see any entry points

Your just not thinking like a mouse.

Be at one with the mouse.

In the case of our rat. They had dug out a wide mortar joint- dug under a step and then a lintel and concrete slab before coming up in the wall………

Rat and mouse bones are quite soft allowing them to squeeze through the smallest gaps.

don’t leave food lying around for obvious reasons

This is easy to say, more difficult in practice. Amongst the foodstuffs mine went through were half a bag of flour and a sack of cat litter.

unless you exclude them as well, it’s not really a solution,

It worked for me. As per the previous page, sealing up the house was an impossible option. Terminating the bastards with extreme prejudice got the message across for a few years.

I put 4 traps down yesterday

Hurrah!

maybe I’ve got lucky?

Anecdotally, mine came in spurts (quiet at the back). I’d have nothing for a fortnight and then three in an afternoon.  Leave the traps out and change the bait occasionally because it goes rancid eventually.  They like to run close to walls so place traps nose-first perpendicular to the skirting.

more difficult in practice. Amongst the foodstuffs mine went through were half a bag of flour and a sack of cat litter.

Unless they are eating through a hard plastic barrel or tub as well then it’s easier than you make out.

Bulk perishables likely to be attractive to mice go in blue food safe  25l drums. Smaller containers are available and are cheaper than associated continued  food waste from mice.

Cheaper still is “no mice”

Ok, not read every single reply but we’ve had Mice and Rats.

First sign of them, all plates, cutlery, cooking utensils etc  in a sealed container. Same goes for any food not in cans.

Wash everything obviously.

Find the holes. Expanding foam with wire wool pushed into it will stop them.

They got into the cavity wall in our house and actually dug through the softer mortar.

They also chewed at the loft hatch trying to get in after I’d sealed the holes I’d found.

With the Mice I trapped 10 or 11, Rats 3. Non humane traps baited with American Hardgums.

I’m unsure how you ever totally mouse proof a house. The pest guy at work ages ago said if you can push a bic biro into it a mouse can get through it. And you need airbricks, or vents in your soffits, somewhere – you cant hermetically seal your house.

Cheaper still is “no mice”

Any other utopian dreams you subscribe to ?

I’m unsure how you ever totally mouse proof a house

Nope but we found blocking a previous entry point and killing any invaders to be quite effective.

Any other utopian dreams you subscribe to ?

I genuinely don’t know what else you want from me here.

At the old house, I got rid of a mouse problem several times over by dint of murdering the bastards.  Sure, I had issues several years later, rinse and repeat and it’s a bit like the quitting smoking argument, “it’s easy, I’ve quit six times this year already.”  But Rentokil snap traps worked when nothing else did.

But as I said before, hermetically sealing up a building constructed in 1896 was impossible.  Living my life decanting a kilo of flour and a 20L sack of kitty litter into plastic tubs on the off-chance that there might be another ingress in four years’ time is an utterly ludicrous suggestion, that’s borderline mental illness behaviour.

Today’s utopian dream?  I have three cats and zero mice.

No more mice, so looks like it was only minor incursion, so happy about that…!!!

But I’ve noticed there’s a tunnel under the back wall in my garden… I back filled it with a bit of pea gravel and topsoil, but it was re-excavated in short order by ‘something’.

Any suggestions on how to block this off? I thought I could put some sand and cement in the hole, but I don’t really wanna buy a huge bag of cement just for this, any ideas?