Just saw the wee sleekit beastie scurrying across the floor 😕

Any recommendations for non-lethal anti-mouse measures?

We have several sonic detterent plugs in already, so they are clearly not that effective!

Either live with it or start plugging holes and killing the ones you see.

Can’t beat a good cat – their efficiency is impressive

Sorry but it’s slightly lethal [eventually]

Have to ask – how did an elk get into your house without you noticing?!

It’s a very small elk. About the size of my thumb. Fast too. 🙂

you can get humane traps

then you just put ’em in a bag, grab a bat and set up a pinata in the garden

It’s a very small elk. About the size of my thumb. Fast too

Probably a baby one then

That’s the one ernie. Though I think mine must be female as it doesn’t have antlers. 😉

Will hit B&Q tomorrow – website says they have some live-catch traps.
Surprised there isn’t some kind of “scent of cat” type product available.

Cat, trap or dog. They’re not non-lethal but it’s a mouse. Really, thousands of them die all the time. If you kill one it won’t make any difference.

I know, but it’s a life-philosophy thing with me samuri.

I only deliberately kill animals to eat or use (or in “self defence”).

Basically I’m like a meat-eating, shoe-wearing vegan 🙂

What you gong to do if you catch it in a humane trap?

relese it outside – it either goes it someone house or it dies,

either feed it or kill it there is no middle ground.

Mouse fricassee anyone?

No shortage of fields and hedgerows around here TJ – I’m sure it would be just fine in those.

i’ve just had the startling realisation that after all these years i’ve been labouring under the illusion that lord rockingham was singing about a large antlered herbivore when in fact he was singing about a small rodent.

it’s not my fault that these people can’t talk properly.

How cool is this?

It gasses them, then emails you to say the execution is over

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/211415_gassing_mouse_trap_more_humane

Mmmmmm… “cool” like a new, more efficient missile 😐

At least it’s a bit more humane than glue traps or poison.

Just spent the night shifting sofas and furniture so I could check all the skirting. Eventually found a damaged floorboard surrounded in bits of crisp wrapper and mouse droppings. 👿

Stuffed the hole with wire wool so hopefully that’ll take care of the problem – unless they have a secondary hole somewhere – time will tell.

So you plan to starve it to death ?

Do the kind thing and remove the wool, and put a bit of cheese behind it a couple of times a day.

So you plan to starve it to death ?

🙄 no it’ll be fine – it/they are under our floorboards – plenty of other exits to the outside world for them (and probably quite a few more into the house).

Had the same thing the other week – http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-to-trap-a-mouse-in-the-house

A series of experiments with self-styled humane traps got the mouse addicted to peanut butter, then after a day with none on offer he succumbed to the humane trap I’d bought and had lying around for the best part of a week. The one I got is in that link, about 4 quid from B&Q.

Released him a couple of miles away into a field. Since then I’ve been careful to plug as many gaps as possible round the skirting and floorboards and been keeping an eye out for evidence of more, but none so far.

…and right now across the kingdom of Mousedom, the story of the mouse who is fed peanut butter and even taken out to the countryside by his human pet is spreading.

Kill them.

Thanks 2tyred. I did see an interesting idea for a homemade live-catch trap – basically a cardboard tube balanced on a table edge, above a bucket. Place bait in the end of the tube. Mouse comes down the tube, unbalances it and gets tipped into the bucket. 🙂

Based on this I laid a long tube with a bag on the end of it, along the skirting board to catch anything that came scurrying out while I was stuffing the various holes. But no one made a break for it.

I’ve now plugged what holes I can find and made sure all the tasty lentils, grains, pulses etc in the pantry are sealed away in plastic boxes.

Hopefully that’ll be enough to persuade them to hunt elsewhere without having to kill any of them.

they don’t necessarily come in for food, they may just use your house en route to somewhere else (I guess that applies more to terraces/ flats/ joined houses).

if you block one hole up, they’ll just find another.

best to kill them regardless of your mantra – you could always eat them if it makes you feel better. 🙂

one of the most horrendous things I’ve seen (sheltered life) was a mouse half dead in a trap flailing around, then thrown into a bucket of water to finish it off. it sounded like a baby screaming…

Well we are a terrace, but they are/were definitely after food. The shredded empty crisp packet and the nibbled holes in my bag of Scotch Broth mix were testament to that 😕

best to kill them regardless of your mantra – you could always eat them if it makes you feel better.

I suppose I could use the fur to make individual toe-cosys. 🙂

Nah, I realise that some/most will think it’s daft to fret over killing a mouse – but I find our readiness to kill an animal for no good reason, simply because letting it live would be mildly inconvenient, to be a particularly ugly aspect of human nature.

Killing mice in your house is self defence:

– they carry disease
– they will chew through your cables potentially causing electrical hazards and fire risk

in addition they are going to try to steal your food and make nests in you furniture.

A mouse which likes living indoors and eating “packets of crisps” isn’t going to survive too well in the ‘wild’ of the hedgerows. You are either just displacing the problem to a neighbour who will kill it (unless it happens to get a vulnerable person who gets ill from it first!) or letting it suffer an unpleasant death in the mouth of a local cat / bird of prey etc.

If you don’t want to have to kill mice in your house then deal with the dodgy brickwork, airvent, ill fitting doors etc to keep them out. Simply blocking the floorboard where it came in is not removing the problem.

Poly, I don’t think they actually carry that much in terms of human transmissible disease. As I understand it the main health risk is Salmonella from mouse pee.

But yeah, they do pose a health risk. Which is why I’m trying to deal with them. But I’m happy to catch and release, rather than kill.

I’ll be taking any I catch a couple of miles away and releasing them into fields. The mice in the fields around us seem happy enough, but if these ones end up as lunch for a Kestrel then at least I gave them a shot and they died for a good reason.

When you’ve humanely caught them all, give them to the person who wanted to annoy his neighbours. He can post them through the letterbox.

Graham – don’t be under any illusion. As poly says The mice you catch and then release in fields miles away will probably die. More humane to kill them in a spring trap.

Simples…..

You know that mice are continuously incontinent? So the cheeky fecker is literally weeing in your shoes.

Only one solution to that…

I actually admire GrahamS’ sentiment.
We have mice every now and then, despite being clean and not having any food for them to get at, and I’ve waited for them and watched them (mainly so I can work out how to kill them), and they’re very cute.
I spooked on once and it ran across the floor, only to run straight into the table leg, then run off in another direction zigzagging in a daze. 😀 Interestingly, they seem to be attracted to the vibration caused by an Xbox too.

He’ll be waitin for yah.

Please dont use wire wool, when it starts to chew it’s fillings will set it’s teeth on edge it’s like us with filling chewing tin foil.

I admire, and agree with, the sentiment. I don’t like killing stuff unnecessarily.

However, I’m also practical. I figure, the little sod crossed a line when it came squatting in my house. They crap everywhere and breed like wildfire. You can’t mess about or you’ll be overrun.

Far as I’m concerned, Mousetraps are a humane way of pest control. It’s instant and doesn’t leave you with the problem of what to then do with a boxful of live, stressed mice.

Graham – don’t be under any illusion. As poly says The mice you catch and then release in fields miles away will probably die. More humane to kill them in a spring trap.

Did you read brakes’ post? Sadly those spring traps are often far from “humane”.

It’s most likely a little House Mouse (Mus musculus) which contrary to the name is quite at home in fields.

Yeah, it may well get eaten by our local owls or kestrels, but that’s fair enough. That’s the life of a mouse after all.

Anyway, no sign of any activity this morning. Tonight’s job is to haul the freezer out of the pantry and have a look back there.

Moose..

..Loose..

…but no longer in my hoose. 😀