Brainy mice?

We have mice in our loft and I need to get rid of them...

Before you start going on about leaving the "poor things to themselves" there are a number of very good reasons that they have to go - one being that they keep chewing the electric cables!!

I filled a plastic dish with poisoned bait and placed it where I knew they would find it (not far from where they had chewwed most of the lagging off my cold water pipes) and left it for a couple of weeks.

I checked yesterday and at first couldn't find the dish! Then I noticed a mound of fibreglass loft insulation and "bite-sized" (for a mouse at least) bits of pipe lagging foam. This pile was about 4 or 5 inches high. Under this pile was the dish of bait - seemingly untouched.

So, have the mice discovered the bait, realised that it is bad news and hidden it to avoid any of thier group eating it?

Reply to
Ascro
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| We have mice in our loft and I need to get rid of them... |=20 | Before you start going on about leaving the "poor things to themselves" | there are a number of very good reasons that they have to go - one | being that they keep chewing the electric cables!! |=20 | I filled a plastic dish with poisoned bait and placed it where I knew | they would find it (not far from where they had chewwed most of the | lagging off my cold water pipes) and left it for a couple of weeks. |=20 | I checked yesterday and at first couldn't find the dish! Then I | noticed a mound of fibreglass loft insulation and "bite-sized" (for a | mouse at least) bits of pipe lagging foam. This pile was about 4 or 5 | inches high. Under this pile was the dish of bait - seemingly | untouched. |=20 | So, have the mice discovered the bait, realised that it is bad news and | hidden it to avoid any of thier group eating it?

Try some bait with a different poison. There are several different poisons available in retail packs.

Remember that mice stay by walls and other vertical surfaces, and like to hide in small tunnels. Put the bait in a small tunnel next to a wall, I have used a marge tub with holes in each end, and the word *POISON* on top and sides. B&Q have nice ones, Rentokill also has them.=20

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Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

We had mice recently and got them all with traps using raisins for bait. I wouldn't put down poison - what happens when they die if you can't get to them? I wouldn't like that stink!

Reply to
Ophelia

Stink and flies. One of the traps I put in the loft vanished altogether and I never found it. The smell and subsequent plague of bluebottles showed that least it worked eventually.

I fasten the traps down now.

Reply to
Huge

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 11:54:41 GMT, "Ophelia" wrote: |=20 | We had mice recently and got them all with traps using raisins for = bait.=20 | I wouldn't put down poison - what happens when they die if you can't = get=20 | to them? I wouldn't like that stink!

Surprisingly they do not IME stink, I have found several mummified mice, and never noticed a stink from that area in the weeks before I found them.

--=20 Dave Fawthrop Register your mobile phone=20 IMEI *free* on

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Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

There's a Monty Python and the Holy Grail image in my head now, trying to work out how many bluebottles it takes to carry a loaded mousetrap.

"Other people are not your property."

Do you get these from what Bart Simpson writes on the blackboard?

Reply to
Sam Nelson

I might have known that you'd say something stupid.

Reply to
Huge

'Surprisingly they do not IME stink, I have found several mummified mice, and never noticed a stink from that area in the weeks before I found them.'

Hi,

That will actually depend on the size of the rodent concerned. If your 'mice' are House Mouse (Mus musculus), they will do relatively little harm, and because of their small size, cause no little or no noticable odour on decomposition.

The Long-tailed Field Mouse or Wood Mouse, (Apodemus sylvaticus) is somewhat larger, and will cause significantly more damage... it sounds like your shredding has most likely been caused by this species. The very similar, but localised Yellow-necked Field Mouse (A. flavicollis), is a woodland animal, a little larger still, and just as destructive. They will leave a smell for a week or so, depending on the conditions therabouts.

Of course your 'mice' may, God forbid, may not be mice at all, but the Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus). Someone told me only yesterday, that the Brown rat is so plentiful in the UK now that anyone is never more than ten feet away from such a rat at any time! I do not / prefer not to believe that for a minute... Whatever, anyone who has had the misfortune to endure the putrid stench of a dead rat beneath the floorboards is unlikely to ever forget it. Our family did when I was a child. I am fifty-one years of age now.

Next... (squeek!) your 'mice' may be neither mice, nor rats: the culprit may be the far more exotic Edible Doormouse (Glis glis). Introduced by the Romans, allgedly, and fattened in large jars for food, these cuddly creatures are known to cause problems, mainly in the Midlands areas. They are particularly partial to apples. If, in your loft your trays of Coxes show signs of chewing, and you can't sleep at night for the noise above. Glis may be to blame.

Finally, if after all that, this is any consolation, the infamous Black Rat (Rattus rattus) - of Bubonic Plague fame, is all but extict in the UK now. Consequently that thankfully rare, black-furred, pink footed, pest, is very, very unlikely to be nasal flavour - of the cold winter months...

Season's greetings. (I enjoyed that!)

Reply to
Keith (Dorset)

Since it it the time for the panto...

OH YES THEY DO!

The landlady at my local got me to help her locate a bad smell when the heating came back in the autumn.

She had been putting down poison for weeks.

The smell of this dead mouse has to be experienced to be believed. Even I could not put my nose near it.

Dave

Reply to
Dave

The Rentokil man told me it is standard practice for mice who find a source of food more than they require to hide it under whatever is available.

Reply to
<me9

Of Mice & Men. :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

Reply to
The3rd Earl Of Derby

Surely that'll give the game away...? :o)

Reply to
Steve Walker

LOL

Reply to
Ophelia

Is that not on average ? Can imagine one person living in a waterfront warehouse conversion thing where the walls are infested with rats whilst someone living in the wilds of the highlands with no mains sewerage may be miles from a rat, (though they may see water voles and other such rodents all the time).

Reply to
soup

Maybe - I didn't like to think about it that much. Too scarey!

Cheers, Keith

Reply to
Keith (Dorset)

Is that African or European bluebottles?

Back on topic: I've messed around with DIY mouse bait, traps etc. Best way: phone the council - it may be free. Even if not, the stuff they use is much better than anything you can buy over the counter, they have "one dose" poison that takes a few hours, not days.

Reply to
Nigel Molesworth

How did that make the heating come on? ;-)

I agree, dead mice can stink out a whole floor of a house. Neutradol gel (or equivalent) works very well.

Reply to
Nigel Molesworth

| Back on topic: I've messed around with DIY mouse bait, traps etc. Best | way: phone the council - it may be free. Even if not, the stuff they | use is much better than anything you can buy over the counter, they | have "one dose" poison that takes a few hours, not days.

I disagree. I have had excellent results with mouse bait, for me it has always worked, given a few weeks application, a few different poisons (read the labels), and bunging up of holes with steel wool/brillo pads (they do not like the taste) finished off with filler. =20

--=20 Dave Fawthrop Some of my Hobbies: VDU Glasses=20

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Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say a "a few weeks" was 0. They may have just died of old age.

Reply to
Nigel Molesworth

| On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 14:20:23 +0000, Dave Fawthrop wrote: |=20 | >excellent results with mouse bait ... | >... given a few weeks application |=20 | On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say a "a few weeks" was 0. They may have | just died of old age.

And got a litter of small mice, which they didn't :-)=20

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Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

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