Hi, I appear to have mice in my kitchen ceiling. I've not actually seen the n or seen any evidence of them (droppings etc), but every so often hear scu rrying across the ceiling. The problem is that the floor in the room above the kitchen is inaccessible due to carpet, bed and wardrobes etc. Any ideas how I can get rid of the mice please?
Set trap/traps where you can get in the same void. I find they come a long way for chocolate spread but there are also pea nut butter fanciers in here:-)
Are they perhaps dining in your kitchen after dark? Cut off the food supply and they (or most likely it) will move on. The humane traps work pretty well IME. You certainly don't want mice dying up there
Don't see why not. A dead mouse only smells bad for a few days or a week at most and it is preferable to having them in there alive and sharpening their teeth on the mains cable insulation.
By all means set active traps if you can but don't under estimate the utility of poison bait in inaccessible zones.
The only problem is if it is rats (and it could be) - they take a much longer time to dessicate and smell dreadful in the meantime.
That is true of rats especially if it is a relatively airtight area. Son has just found and removed a partially decomposed rat after 10 months of smell and failed efforts to find the bugger. Would guess he had a good few months left of stink if we hadn't opened up the right area eventually.
Peanut butter works but goes rancid after a while. Chocolate spread also works and doesn't go rancid. Mice don't like being in the open so keep to the edges.
Both get anywhere they can. Evidence of mice in our lofts, indeed that is where we caught two or three this autumn.
Mice eat and poo at the same time, if they have found summat to eat the chances are there will be poo left behind. They don't need much food either, just crumbs fallen on the floor are enough.
But then you have dispatch them yourself, releasing mice is illegal. If you do release on your property the mouse will probably be back inside before you! We used to release about 200 m from the house, it wasn't until we caught the same mouse (it had a damaged ear) a few nights on the trot that we realised what was going on. They now get deported several miles away and at least a couple of miles from any human habitation. We don't see them again...
This year, just after the first cold spell I caught 3 mice in traps baited with peanut butter that had been down at least 9 months and had nearly gone hard.
The last rat I saw came marching in to a friend's kitchen to finish off the cat food. Bold as brass in the middle of the day. Cat asleep of course..... Bird feeders are encouraging unwelcome guests
In the end it may well be, considering the breeding rate of mice that you have to swallow and rip up the floor upstairs to find out what is going on. Brian
Apart from cable insulation and provisions they have carried in themselves, the only food in our attics is a flock of hibernating cluster flies, queen wasps and ladybirds.
I don't think *house mice* store food but rely on findings. Our wood mice clearly hoped for an extended stay.
They are classed as "vermin" and releasing vermin is illegal. Unfortunately the defintion of "vermin" is not well defined:
formatting link
xt/31008w02.htm
Scroll to "8 Oct 2003 : Column WA60"
And "vermin" seems to have disappeared from the current legislation.
So mice are not in Scehdule 9 Part 1 but release far enough away may well lead to suffering of the animal (an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006) and release on anothers property might not be appreciated by the owners of that propetry (Criminal Damage?). Release close to their capture location probably won't be an effective control method.
What I do find odd is that the Barn owl (Tyto alba) is in Schedule 9 Part 1, so illegal to release. ahhh...
"The Schedule also includes some native species (e.g. the Barn owl) in order to provide a level of control to ensure that releases, in particular re-introduction programmes, are carried out in an appropriate manner and biodiversity is properly safeguarded."
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.