Mouse advice please

Plug any holes with scrunched up galvanised wire netting. They don't like that.

Cheers

The downside of poison isn't kids or pets but the smell of rotting corpses (under ideal conditions for the lingering smell of rotting corpses it must be said) in inaccessible places.

If it works, and the infestation was already there before you moved in. and which you've solved for them, the the longer term solution is surely the responsibility of the previous occupants.

The best long term solution is probably a cat, at least one which was trained as a mouser by the mother. As arrested by

Otherwise most of the expertise - where to set traps, what bait to use etc is mainly anecdotal and is mainly based on the successful experiences of lucky people faced with particularly stupid mice.

michael adams

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Traditional lethal traps. Get used to having to kill the odd one.

(The ickiest moment I had was finding what looked like a black ball bearing. Then you look a bit closer, and see the optic nerve - the trap had squashed the skull and pinged the eyeball out.)

Or those who have dealt with mice for many years. There's at least a couple of us on this group.

If you've been dealing with them years, then that would suggest that you can't have been that successful, if they keep coming back for more.

michael adams

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Unless you inspect them regularly, like at least every 24 hours, preferably more frequently, I wouldn't recommend a humane trap that catches the mouse alive. I've tried one of those, and wasn't able to check the trap for a couple of days. Eventually when I was able to get to it, there was a dead mouse inside; not a nice end for it, slow and traumatic I imagine. The same with poison: not a nice way to go. IMO the most humane traps are the spring-loaded spine snappers (or skull crushers). In most cases, death is instant. OK, there are occasions when it gets caught and not killed, but I expect these are rare, and a heavy heel on the skull before opening the trap is a quick way of finally dispatching them. Bait them with peanut butter or chocolate.

Ummm..we didn't move in, we live near by. They are on holiday.

They don't want a cat - trust me on this :-)

Cheers

Dave R

It isn't, but personally I prefer that to to a festering mouse corpse soemwhere inaccessible.

Traditional mousetraps baited with dairy milk has worked well for me.

Just drop them all, alive or dead, in a bucket of water.

However you're probably too late.

As so cheap, and so easy to set up, are traditional lethal traps, that alongside depredation by cats, the mouse population of the UK should have been totally eradicated years ago.

michael adams

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A little unfair. Owners of farms, stables, "food" businesses typically have to stay on top of perennial problems.

That may, of may not account for the situation as you found it, then.

Depending on how close they live to you, it may be adisable in my opinion to leave matters largely as they are. The last thing you need is for potential refugee mice being made to feel uncomfortable, moving along the road and becoming your problem instead.

michael adams

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As a side note we have a wildlife camera (Little Acorn) which was a gift from the kids some years ago.

Never really got round to using it, but in this case it is proving invaluable because it is showing that the mice are still active.

We plan to have the place cleaned once the infestation is gone, but confirming that there are no mice (via the no s*it Sherlock approach) seems difficult until you have cleared up the last bit of mouse s*it and found no more for several days. Don't want to pay a cleaner before the last mouse is gone.

I can see that the mice are continuously active from around 20:00 to 04:00 so very much the night hours. One problem with the camera is that the infra-red flash is too bright and there seems no software option to turn it down. Probably designed for trail use and picking things out 20m away. At about 2-3m indoors most of the picture is washed out. I've stuck some tape over about half the LEDs to see if I can get a proper picture.

First attempt at poison was to put a couple of bait boxes along the skirting board. These were obviously used because they were shoved around a bit.

Second attempt was to empty out the under sink cupboard, vacuum out most of the mouse s*it, and put a jam jar lid full of bait in there. The lid moved across the cupboard over night and was pretty much empty today.

Now added a second lid with even more bait, so hopefully they will fill their furry little boots and then expire. Off to check how long the bait usually takes to work.

I must say I am glad it isn't my house.

My approach would be to pull out the kitchen units to confirm if there is a nest under them, and start blocking the holes in the floor and walls before blocking any entry points at the back of the cupboard. However, their long term problem.

Cheers

Dave R

Farms and stables don't have resident cats then ?

michael adams

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The mice don't seem to have read that memo. Man has been trying to eliminate mice (and rats) for roughly ten thousand years (since we started farming).

It *is* possible to exterminate mice on an a small island (but it isn't done with traps), but anything larger they will just repopulate from the few you missed.

Outside of a home environment, along with the likes of terriers and ferrets, poison is fairly effective on rats. In fact when the choice is between being torn apart by terriers or ferrets or poison humanitarian concerns don't seem to figure very highly when it comes to Mr Ratty - unless people are prepared to be over-run with the things.

And the same applies to mice. In order to be effective, given an available food supply, traps would need to kill mice at a faster rate than they can breed. Which is rather a tall order. Hence the need for their constant use.

Poison is effective precisely because its taken to the nest by the adults and kills the young in the nest. However in a domestic situation there is always the potential problem of the smell of rotting corpses. Made worse by the fact that the poison can take a long time to act.

All I know is that I've never known a household with a mouser(s), rather than more decorative type of cats (not that the two are mutually exclusive) who ever had a problem with mice.

michael adams

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Mine doesn't, the greyhounds and lurchers eat them.

IME if they're the sweet little brown things with long tails and big ears, they're field mice, and don't normally nest indoors. They only come in to eat or gather building materials.

I use "iSpy" on a laptop. A free download. It's a video recorder with motion detection so it's immediately apparent that it's captured something. No need to trawl through hours of footage.

the Rentokil guy at work told me to fill any holes with wirewool, then expanding foam.