[Closed] There's a mouse in my house

I find these sort of humane traps work quite well if you don’t want to kill the little fella.
https://www.sealantsandtoolsdirect.co.uk/fixman-humane-tilt-mouse-trap-674723?language=en-gb&currency=GBP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq4iZ5pun9wIVv4FQBh3nRQ-XEAQYBSABEgLZo_D_BwE
Deposit the mouse at least a mile away if you don’t want them coming back.

Humane traps are pointless. the mouse is a house mouse and will either starve where you dump them or just go into someone elses house

Living in an old multi occupier building mice will always be an issue. I had to revert to poison to get rid of them recently. Previously just getting rid of food sources for them worked but recently the issue was too big for that.

a piece of left over chocolate

you may now have a dead mouse somewhere. Chocolate and mices don't go well together.

We had mice a few years back. Mouse traps with peanut butter & chocolate sorted them out. They run along against the walls so put the traps at 90 degrees to the wall about an inch from it, mouse runs past, stops for a nibble, bosh.

Apparently they can squeeze through a hole the width of your finger so you've no chance of blocking any entrance points.

Normal mouse trap (humane ones are rubbish) and a bait of high fat suet bird food should do the trick.

What TJ said.

Chocolate and mices don’t go well together.

Correct, especially when you use chocolate in the trap.

Had meece in my shed, they ate a brand new pair of Cat boots & I had to empty the shed to find where they were getting in which was a tiny hole in the bottom corner.

They like salami too.

Not for very long though, the trap triggers almost instantly.

(I've just cleared out half a dozen traps in the attic.)

If theres one, theres bound to be others, just put a couple of traps out before you go to bed, and its more than likely there will be one in them in the morning, repeat for a few more nights and that should get rid of them, if you don't there will be loads of them in a short while, no point in getting sentimental about them, we were initially when we heard them scurrying around in our loft and left it a while, ended up getting 14 of them, & they had nibbled away at loads of pipe insulation.

[img] [/img]

It's the only way!

You also get the fun game of trying not to take the end of your finger off while setting it! 🙂

Humane traps are pointless. the mouse is a house mouse and will either starve where you dump them or just go into someone elses house

So not pointless then - they will no longer be in your house.

Poison is nasty stuff. A caught and released mouse might well die as the consequence of being caught by a predator - cat, fox, hawk, etc. but it is both natural and has to be preferable to poisoning. And not all mice in buildings are house mice, sometimes wood mice gain entry, especially in winter apparently.

Edit: A death trap has to be preferable to poisoning imo, especially if it is well designed to instantly break their backs.

a piece of left over chocolate

I think this is the bigger problem, who the hell has left over chocolate?

We had one getting at the pet food and pizza flour. Bought some poison blocks from Amazon I wasn’t going to piss about when they were near food. One block vanished within a couple of days, another took a week but they’ve never been back. Job done.

My humane trap worked very well when I had some.
And absolutely no poison whatever you do, not only is it totally inhumane to the rodent in question but will more than likely find it's way into an owl/fox/weasel/whatever too, just don't.

I used these https://www.amazon.co.uk/HOMEREVEL-Reusable-Instantly-Effective-Sensitive/dp/B08X7L9RL3

Caught about 6 or so! Peanut butter for bait. Some of the tiny mice were too small to set off the trap, so I put three together against a wall with peanut butter in the middle one which worked.

I used our baby monitor to watch them after we went to bed. Discovered they were coming under an absolutely tiny gap under the skirting, which I filled with copper mesh and bathroom sealant. Also put mesh over the air bricks.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elcoho-Stopper-Blocker-Knitted-Control/dp/B0828F1FWN

We must have been very lucky in my garage as we've had bird peanuts in a big bag, but no evidence of mice coming in, yet they can squeeze in the gaps. Said peanuts are now in a sealed container. We do have field mice and rats as we live next to a field, but none in the property.

Apparently they can squeeze through a hole the width of your finger so you’ve no chance of blocking any entrance points.

Won't doesn't mean can't.

In most houses it can be done - most folk just don't look.

I've had to redo mine. We had mice issue when first moved in. I blocked all the holes - no mice for 8 years.

Took back off house and built an extension. Immediately a mouse(and one dead rat) issue again.

Blocked the holes up. No mouse problem

(I live rural and am surrounded by working farms hence mice and rats are common place)

The problem with poison is that they'll scuttle off somewhere, then die, dessicate or rot slowly. If the spot the choose to expire is under the floorboards then in a year's time you'll have a stinky, nasty thing to remove.

I think this is the bigger problem, who the hell has left over chocolate?

My immediate reaction too!

We had one getting at the pet food

Ah this is a good point, if you have cats/dogs similar make sure the food and goes down gets eaten/drunk then anything left over, taken away and bowl mat etc cleaned.

Mice and rats will almost always return to a known safe food or water source before eating something new so get rid of anything else as well as laying down traps.

We do this argument regularly.

I find these sort of humane traps work quite well if you don’t want to kill the little fella.
https://www.sealantsandtoolsdirect.co.uk/fixman-humane-tilt-mouse-trap-674723?language=en-gb&currency=GBP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq4iZ5pun9wIVv4FQBh3nRQ-XEAQYBSABEgLZo_D_BwE
/a>
Deposit the mouse at least a mile away if you don’t want them coming back.

Once you have trapped an animal you then have a duty to minimise its suffering under the 2006 Animal Welfare act, that means checking traps regularly so they don't suffer in them (starve, dehydrate, injure themselves trying to escape, hypothermia, etc.) and technically releasing them into the wild may also be illegal if they suffer as a consequence.

And you can't release them onto someone else's property.

The likelihood of taking a house mouse far enough away to avoid the above and them thriving in a hostile environment means you're almost certainly killing it anyway. Your 'humane' trap isn't humane at all. Just face up to it and get snap traps and at least make it quick.

I found yelling f-off at 2 of them whilst sitting on the toilet as they ran across the bathroom floor worked for about 3 months but they eventually came back and it was the super sensitive plastic neck breaker traps loaded with peanut butter that eventually got them. They were too smart for chocolate as it was easy to just lift off the trap and the humane traps were an expensive way of catching spiders. Unfortunately, I found one injured and had to go outside and finish him off. Inside a bag and heavy brick. Not the nicest but the amount of food they got into was costing a fortune.

The neighbours had a little pond and I went to investigate a noise outside and it was a mouse attacking a frog that had strayed too far from the pond and was struggling to get back. Maybe we just had really bad mice.

Edit: A death trap has to be preferable to poisoning imo, especially if it is well designed to instantly break their backs.

unfortunatly in my case the kill traps simply were not working. The poison was a last resort.

but will more than likely find it’s way into an owl/fox/weasel/whatever too, just don’t.

Not where I live. We have no predators other than rats locally. The poisoned mice will die in the building anyway ( as in most cases I think)

The problem with poison is that they’ll scuttle off somewhere, then die, dessicate or rot slowly. If the spot the choose to expire is under the floorboards then in a year’s time you’ll have a stinky, nasty thing to remove.

occasionally I get a smell for a week or two.

Get a cat or two. We have mice in the loft (don't seem to chew anything and we live in a oldish house in the country), but no mice in the house on account of our furry death machines.

Not where I live. We have no predators other than rats locally.

No cats or urban foxes?

The likelihood of taking a house mouse far enough away to avoid the above and them thriving in a hostile environment means you’re almost certainly killing it anyway.

I’m not sure that’s really inhumane if they die due to being killed by a natural predator

JonV is correct (I seem to be saying that a lot of late).

Whatever you do, don't fanny about. Wild mice may look cute but they're vermin. They're permanently incontinent, they will eat anything and everything including electrical wiring, and they breed like wildfire. They can mate at around six weeks old, have a three week gestation period and are fertile again immediately after birth.

As a professional tree-hugger I hate it, but you've got to murder them to death with extreme prejudice or you'll be overrun with the bastards before you know it.

No cats or urban foxes

Never seen either around here and as I live on the equivalent of the 7th floor I very much doubt any mouse I poison will actually leave the building. they are house mice - they hardly go outside. No cats in the building

for sure if I lived in the 'burbs in a house I would not use poison

I’m not sure that’s really inhumane if they die due to being killed by a natural predator

No its probably not - but a humane trap still ends up with a dead mouse so better to use kill trps

We have vermin in thr garden, don't THINK they get in the house (they tidy up after themselves if they do) - we set traps for the rats but all we ever catch are mice, so don't use them any more. Next door feeds the foxes, so they're not too bothered, and the fox presence seems to see off cats. So - payday Monday, time to get a .177 air rifle, make sure I can get nice, consistent tight groups over 3 or 4 metres, then lay some bait and goodbye Mr Rat...

we get mice in the kitchen, normally twice a year, the rest of the time they live happily in our garden, along with the voles.

humane traps are what I use, then I deposit them the other side of the canal. Normally have a family of 2 or 3, then nothing for months.

+1 for no poison. Horrible way to kill anything let alone the mentioned effects in the food chain

I’m not sure that’s really inhumane if they die due to being killed by a natural predator

IF is doing some heavy lifting there. An unfamiliar environment, scared witless, cold and hungry because they never learned to forage in the wild.

Crushed in a trap and hoping it kills them instantly isn’t great either. Sadly there’s no particularly great way of getting rid of them. But there’s no way I’m having them enter my house.

always managed to get shot of them using the "balance" type humane traps, nutella as bait.

Plastic mouse traps and crunchy peanut butter works for us. As has been said every night until you stop catching them and then a few more nights for good measure and then put them out once a week for a few weeks in case they come back or the babies get big enough to venture further afield

Electric capacitance traps are good but spendy.

Crushed in a trap and hoping it kills them instantly

Assuming your using a correntyl baited quality trap. There's no hoping.

Have you ever watched what happens.

The biggest risk is you set mouse traps and have rats. A mouse trap won't kill an adult rat.

I just set rat traps now knowing the last one I caught was a female rat.

They were too smart for chocolate as it was easy to just lift off the trap

Not if you glue the chocolate to the point on the trap using molten chocolate. This is attained by melting the chocolate in your mouth. You just have to be careful that you remember why your doing it & not eat all the bait.
HTH.

Assuming your using a correntyl baited quality trap

I think that’s just the issue, you’re assuming.

Have you ever watched what happens.

Ones trapped by their legs, ones trapped just in their lowed abdo lying there dying slowly, yes.

I think that’s just the issue, you’re assuming.

Yes sorry my mistake assuming you were competent in the use of tools deployed.

In which case if any doubt you shouldn't be ****ing with humane traps either and should get a competent professional in

Yes sorry my mistake assuming you were competent in the use of tools deployed.

You may noticed I don’t use them but thanks again for another assumption.

In which case if any doubt you shouldn’t be **** with humane traps either and should get a competent professional in

Nah! It was easier and quicker to poison them.

So you've never used one wrong but have direct experiance of using them wrong.

Convincing arguement.

Our most recent rodent episode involved a bag of sunflower seeds that was brought inside and left in the back room. It had a tear in the bag and had been re taped. About a week after opening, noticed what I thought were mouse droppings, but as we’re in a new house with a recent air-tightness test, didn’t really worry. A week later, something has been chewing stuff under the kitchen sink so I head off down to hardware store for a couple of Little Nippers. That night I caught an adult female - it was trapped but still alive so took it outside and crushed it under my boot. Next day, then caught 2 juvenile mice in one trap. For the next week or so was catching one or two a day until I reached 13. I can only assume a pregnant female came in the sunflower seeds, gave birth to a litter of 12. My neighbour keeps chickens - there are loads of house mice under his shed. We have 2x hedgehog feeding stations in the garden - one with a camera. Continual alerts as the field mice help themselves.

So you’ve never used one wrong but have direct experiance of using them wrong.

Convincing arguement.

You asked if I’ve seen them used wrong, I have. My family is farming background seen dozens of them setup, some with instant kills others with them trapped by limbs.

A few droppings, and a piece of left over chocolate has been lightly chewed.

Who leaves food lying around?

#dirtyslob

We have them behind the plasterboard in our old cottage. Can hear them scuttling about but hardly ever come into the rooms. Could put poison under the floorboards I guess, but I'm not lifting them every day to check a trap. In practice we just tend to ignore them and they usually move out in the summer anyway

In my last house we had a reoccuring mouse issue. In the winter every couple of years we would get the noise in the loft as if a pack of rats were up there. In reality it was a few mice. Always went for the neck breaker trap with a bit of chocolate. Very successfull if dealt with before they multiply and never lasted more than a week. Until the last time (Before we moved out). Honestly was like dealing with SAS trained mouse. This thing could strip 6 traps in a single night without setting them off. Electric trap, basic trap, different types of bait. This thing was taking the pee.

Eventually caught it by setting the traps with literally the slightest hold on the bar. Honestly set some of them off with my breathing. Eventually had them all set and waited. Got the him by about 9pm with a snap.

Went into the loft the next morning to dispose of the body and picked the trap up. Only, the little mouse wasnt dead. Even though his head was squashed his tail wrapped around my finger. I absolutely shit myself, dropped the trap and nearly ended up with another 5 traps snapping on me while trying to avoid falling back out of the loft.

I'm not proud of myself but i shut the loft and waited the little man out.

It wasnt the reason for moving house but i dont miss having mice in the loft.