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A couple of weeks ago we worked out that we have a mouse in the house and bought a bunch of tipping humane traps. After 2 days we caught one! Took it to the local park (1/2 a mile away), opened the trap and it leapt out and into the hedgerow.
That weekend we went round the house filling the obvious holes in the exterior walls with insulating foam and wire wool, to hopefully prevent any more getting inside.
Mouse #2 was a couple of days after that; it really didn't want to get out of the trap and braced itself against the sides to prevent being tipped out.
Mouse #3 was this morning; it's -6 outside and the local council has swept up all the leaves from the hedgerow, so I felt a bit bad about that.
I'd love to have a cat, but sadly it's not on the cards. And killing them (by trap or other means) apparently isn't appropriate. Sooo... what does one do with humanely caught mice?!
Sandwiches ? Picallili
Mouse #1 is also #2 & #3
Just get a proper trap
BFG-2000
No such thing as a working humane trap - the mouse either dies of exposure or just goes back into yours or someone elses house. Either way it does not solve the problem.
The only way we cured our mouse issue was a combination of making sure there was no food source, kill traps and blocking holes
Trap, Poison, block holes remove food sources.
As above you just killed the mouse dumping it in the park.
Sooo… what does one do with humanely caught mice?!
Feed them to the snake
Mouse #1 is also #2 & #3
Did wonder about that. The options are that we have 1 tenacious mouse and holes we haven't yet found, or a whole clan of them...
tag it before release to check.
Don't drive to the park to release mouse. Someone I know did that, put trap in car, got to release point, no mouse. ah!
You're just pushing the problem somewhere else. If you don't want / aren't allowed to kill it, but it dying of natural causes is ok, then give it to a local cat / owl to kill. Maybe catch it humanely, dispatch it humanely in secret then tell everyone that you released it into a golden cornfield mouse paradise. If that's not ok, then take it to the vets to have it neutered.
Semtex
Lots of Semtex
I've got one just now that's pretty good at avoiding the traps - the bugger emptied 2 traps last night although that was probably my fault as in my haste to set them I used a bit of biscuit, too easy to remove cleanly - needs something a bit stickier to spring the trap. Tonight on the menu we have a nice bit of dark chocolate that will be slightly melted then stuck to the trap so the furry bandit will have to work for it. Then be humanely halved in 2.
I Would feel sorry for it but the little arsepiece ate through a box of fancy muesli last week that I was looking forward to, chucked it to the birds in case it gave me the plague.
I Would feel sorry for it but the little arsepiece ate through a box of fancy muesli last week that I was looking forward to, chucked it to the birds in case it gave me the plague.
How far from the house did you scatter the mouse food?
Don't use poison, they die in crevices in walls and then stink ('musty') to high heaven for kin ages. Once you know the smell it's amazing the places you detect it....and deeply unpleasant.
we have a mouse in the house
Almost undoubtedly you had/have several, they're not often solitary.
filling the obvious holes in the exterior walls with insulating foam and wire wool,
The holes they need are tiny and entirely likely to be well away from where you expect (roof line etc). Be warned trying to prevent mice by blocking holes alone is a route to madness.
I’d love to have a cat but sadly it’s not on the cards
More households with cats and dogs have mice and rats than those without as the pet food entices them and very often ends up around the house. Your average house cat is a rubbish hunter and would starve if left to fend for its self. It would just make your house smell of cats so you've dodged a bullet.
killing them (by trap or other means) apparently isn’t appropriate. Sooo… what does one do with humanely caught mice?!
One kills them humanely, that is to say no drowning, starving, death by exposure etc. lest you'd like to (possibly) end up in court (2010 RSPCA vs Raymond Elliot, 1.5k fine and 6 month suspended sentence)
So in short one doesn't trap humanely, one kills as humanely as possible.
The only way to get rid of mice is to go on a sustained killing spree using plastic traps that murder them to death. Move the traps around, use different bait (jam is my choice), don't feel bad when their little legs get trapped and they nibble them off and leave a trail of blood.
By all means fill holes, clear up food etc but mostly it is down to the killing.
My weapon of choice. Buy about 8 of them.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pest-Stop-Sure-Set-Plastic-Mouse-Trap/dp/B000LPA2KC
Big Cheese traps from B&Q. Very humane - they're dead before they know what's happened
How far from the house did you scatter the mouse food?
A good 3 feet onto the patio - i'd have stuck it up the back of the garden but then I can't see the birds' little smiling faces as they eat it.
I'm planning to scatter little piles of mouse food further & further away from the house until eventually they're lost & can't find their way back to my kitchen. Humane AND crafty, unless they all get diabetes from my sugary breakfast cereal selection that is.
I have noticed that the mouse issue has only started as i've been a bit slow with the bird feeders this year, i'll fire a few kilos of mixed seed up the back of the garden for the birds that live in the bushes and hopefully that'll draw the mice away from my breakfast, then they can all fight it out among themselves.
you can rent our cat, our house is mouse free but she collects them outside and brings them in to "play" with. most we've had is 4 in one night, she does eat them afterwards though so not much cleaning up for you to do
BFG-2000
I'm sure the super shotgun could take care of everything short of the boss mouse.
Remove whatever is attracting them, then kill humanely with back breaker traps. Big cheese or rentokil are the ones I use. We had quite a few at one point (removed old shed, which they lived under so they moved into the house). Now we just get them occasioanally and almost always when cold weather arrives.
Alternatively nuke your house from orbit, just to be sure.
Traps, peanut butter is good bait. The buggers round here have an entry hole somewhere in a stone wall that I can't get to (I'm pretty sure) so I leave a couple of traps outside. Still haven't emptied the dales of mice, think I might be working on that for some time 🙂
We have a mouse, I think it's the same one we always get in the traps. Humane traps, the wife is vegan, I can't be arsed with the argument. I'm sure it'll change once he manages to get into all of the food and adds sprinkles.
Latest one is that once caugt, to save him from the cold, we'll get a big cage to put him in and keep him.
which reminds me of planet pf the apes and the like, keeping once wild and free roaming animal in captivity, I'll find it swinging from the bars by some secretly stashed twine..
Latest one is that once caugt, to save him from the cold, we’ll get a big cage to put him in and keep him.
I'm tempted to suggest this, but the wife freaks out enough already just thinking that there may be mice in the house.
We had three in loft last year. No idea how they got up there, house is new no holes, probably got under the eaves.
Bought the Big Cheese traps from Amazon. One sorted within 1 hour. Another the next day and then a couple of days after that.
I bought one of those sonic things as we have power in the loft have left it in place.
I have left the traps in the loft primed and have a quick look when I'm up there. No traps triggered and no sign of mice at work.
I have a set of the sonic ones you can have.
Work great
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I’m sure it’ll change once he manages to get into all of the food and adds sprinkles.
With regard to the hole you're looking for by the way out only needs be a touch smaller than a bic biro for a mouse, (5p for a rat and a house brick for a badger.)
Your problem with mice isn't them getting into food and pooing, they're (by choice) very clean and will tend to use the same areas to defacate. They're completely urinary incontinent however so their attempts to be clean are foiled and they leave trails all over behind them on work surfaces and the like which has a lot of potential to contain some real nasties like <alarmist mode> hanta viruses </alarmist mode> and so on.
They're lovely little creatures so long as they're outside. They are not good things to share your home with.
if the trap doesn't kill them, put them in a cage overnight outdoors and they'll freeze
Update on my furry invader - after a few false starts where the bugger managed to steal the bait from the trap, I stuck a big chunk of slightly vintage (& therefore very sticky) peanut butter on a couple of these:
Bingo! Poor thing never knew what hit it - I console myself with the thought that it probably got some of the peanut butter before the lights went out all of a sudden, hopefeully it was just the one transient mouse & the place isn't riddled with them.
We actually have one of those ultrasonic mouse deterrent things in the kitchen after a previous episode a few years ago, seemed to be doing the trick but perhaps some mice are more stubborn than others...
We’ve had mice for about three weeks....visits by pest control didn’t seem to work but we stuck one of those sonic things in the loft (where the mice were-has to be in the same room) and haven’t heard anything since. Very impressed as packaging said it could take 2-3 weeks to work.
If you have mice, consider that they can fit through a hole about the width of a Bic pen so you will be very hard-pressed to stop them getting in your house.
When we had mice/rats I just got someone in to exterminate them – and apparently the poison makes them thirsty so they go off to find a water source then die usually (but I have heard that rats especially really do stink if they do die in a cavity and sit there decomposing).
hopefeully it was just the one transient mouse
thing is, y'seee...
I think he meant travelling mouse....
(but I have heard that rats especially really do stink if they do die in a cavity and sit there decomposing)
Oh yes, decomposing rats absolutely stink. I've had to dispose of a few that had been in the trap for a couple of days & it gives me the boak.
I think he meant travelling mouse….
come to think of it, it did tarmac half my kitchen floor too
My old basement flat had rats, big buggers too. one died in the space under the main floor flat and between mine and it stank.
woke one morning to the sound of buzzing, opened the bathroom door to 200 flies. closed it. went to the shop for fly spray. emptied can of spray into bathroom, closed door. went back 20 mins later armed with the hoover.
it was not nice.
I'm a card-carrying tree-hugging vegetarian yoghurt-knitting leftie hand wringer snowflake, and I say murder them to death with extreme prejudice. If you fanny about with half-arsed solutions you'll be up to your ankles in the furry little bastards inside of a fortnight.
Rentokill snap traps and peanut butter are my weapons of choice.
after a few false starts where the bugger managed to steal the bait from the trap
Pro tip:
I've had far better results by half-setting the trap. Ie, set it, then carefully push the trigger plate down halfway so that it's on a hair trigger. Obviously, hold the other end of the trap down whilst you do this if you don't want to lose a finger...
Nice one - I might give that a go if the reinforcements turn up to lay furry vengeance upon my breakfast cereals