mice

[Juju]

Hi all, my first encounter with mice in the house I was woken in the night by scuffling and tinny noises. This morning I looked around and found something had bitten through a little net bag and eaten a foil-wrapped chocolate (ready for the kids' advent calendar). Our bedroom is in the attic and next to the attic above the back part of the house. Probably lots of places for mice to get through - amazed we haven't noticed them before. It's my own fault for leaving the choccies invitingly on the floor next to the attic access!
What's the best thing to do? I will of course clean and tidy the bedroom to make sure they haven't found a nice warm place to bed down but I expect he's gone back to the attic. Traps in the attic too? Or will it go away if I don't keep any food in the bedroom. We don't usually keep food there - only at Christmas if I buy nice biscuits etc and put them up there to stop anyone having them sooner!
Juju

 

[Feltwell]

I seem to remember that mice & rats are very partial to chocolate. Personally I'd remove the current food source and replace it with a trap baited with chocolate, as you already know the mice go for that. You could always get a humane trap if the thought of killing them doesn't appeal, and release them a distance away.

 

[Juju]

Thanks Feltwell. Yes food source removed. Luckily it hadn't found the luxury Lebkuchen my sister brought over from Germany last week! I think we could get humane traps and release them in the field over the back. I've never seen any rats around here but lots of field mice so I expect it's a little mouse. Mr Juju also said in his experience mice love chocolate - he once came back to his house years ago after being away for Christmas to find that mice had eaten most of the choccies off his Christmas tree! He also once found a live mouse in a bottle of olive oil which he'd left out without a lid on it. I guess it couldn't get back out...

Juju

 

[wobs]

We had one of those great missed opportunities relating to this subject recently:
Mrs Wobs: I saw a mouse!
Me: Where?
Mrd Wobs: In the kitchen.
Me: Oh, right.

The conventional wisdom is Mars bar as bait. Although we have known the little gits to hollow out the home made loaf, and eat onion flavoured cheese.

Our pest chap at work is opposed to humane traps as he says that as mice are not indigenous, they should not be released back into the wild.

 

[Penners]

You could always get a humane trap if the thought of killing them doesn't appeal, and release them a distance away.

No, no - please don't do that!

Rats and mice are vermin, and they breed rapidly. Humane traps are selfish* - they may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling about your own gentleness, but you are simply pushing your own problem on to someone else. If you release one mouse a long distance from your house you may have (partially) solved your own problem, but then the mouse just invades someone else's home. In addition to this you've allowed the creature an opportunity to reproduce itself many times over.

The solution to the problem is to kill the vermin. Leave mousetraps in mouse-runs, baited with cheese, chocolate or peanut butter. If you don't like the idea of removing the carcases from the traps, buy yourself a supply of latex gloves.

You could also poison them with bait. The only problem with this is that you risk having them die inside walls, under floors, etc. and creating an unpleasant stink for a few weeks as they decompose.

* Sorry Feltwell - I don't mean to be rude to you.

 

[Feltwell]

You weren't Penners. Personally I've no qualms with killing them, I posted up the humane trap option as others don't always feel the same way. I also am not convinced that in the grand scheme of things removing one mouse from the nation is going to do much good, so I don't think trapping them and releasing them a good way from any property does much harm if that's what the individual prefers to do. All down to personal preference, as with so many things!

 

[LadyArowana]

Don't think "vermin" think "free pet"

 

[MdB]

Don't think "free pet", think "free lunch"

 

[LadyArowana]

Don't think "free pet", think "free lunch"

Note to self, when MdB hosts the PPUK party, send regrets.

 

[Juju]

It is a dilemma (humane traps vs killing them) - I don't really like killing animals but then it freaks me out to think this could escalate into a bigger problem. I don't worry about mice overwintering in our sheds but not in our bedroom! I think it dates back to when I was a child and my grandmother told me she found a squished dead mouse in her bed where Grandad had rolled on to it. *Shudder*
I'll discuss with Mr Juju tonight - he'll have to deal with the dead bodies if we go for traps and bait. No, I won't use poison as I don't want smelly dead mice under the floorboards. I'm sure anyway now we've moved the food source they won't bother us again hopefully....
Juju

 

[MdB]

I'm sure anyway now we've moved the food source they won't bother us again hopefully....

I think you will be very lucky if this happens. It took us a long while to get rid of our mice (don't even ask about the rat :evil and their definition of food is rather different from yours or mine..

 

[JoceAndChris]

Vermin seek two things from us, food, and harbourage. They want both but will make do with one as well. It's very possible for the mice to live in your attic and nip outside for lunch. They'll make a grain store for their babies. Rats are highly sophisticated in their stored larders and devote chambers of construction for underground snacks!

The attack on vermin must be twofold - against food and against harbourage. All food in lidded containers and all mouse runs baited with Neosorexa Gold or baited traps as Mr P suggests. I have a scary blue powder that can be blown into the harbourage spots, it clings to their fur and when they lick they die. It's professional though really, I don't particularly recommend it in instances where Neo gold or mousetraps have not been tried.

Mice are highly dangerous in the home as they can chew through cables and start roof fires, I certainly would not release them as they could easily just come back again. Fortunately we have so many hunters here there aren't mice, but the rat under the chicken shed problem takes year round monitoring and poisoning to be on top of. Just killed the latest batch. 8)

Rats and mice can carry disease, much worse in rats but mice can pass on horrid things like tularaemia and lymes. They will have urinated all over all the chocolate wrappings they've been running over, personally I'd bin anything mouse nibbled. I agree with Mr P that humane traps are really not very humane to the humans, you don't want these creatures alive.

 

[Juju]

I'm thoroughly depressed now! Yes will deal with it head-on as people are suggesting. Would you do the same with sheds too? I've been wondering about the shed which is very close to our house - well, right next to the kitchen! A mouse definitely lived in the shed last winter - droppings everywhere - we don't go in there much so perhaps I need to check it every week. It would be so easy for mice to get in through our lean to. I think Mr Juju had a laid-back attitude to mice in his last house - so I may need to be firm. he said it was ok to keep the chocs which hadn't been nibbled but I wasn't convinced! Now Joce has said the mouse might have wee-ed on them, they're definitely going in the bin....

Juju

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, such a shame. I let mice alone in the garden, some of those mice might be voles,or wood mice, and they will never come in your house. Target the house breakers. You need a puss cat really.

 

[Flyfisher]

Another vote against humane traps from me as well. Besides, releasing house mice into the middle of nowhere will probably condemn them to a slow death anyway because they are not well-adapted for such environments.

A cat is certainly effective but I really wish they could be trained to ignore shrews and birds.

 

[Juju]

Yes good advice thanks - I will target the housebreakers but keep a close eye on the shed nearest the house. I wouldn't want to kill animals indiscriminately.. They've just got to learn not to enter our bedroom uninvited and nick the kids' chocolate..
Juju

 

[Feltwell]

A cat is certainly effective but I really wish they could be trained to ignore shrews and birds.

I'm with you on the training but not the effectiveness! Some cats are effective mousers - some are effin' useless!

 

[another_richard]

I have managed to catch at least twenty two mice so using a combination of humane traps and cornering them via a pint glass.

I then released them down t'road onto the railway embankment.

I thought I was doing the right thing but based on the above I am not!

Not sure I could live with the sound of the trap clicking and the sudden termination of a life.

 

[Lime]

Mice are difficult to remove from a house.
Most houses are either badly constructed in the first place (from a mouse-run point of view) or have been damaged by "improvements" and alterations.
They can exist on almost anything for food.
Leather book covers and window putty are two examples IME.
ALL food should be kept in mouse-proof containers including any animal food.
Make sure the mice cannot get into pet cages.
They will nest anywhere too, under floors, in any nook or cranny created by interior furniture or structures, even in hollow walls and doors.

The easiest way to rid the house of mice is to starve them out and get a cat.
Some dogs are very good killers of rats and mice too.
My doberman (several decades ago) killed rats the size of cats with one snap of her jaws on the rat's back.

 

[MdB]

Other dogs will come upstairs to hide.... (I'm looking at you Barney...)