Mice

The Hill Billy

Faith - This has gone beyond a joke. Presuming that you are renting - you need to get onto your landlord or local health authority & get them to do something about it. (Mention that it is a "recurring infestation".)

Faith

I own the place. There was only one last night, and I saw it before I went to bed. It was about the size of my thumb and panicked completely when it saw me (It was actually quite funny to see it running around in circles!). Like I said, I think it's just because of the weather, and tbh, it's an unavoidable problem in Edinburgh. The buildings are old and all joined together, so if a mouse gets into one, it has the run of the block.

There was no further sign of it last night, so hopefully it was an anomally.

Macker

I think it's all been said already but here it is anyway

how to catch a mouse

The Hill Billy

Faith wrote:

I own the place.

Local health authority then. Best of luck.

Raiser

Hi have to post to give the Hotpress another vote for traps - A combination of heat and all the pipes disappearing to every region in the house makes the Hotpress an equivalent of Mouse Grand Central Station.

- Mice are small, harmless and non-threatening - if you have them put down a few traps and get on with it......Now fortunately I can't speak from personal experience, but some of the RAT visitation stories I've heard...... :eek:

A lad I know sat on the bed to take his boots off one night an noticed a "lace" about a foot long hanging out of the closet - except that this "lace" was scaly and had a rat on the end with jaws like a Terrier and teeth like a Piranha

iguana

In London we just seem to have mice near constantly. It doesn't help that there was a refuse collection strike in my borough for a month this summer either as their numbers rose hugely.

I have got me one of these they are truely excellent and work for both mice and rats. Last week we killed 5 mice with it in 2 days. We seemed to have killed the lot of them for now, but I'd be pretty sure we'll see them again in the near future.:(

I never had mice in Dublin.

ethernet

A furry friend woke me up a few weeks ago. I could hear the trap scraping off the bottom of the door as the little thing tried to escape. When it eventually stopped, I put it in a bag and released it [outside!]. The trap only caught its leg -- no point prolonging its agony. It immediately darted underground through a hole I never noticed before. No visitors since.

Whizzo

Not sure if it was mentioned already....buy an electronic deterrent but the one with EMF. They cost around €35 and can have ultrasonic and or EMF. The EMF apparently puts a pulse through the house wiring that mice and insects don't like.
I moved house 18mths ago and found we were sharing the house with mice. Used traps with bacon and killed 6. Bought and plugged in the item above and have seen nothing since.
You can buy them in any hardware but I really would suggest you get the EMF one, normal ultrasonic is about €15.

crosstownk

Whizzo wrote:

Not sure if it was mentioned already....buy an electronic deterrent but the one with EMF. They cost around €35 and can have ultrasonic and or EMF. The EMF apparently puts a pulse through the house wiring that mice and insects don't like.
I moved house 18mths ago and found we were sharing the house with mice. Used traps with bacon and killed 6. Bought and plugged in the item above and have seen nothing since.
You can buy them in any hardware but I really would suggest you get the EMF one, normal ultrasonic is about €15.

I have to admit, I'd heard many bad reports about these deterrants but I bought two of them (one downstairs and one up) and I've had no mice this year (except for the one the cat brought in - little boll*x won't catch them in the house but will bring dead ones in from outside - cats :rolleyes: ). I do think the US/EMF devices are better at preventing the mice from coming in rather than getting rid of them if you already have a problem.

The weather is starting to get warmer and usually mice will leave for the outdoors in warm weather. So get a couple of these devices and plug them in during the summer. Hopefully that will sort you out for next autumn/winter. No matter what bad reports you hear about these devices they won't make the situation worse!

dubmick

what time of the year do mice come into the house?

CJhaughey

From now on, as it is getting colder.

dubmick

caught my first mouse of the 07/08 season today. I was putting the Xmas decorations back in the attic and I noticed one in a trap. I put the trap down over a year ago!

I caught it over Xmas because it wasn't there when i was getting the decorations down. Hopefully I don't have many because I haven't heard them they way I did last year.

Chopper

Great Thread - Thanks for all the tips.

Mrs. Chopper has found suspicious bits of "dirt" and suspected mice for a while now but after some brief investigation I had managed to convince her otherwise ..... All was well until this morning.... I switched on the light in the downstairs loo and caught one off guard (not sure what he was doing in there) Anyway he scurried behind the sink and down between the pipes under the floor.

Haven't told Mrs Chopper yet - she'll be over the moon at being right (again!) not sure how she will feel about the mouse tho....

Will pop down to the hardware shop and tool up for battle. If I start wageing war before herself gets home ;-) maybe it won't seem like so much of an issue ?

Chopper

Got 4 old fashioned traps and used Munches as bait

Caught 2 within two hours. A third ate the bait without setting off the trap.

need more ammo !

dubmick

Good work.

try and tie the bait down with a bit of thread.

311

Few tips I picked up ,lay traps on newspaper so you don't have to touch the traps.

Lay talcum powder on the floor ,if your not sure where the buggers are . You can see their little footprints.

Compressed mars bar as bait ,goes hard and they have to knaw at it to get any:D

BaZmO*

'kin hell!!! You are a killing machine!!

emma1503

Have just moved into a new flat in Edinburgh and am definitely hearing mice, have not seen any in the flat yet (touch wood) but have had droppings under the sink, have sealed as many holes as I can, got peppermint everywhere, bleached everywhere etc etc. Would putting poision under the floorboards help? My neighbours say they haven't seen any. It is ruining the whole experience of buying and moving into a flat, have been sleeping anywhere but in the flat for the past 2 weeks!

:(:(

Chopper

emma1503 wrote: »

Have just moved into a new flat in Edinburgh and am definitely hearing mice, have not seen any in the flat yet (touch wood) but have had droppings under the sink, have sealed as many holes as I can, got peppermint everywhere, bleached everywhere etc etc. Would putting poision under the floorboards help? My neighbours say they haven't seen any. It is ruining the whole experience of buying and moving into a flat, have been sleeping anywhere but in the flat for the past 2 weeks!

:(:(

Hay emma1503,

My advice woud be to lay an trap under the sink with some chocolate bait.
Either you have blocked up their access and will catch nothing or they will take the bait and you can then 'round them up'...

Most advice is against poision unless you know where they nest and can dispose of them. Otherswise the smell can be quite bad or so I have been told.


We caught 3 in the kitchen, under the sink. So I blocked up access but now it seems there is at least one trapped on the inside now. Found evidence in the hotpress so I have more traps to set !

Gunn4r

Uncle Gunn4r's Guide to Mice

Ok have been reading this with interest and wanted to share my 'wisdom' re mice and have decided to do so in a series of bullet points

- You find out you have mice, hear them, see them etc yes it is unpleasant but unless your going to move out deal with it and get on with it!

- Rentokill etc are in a domestic mice situation a complete waste of money, they lay bait. So why not go to woodies and buy bait yourself?

- People say (like Rentokill) you cant block them out, this may be true in some cases but I can tell you it is possible if you have make an effort to do so.

- The best tools are wooden traps (plastic ones suck) and the bait from woodies (in a white and red box) I use parmesan cheese in the trap and it works!

- You can use the bait traps to see where they come in , just follow where they take it

- For gaps use steel wool and lots of it.

- the electronic yolks in my experience dont work.

Sonnenblumen

Poison is effective only downside being you've no control of where they die and you do not want decomposing mice indoors, take sconsiderable time for smell to disappear.

Traps (killing type) are great, I've always found a piece of smokey bacon rind securely tied works repeatedly. Yet you have a dead mouse to deal with, you can lose in garden or flush down toilet.

For the more squeamish/animal friendly you can buy small cage type traps to catch mice and release again in the wild.

Live mice make ideal bait and great training for Jack Russells!

delly

I don't know if your being funny or not Sonnenblumen, but this isn't the hunting forum.

dubmick

flush down the toilet:eek:

I just put them in a bag and in the wheelie bin!

Sonnenblumen

delly wrote: »

I don't know if your being funny or not Sonnenblumen, but this isn't the hunting forum.

Hunting mice? What next?? Shoot the messenger!

dubmick

it's that time of the year lads, anyone got mice?

I'm sure I heard one of them last night. The traps are set.

WHU

We building an extension off of our kitchen and the back of the house is a bit open at the moment. I noticed something moving quickly out of the corner of my eye the other night, so we laid a few traps as a precaution, caught my first victim 2 nights ago and the next last night. Anybody got any pointers on what to look for when they all gone, I don't want to leave the baited traps down too long as you could attract more visitors

noby

Clean up the droppings from wherever you see it, so you'll know of you find fresh ones.

We caught a family of five over a 24 hour period over the weekend. Toffeepops are doing the trick.

copper12

The electronics stuff doesn’t work sure it dose
My neighbour was complaining that he could hear mice at night
So he bought the electronic thingamajig
It drove his and my dogs crazy kept him awake all night but he didn’t hear any mice :pac:

WHU

Cheers Noby.
Had a bit of a shock this morning, looked in the hallway and there was a mass of black little bits all in a large circle on the floor :eek: but luckily we realised it was where my son had thrown his bag when he came in from soccer training last night and it was all bits of astro turf that he'd picked up on his trainers .
It's amazing how jumpy all this makes you

Sleepy

Found one in the bedroom a couple of weeks ago but assumed it was a one off that had gotten in because we'd left the door into the yard open, managed to chase it back out the door at about 3/4am and assumed that was that until last night when we heard one again.

Girlfriend's off to her mothers and to gather supplies. Feck 'humane', I was nice last time, this time they're getting it!