Mice

WHU

Definitely recommend the old style wooden traps they worked great, caught 2 over 3 nights and all quiet for a week now, fingers crossed

RKQ

I recommend a wooden trap with quarter of a Rolo. Position slightly perpendicular to wall, as mice like to keep close to a wall. Near a corner or shaded area of room or where you've seen him!

They love choc and caramel, so Mars are good too. 2 - 4 hours later and you'll have him!

WHU

Agreed, especially on the Mars, you can squash it into the peg on the trap, making it harder for your visitor to remove the bait without setting the trap off.
Another tip I read was to put cotton around the bait and the peg so it gets tugged by the mouse, I read this after I caught both of my visitors so can't claim if it works or not, good hunting

mud

Firstly, I cannot believe how much noise mice can make!

I've been living in me gaff for a year and a half and this is the first time I've had worries with the critters, the noise of them in the walls and going across the ceiling had me thinking that pigeons had got into the attic, got me da to go up and check and he saw no sign,

cleaned me house from top to bottom and still found no sign, was sitting down enjoying my clean house and watching tv when one of the feckers ran out into the middle of the floor, found a hole behind a book case and put down traps and poison, caught 2 the first night and none since,

what are the chances that there were only two that came in from the cold?

Am I just fooling myself?

bauderline

I dispatched a family of five from our house a few months ago. Used the plastic type traps along with bits of cadbury chocolate. I set traps behind tv's sofa's and also in the roofspace which is where I got the most kills.

My wife also discovered one hiding in a six pack of bread muffins on the kitchen bench. You could see his backside sticking out of the packet. I dispatched this one Jason Bourne style with fist and telephone directory... had to throw out the muffins tho...

p.

dubmick

mud wrote: »

what are the chances that there were only two that came in from the cold?

Am I just fooling myself?

No there is a good chance. I've caught one mouse this winter and last winter. If you can't hear them anymore there is a good chance there are no more in your house.

Be prepared though, they'll be back.

iguana

We've caught 2 in the last few weeks. My dogs caught one about 3 weeks ago which seemed to be the end of it. And I got one in my ratzapper on Monday. I hope that they were 2 individual incursions, but I suspect that Monday's kill has left a buddy or two behind.:(

mud

dubmick wrote: »

Be prepared though, they'll be back.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

/rocks back and forth while keeping frantic eyes trained on the skirting boards

It's been a bad coupla weeks guys! 1st oil went bust then mice then washing machine wouldn't drain


*sigh*

TinCool

I've just done a review on Amazon of some glue traps that I bought for our mouse problem we had a few months back so I being the diligent boardsie I did a search for a mouse thread so thought I'd post my story of the problem that I had with the little ****ers.

After a two week holiday, my wife and I arrived home and found that we had a mouse problem in our kitchen. It took 4 weeks to get rid of them as I had no experience of how to go about catching them before then. Below, is a short synopsis of our experiences with mice and the various products that I used to cath them (including the glue traps).

Thankfully our problem was isolated to the kitchen. I would recommend however to cover any gaps such as under doors that lead to other pats of the house with towels to restrict their movement. This was an affective way of keeping them in the same location. I have seen first hand at how mice can squeeze through the tiniest of gaps (literally a hole no wider than a bic biro) in our kitchen so this is an important point to remember.

My wife wanted to catch the mice humanely, which I reluctantly agreed with as I thought it would just prolong the whole thing. I bought one of those plug in sonic anti mouse devices. I bought the most expensive one they had although I am dubious as to whether they actually make any difference as it certainly didn't in our case. I am of the opinion that if mice have already set up shop in your house then they are not going to leave your warm home if you use one of these sonic devices, they'll just put up with the sound. It may be case of prevention in the future but not as a means of getting rid of an already infested room.

I gave the plug in a few days and of course it didn't make any difference, so off I went and bought 3 humane traps from B&Q. These were the type of small tunnels which tip over when the mouse goes in to search out the food that you place at the back made by rentokil only a few quid each. They were pretty effective where by I caught 4 mice with them with the aid of peanuts and peanut butter which I released in a nearby wood. I thought after the 4th that I had caught them all, but unfortunately, that was not true.

After another week of using the humane traps I did not catch any more even though there was evidence that they were still present. I found this out as each morning I would check the traps and find no evidence of tampering. I'd then lay a couple of peanuts on the floor near the trap and low and behold they'd magically disappear by the next morning. Also, the evidence of new mouse droppings after having cleared up what I could find each evening.

I ended up buying 3 more traditional snap traps (definitely recommended) as I was getting more and more aggrevated with the little blighters as they were making a mess with all their droppings in our cuboards, contaminating our food stuffs, nawing on wooden utensils and not to mention where ever they may had been urinating in the kitchen. I began to detest the thought of going in to our kitchen and cooking food. I did manage to catch another 4 with the traditional traps, put them in plastic bags and fecked them in the bin (reusing the traps of course the following day). I used the plastic traps again bought in B&Q of the rentokil variety as they are reusable. No spike so no guts to worry about.

At this point I thought I had gotten rid of them all. A few days passed and no more of the traps had caught any more mice, however one night I saw another one under the sink, the mouse never went near the baited traps. Another week went by and still nothing. I surmised that this last one must have been some kind of hyper intelligent super mouse that wore glasses and smoked a pipe, either that, or he witnessed one or more of his buddies getting trapped and realised that may be those black things with peanut butter on them are bad.

By now I was getting extremely annoyed and I just wanted to get rid of the last one by any means, humanely or otherwise. Just to note, I totally discounted using poison as you don't want a rotting mouse some where behind the cuboards.

As a last resort I bought 2 packs of the glue traps from Amazon. Reading about them online, they have gotten a lot of negative press being the most inhumane way of capturing them but I didn't care because after over 4 weeks of the ****ers I would have used anything.

I laid them down by the the kickboards in the kitchen, putting bait in the middle of the sheets (I used peanuts as they were proving very effective. Please note that these sheets are extremely sticky and if any of the glue gets on your shoes or floor you will have a hard time removing it. I ended up having to use some bleach and a scowering pad to lift if off the kitchen floor. My own fault for accidentally walking on them as they do warn you on the packet). Not even an hour had passed and I had caught the last one. I disposed of the last mouse (9 in total) humanely and that was the end of our mouse troubles.

I found the hole in which they were entering from the outside, plugged that up with plenty of wire wool and pollyfilla'ed up the hole and then two days were spent cleaning the kitchen, dishwasher on constantly after about 5 loads of various utensils, bowels, plates etc etc, washing out the presses and floor with bleach and all sorts.

If you want to get rid of your problem humanely then by all means do so, but if you're not having any luck with snap traps, humane traps, try the glue strips (provided you don't have any young kids or pets in your house) they worked for me.

TC

dubmick

Only caught one this year. I heard one in the attic and caught it shortly after with an electronic trap I bought from Amazon. That was about 3 weeks ago so hopefully that is the last of them.

My poor next door neighbour is tortured with them this year.

WHU

Caught two this year (about a month ago, fingers crossed no signs since), using the same tactics as last year, the old wooden traps and a bit of a Mars bar.
Both were in the utility behind the washing machine, I cannot see where they got inthis year. last year we were doing a bit of building work and assumed that thats how last years visitors got in but this year everything was secure or so I thought

bauderline

Caught 4 this year... three in the house and one who had setup residence in the car !!!

Top tip... if using the plastic snap trap it can be hard to secure the bait to the trap... I used chocolate buttons and a cigarette lighter to melt/weld the chocolate bait to the trap... very effective...