Why can't we catch this mouse???

bunty2008

I need serious help. We have a mouse in the attic. I can hear him every night chewing, scraping, knowing.

I first heard him a month ago and we put up a humane trap with peanut butter. Nothing.

A week later, we put in a second trap- the regular thee, with Bacon. Nothing.

About a week ago, we changed to offering to Snickers. Nothing.

Two nights ago, we changed the location of the trap. Nothing.

I should also explain, our attic is TINY. You can't stand up in it. So, we can't just wander up and start exploring.

Anyone know what we are going wrong??? At my wits end!

07438991

bunty2008 wrote: »

I need serious help. We have a mouse in the attic. I can hear him every night chewing, scraping, knowing.

I first heard him a month ago and we put up a humane trap with peanut butter. Nothing.

A week later, we put in a second trap- the regular thee, with Bacon. Nothing.

About a week ago, we changed to offering to Snickers. Nothing.

Two nights ago, we changed the location of the trap. Nothing.

I should also explain, our attic is TINY. You can't stand up in it. So, we can't just wander up and start exploring.

Anyone know what we are going wrong??? At my wits end!

Have you tried cheese? I heard that what mice like... Also, what exactly is he knowing upstairs in your attic..?

celticbhoy27

are you sure it's a mouse? reason i ask is i was 100 per cent sure we had mice back in the summer months. again we could hear those noises you describded. turns out it was a nest of birds in the guttering and not the attic at all. i know its not the time of year for birds but just saying it may not be mice

CamperMan

could be a rat!

we had one in the attic, it was annoying, I would go up into the attic and could not see anything because of all the insulation...

I put some rat poison up there, some time later the noise stopped and later on the smell was sick.. a rotting dead rat in the attic..

bunty2008

Obviously, he's knawing (have I spelt that correctly?) and not knowing!

I'm interested in the bird theory. However, this only seems to happen in the dead silence of the night and I can literally hear him chewing the wood. Is this what birds would sound like? Would I not hear them twitter also?

Re the rat theory, this one scares me. I assumed it was not a rat because I worked in a building with rats before and I could hear them scurrying. Would I not hear this? I also throught that if it was a rat, he might have had a go at the trap food at least? Not planning to put down poison for the very reason you describe camper man!

I might try cheese tonight.

CamperMan

as celticbhoy27 mentioned, it could also be birds.

over the years, I have had sleepless nights caused by, a rat in the attic... a squirrel in the attic, and birds making a nest...

I hope you find the problem soon

celticbhoy27

re the birds: no there was no tweeting to be heard, they were sneaky feckers :mad: used to hear them most 1st thing in morning and last thing at night. went up to the attic and searched all through crawl space. really did my nut trying to source the noise. when i eventually figured out it was birds it was a relief, although i did have to wait for winter for them to bugger off :pac:

sky6

When your setting a Trap you need to make sure and get all Human smells off the Trap otherwise they won't come near it. when you load it a nice piece of Bacon, run it over a naked Flame to remove any smells and also increase the Smell for the Mice or Rats.

alexonhisown

Make sure you put the trap against the wall, because they generally run along the side of the wall. I have had great success with peanut butter in easy set plastic traps.

CamperMan

for mice, i found porridge oats (dry) put on and very close to the trap to be effective... never failed!

mad m

Best way to tell if its a rat is the droppings, they are like raisins were as mice droppings are like rice..

Id pull up some insulation and have a look. Put loads of traps down instead of one, you'll better your odds...

Put a bit of peanut butter on trap and then melt chocolate over to so the bloody thing has to pull at it...

steph1

Borrow a cat from someone and put him/her into the attic.

bunty2008

Great tips - thanks! My dog will kill the cat before the cat kills the mouse:)

We can't see any droppings but as I said before a, the attic is tiny so we can only reach a very limited part of it. After that, the roof tapers in, so we would literally be crawling on our tummies.

I'm starting to fantasise that it's birds. Wouldn't that be fab. Problem over!

At this stage, I'm thinking of bringing up a flame thrower:mad:

Prenderb

mad m wrote: »

Best way to tell if its a rat is the droppings, they are like raisins were as mice droppings are like rice..

Id pull up some insulation and have a look. Put loads of traps down instead of one, you'll better your odds...

Put a bit of peanut butter on trap and then melt chocolate over to so the bloody thing has to pull at it...

+1 on the lots of traps idea, and chocolate spread is a successful bait also.

Spread your traps, and check the bait regularly. I had a mouse a month or 2 ago, checked morning and evening and found he was able to take the bait without springing the trap - he managed this about 3 times before we got him.

When I say spread your traps, and this might not need to be explained to everyone in the house, don't assume the mouse spends the whole day relaxing up in the attic. I had thought mine was in the kitchen, but a hunch made me put one upstairs aswell - we got him in the hotpress. So a few in the attic, one or 2 in the hotpress (it does be warm and snug in there) and maybe worth one or two somewhere in the kitchen.

I think chewing the wood is fairly indicative of a rodent - they're honing their teeth.

Up the game - get some more traps! Go with the traditional type too, is my advice - i had the newer plastic type which didn't seem to cut the mustard. Humane traps I dunno about.

And good luck with it!

bunty2008

Thanks prenderb. Rodent survived another night. not sure where else in the house hemitgo because I would expect to see the droppings after all this time.

In saying that, he doesn't make noise every night, so I thought we might had shared custody with my neighbour. She says she hasn't Heard anything though.

B.

mad m

Sometime though the droppings if its a mouse can be hard to see, they look like rice like I said but sometimes they can be smaller and may seem its like a speck of dirt.

Welease

He might be in the ceiling space and not actually out and about in the in the attic.. We have had similar mouse encounters..

When winter comes we get 4-5 mice in the house over time (we live out in the countryside), and always find that a couple of peanut butter baited traps under the kitchen cupboards (or anywhere the kids wont touch them) works perfectly, even though we only ever hear them in the wall spaces at the opposite end of the house.

looksee

I agree with the others, a mouse will not really go into the middle of a big space, they run round the edges and you may well not be able to get a trap into the areas where they are.

There isn't much in the way of food in an attic so its likely that they are either going out or coming into the house. Have a look at places where cables and pipes go from the house into the attic - like the top of the hot press. They can get through very tiny spaces.

If you have a fitted kitchen you can take off the kick boards and look to see if there are any droppings - and put a trap in there while you are doing it!

If it is birds you are not likely to see anything from inside the attic. We had starlings year after year just under the eaves, they make a lot of dirt and mess. In the end we had grids put in place when we got the roof repaired, and that sorted them.

rsole1

bunty2008 wrote: »

Thanks prenderb. Rodent survived another night. not sure where else in the house hemitgo because I would expect to see the droppings after all this time.

In saying that, he doesn't make noise every night, so I thought we might had shared custody with my neighbour. She says she hasn't Heard anything though.

B.

You will only see the droppings if it's a mouse - they ****e and piss as they walk along. Look under the sink, in the hot press and if you have a bath take of the side panel and look under there. You won't see rat droppings all over the place as they are latrinal and only do there business in one place. Do you have any squirrells nearby? Any trees overhanging the roof?

celticbhoy27

ever find the culprit?

bunty2008

Would you believe I haven't caught this shagging beast yet. At this stage, we're worn out getting out the ladder etc every night that we have given up checking every day. I still hear him at night but not every night. I'm now wondering if our attic is like his weekend house and he spends his time somewhere else- like our neighbours attic.

I'm on high droppings alert all over the house but there is nothing.

In our attic we have insulation and then boards over that. We can only put rhe traps on the boards so I wonder if he ever wanders above the boards.

Seriously- my head is MELTED!!! Its about 6 god dam weeks now!!!

Merch

Used to get scraping noises from in the attic a bit, someone suggested it was mice, I had a look (big enough attic to get around) but could never locate anything that would suggest mice.
You would usually hear the noises in the morning, I began to suspect it was birds on the roof and in the gutter, maybe OP should have a look from outside and see if there any spaces between roof tiles or at joins of tiles. (there was a tile slightly raised near my chimney) from inside the attic beneath that point, I could see the felt bulging. So I concluded a bird had built their nest.
I think it has been vacated but I still intend to cut open the felt to remove what I imagine is twigs in case they or any others decide to come back.

Maybe the Ops problem noise isn't like the above and is mice though.

Prenderb

bunty2008 wrote: »

Would you believe I haven't caught this shagging beast yet. At this stage, we're worn out getting out the ladder etc every night that we have given up checking every day. I still hear him at night but not every night. I'm now wondering if our attic is like his weekend house and he spends his time somewhere else- like our neighbours attic.

I'm on high droppings alert all over the house but there is nothing.

In our attic we have insulation and then boards over that. We can only put rhe traps on the boards so I wonder if he ever wanders above the boards.

Seriously- my head is MELTED!!! Its about 6 god dam weeks now!!!

It took me about 5 weeks to catch ours.

Did you add many traps to your battlefield, and some in the kitchen/hotpress areas?

I don't think I said to keep them in against skirting boards - they use their whiskers to navigate rather than sight, so they travel along walls, boards, things like that. So set the traps bait side into the wall, if that makes sense.

bunty2008

Don't think its birds because it can happen at any time - midnight, 3am. Also I've never seen birds around the gutter. I had a mouse in my bedroom when I was a kid so I know the sound. I'd be stunned if this isn't a rodent.

Tope

I know you already tried a humane trap at the start, but I had surprising success with them last year so it might be worth another go.

Spotted a couple of mice in the kitchen and sitting room over a few days, so I bought two humane traps in Woodies – the kind that tips over and closes when a mouse goes in.
Baited them with peanut butter (crunchy, not smooth, in case it matters!) and left one in each room, (up against the walls, under cupboards/bookshelves), and caught 4 mice over two days! Released them in a wooded area over the garden wall, and never saw or heard a mouse since.

I don't know if it's possible that the mice might suspect something dangerous about the regular snap traps that makes them wary of going near them? They just seemed to really go for the bait straight away with these things.

Also, I don't remember seeing any droppings at the time, even though we had at 4 very active mice on the go, so that may not be a reliable indicator.

Good luck!

rsole1

Tope wrote: »

I know you already tried a humane trap at the start, but I had surprising success with them last year so it might be worth another go.

Spotted a couple of mice in the kitchen and sitting room over a few days, so I bought two humane traps in Woodies – the kind that tips over and closes when a mouse goes in.
Baited them with peanut butter (crunchy, not smooth, in case it matters!) and left one in each room, (up against the walls, under cupboards/bookshelves), and caught 4 mice over two days! Released them in a wooded area over the garden wall, and never saw or heard a mouse since.

I don't know if it's possible that the mice might suspect something dangerous about the regular snap traps that makes them wary of going near them? They just seemed to really go for the bait straight away with these things.

Also, I don't remember seeing any droppings at the time, even though we had at 4 very active mice on the go, so that may not be a reliable indicator.

Good luck!

Roscommon mice are not suspicious of snaptraps - they jump straight on 'em. Perhaps the Jackeen mice are a bit more streetwise.

2 stroke

My guess is the mice arent in the attic but somewhere much closer.

slimjimmc

2 stroke wrote: »

My guess is the mice arent in the attic but somewhere much closer.

Indeed, I once had one a few years ago, could hear it running across the ceiling all week so laid a few traps up in the attic. None of the attic traps were touched, but a week later I put one in the kitchen cupboard and nailed the little <bleep> on the first night.

bunty2008

Prenderb, I think you've hit the nail on the head. We have not got the traps against a wall. We can't reach the edge of the attic. Our attic is very shallow, so by the time you get out to where the edge Is, you simply can't reach it with your hand. We have the traps (2) in the centre-ish, up against a kind of Beam. I guess he is just not running along there but that's thebest we can do.

I'm afraid to put down poison incase he heads for water tank which is not covered. Am I right?

slimjimmc

If you screwed the trap onto the end of a length of timber could you reach far enough in?

Merch

bunty2008 wrote: »

Prenderb, I think you've hit the nail on the head. We have not got the traps against a wall. We can't reach the edge of the attic. Our attic is very shallow, so by the time you get out to where the edge Is, you simply can't reach it with your hand. We have the traps (2) in the centre-ish, up against a kind of Beam. I guess he is just not running along there but that's thebest we can do.

I'm afraid to put down poison incase he heads for water tank which is not covered. Am I right?

Screw a small hook or metal ring on the traps, then put the trap on a length of wood (like a piece of 2x4) push it off with another one, and to recover put a hook on one of the pieces of wood (or an old broom handle) to recover them