Argghh! House mice problem!! Post Reply

[moops]

I know it is awful but it could be worse, we had a major rat problem for over a year *barf*.

We contacted the council and rentokil and they both put poison in our ceiling, so the rats died and stunk up our flat for months, we nearly had to move out because of it. It turns out there was a crack in our drain pipe so they were using that to get into our property.

We have also had mice and I also felt really dirty, just remember that they can fit through the tiniest hole and these old houses are full of little nooks and crannies!

It sounds like you are mega tidy but I always make sure my Son doesn't walk around with food just in case the little crumbs that I don't notice are attracting them!

If you are really worried, maybe try Rentokil?

[owolczek]

we had this problem for a while.
penaut butter didn't work but chocolate did!
it's also important to have clean (smell - free) traps. make sure you wash them before reusing.
hope that helps

[SarahClarke]

OOOHHHHH ! I do sympathise, I had a terrible problem of mice a few years ago and have a big garden which backs onto a cemetary, all my neighbours had the problem too.

Easy answer - I trotted off to Battersea dogs home and got two cats. One of my neighbours is still having the problem, but my cats keep going in her garden so they must be able to smell them. I've always had cats, and think its the only answer.

Hope you are a cat lover ! Good luck !

[KatherineHepburn]

Bad luck.
Mice tend to turn up when someone near by is refurbing a property. They get a fright and move house until it all dies down and they can go home again. In London there is always someone doing something up so....

If it doesn't budge then I'd say call in the experts. Good luck.

[juliantenniscoach]

got a sneaky mouse or two lurking around. ok mice will eat through anything except metal. so if you have any obvious holes block them with brillo pads or other metal scouring pads.

in spain where I had a BIG mouse problem I used ham in the traps and they would crawl over their crushed pals to get at it!

best of luck.

[mumble]

yuk about the ham story!

mungo are you in Balham? everyone I know in Balham has loads of mice, they get through a hole the size of a pencil.
I think it's the high street all that food rubbish left lying around!!

everywhere I look now I see mice

moops don't you have your flat on here?
wouldn't like to be the one doing your loft conversion (I need a 'yuk' smiley for this post)

[moops]

Mumble, yes I do have my flat on here to rent and because of the extensive and expensive work on our drains to rectify the problem, it is probably one of the most rat and mouse free flats around! We ripped out our kitchen and walls and made sure there were no holes anywhere! Plus we have a ground floor flat so no loft conversion, thanks for your concern though.

MM - Do you have a fireplace? We also had boarded ours up incase the little blighters were coming in through that!

[catief]

Hello

Forget traps, poison etc. The best way is with ultrasonic mouse repellers. We bought ours from the local shop, but you can get really awesome ones. Just google it. E.g. http://www.mousetraps.org.uk/Mouse-Trap ... -Repellent and http://www.primrose-london.co.uk/rat-an ... p-166.html (can't vouch for either of those personally, but I have small plastic ones that plug straight into the wall and my mum, who lives in the middle of no-where has a big unit that sits on the floor so thought I would show you both ideas)

They really do work and they're completely child friendly.

[catief]

PS Australians don't have mice?? Are they too scared of the spiders and snakes?

[moops]

I have never had a mouse in my house (yes that was intentional!) in Australia, maybe it is too hot because I think the mice come inside to find warmth? I have had a snake in my house though, not sure which one I would prefer!

[thinkstyle]

We had some mice in our victorian flat and the downstairs neighbours used poison. We found a tiny sleepy little mouse in our kitchen that had eaten some and we had to take it out somewhere to die...

If you do manage to catch them in a friendly trap, apparently you need to take them at least 2km away otherwise they find their way back!

One trick we found is to put duck tape along the front edges of the work top where there's gap between it and the top of appliances (fridge etc). Admittedly doesn't look great but might be a goods interim measure before the ultrasonic arrives. They seemed to be able to climb up the back of the fridge but couldn't figure out their way around the tape so stops them getting on the counter. That tape also seems to work over holes in cupboards too.

Good luck!

[uptheoctave]

We recently had mice too but got rid of them now - with poison as nothing else seemed to work.

We had the ultrasonic plug in things and they didn't seem to work at first but we then found out that many of them can take up to FOUR WEEKS to become effective (great!). Bearing this in mind, if you DO get the plug in things, don't give up if they don't seem to be working initially; after the poison had got rid of most of our mice these plug in things kicked in and we haven't seen one for ages.

Good luck!

[jafina]

I have one of the ultrasonic things (got mine at homebase) plugged into a socket near the kitchen. I hadn't noticed any signs of mice for a while and then one day I noticed some droppings on my daughter's high chair (YUCK!!!!), at which point I noticed the ultrasonic thingie had been turned off (probably by my daughter ironically ).

So I think they do probably help and I will be certainly be keeping mine on forever now!!!

You might need a few different methods to really get rid of them and stay rid of them.....

[moops]

We had one of those and it made a really annoying clicking sound all the time, it drove me mad!

[sharon]

I have had field mice before and just had them again. The first time i called the counil in who put poisin down that did not work, so saddly I had to revert to back breakers laced with peanut butter. This worked but I also found that if we had them so do our neibourghs. So I bit the bullet, with traps in hand I went and laid them in their house for them. I then blocked up and filled in any holes that I felt they were coming in from and hay presto no more mice. I have now seen another baby mouse in my cats mouth, he had to have caught it in the kitchen (yuck). I have attcked my already very clean kitchen, even though a mouse does not care if my home is clean or not he is only after a bit of food, and now put all my food that is not in a tin, into lided containers. This time I have found a possible entrance hole, blocked that up and have put down sticky traps. I have not seen or heard a peep since, so hopefully thats it, not many mice get passed our cat Tom the best mouser in Wandsworth, he tells us where they are and tries to get them , so I think you cant beat a good mousing cat at the end of the day.