As title really. I've had my suspicious for a few days but I just saw the little scamp in the kitchen and it's definitely a mouse. I don't really know where to get traps, I guess B&Q? I obviously want to sort it asap so physical shops rather than online.
Any other recommendations or tips are welcome. I plan to use a humane trap but I'm willing to resort to violence or poison if I have to.
Posted Nov 21, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC
Get a cat, problem solved :)
Possibly.
Or you could get a cat that brings live mice in to play with, then loses them or gets bored and walks off.
Get a second cat.
I've had five cats. Only one of them ever showed an interest in catching mice. Two of them would sit on their bed and happily watch as mice scurried past them.
You need at least two more, then...
Both of mine are ginger toms. One is a prolific mouser, despite being an indoor cat for his first three years.
He brings live ones home and presents them to the other cat, who is as faulty as those two of yours. He even scoops the escaping mice up and repositions them at fault-cat's feet.
Funny thing is, at all other times, mouser-cat doesn't really like faulty-cat all that much.
Get n+1 cats, problem solved!
My cats do this. They wound the poor little buggers, have a bit of a play and then wander off, leaving the half dead shrew/mouse/rat/vole/mole/baby rabbit to bleed out on the lino.
This is "I know an old woman who swallowed a fly" style short-sightedness that can only end with OP filing his bath with hay for his house horse.
Traps have been covered, but I found more success with chocolate or bacon rind than cheese. I'd recommend against poison as we had to rip windowsills off and floorboards up to remove stinking decomposing mice after they ate the poison and took time to die. Awful smell!
Garden centres, including your first recommendation, B and Q, do a lot of traps and stuff.
We find cat ownership works well, at least in terms of not getting live ones.
Unfortunately I'm renting and can't keep pets. A neighbour cat does spend a lot of time in my garden but apparently doesn't care for hunting.
One got caught in a spider trap and I was forced to bash the thing in with a hoover as my girlfriend had a panic attack about the bloody mouse doing figures of 8 on the kitchen floor. Was a really awful experience.
Just get poison or a trap which kills them. Humane traps seem nice but when it is 2 in the morning and one is running around the kitchen realistically what are you going to do with it?
Agreed, having had mice, the poisoned bait was the best bet in the end (looked like blue grain).
I was thinking of the plastic trap and release style ones, although I suppose leaving it in there all night isn't exactly ideal. Fortunately I've got the week off so can actually take it to the woods as soon as it gets caught.
We have a cat that brings mice into the house, alive and active. This is what we do. Mice are like any creature - they need food and water to survive - and seek comfort from smells. Shoebox with mouse hole, a bit of apple, a bottle lid of water and a bit of grass or hay. Put hole in suspected mouse area and wait. Most times the mouse is found inside, having a nibble on the apple, snuggled in the hay. Take shoebox outside and release mouse. The most humane of all!
don't leave any food out. hoover every night to remove all food from floor. take bins out every night. remove the cause of the mice as well as killing them. remember every crumb of food left out is a meal!
Wilkies do them. I greatly recommend finding out how they're getting in and blocking it if possible. I had a persistent problem with them until I plugrged a small gap in my kitchen with wire wool, which they can't gnaw through.
Snap traps are the best, if you have no small children or pets. Humane traps have the problem of where to put the mouse. A poisoned mouse can get eaten by birds, even if you put it in the bin. For bait the best thing I've found is toffee, half chewed then put on the trap. They can't resist it.
Best solution is the instant kills. I see why you don't want to kill them but the best solution is outright kill.
i had a mouse, saw it a couple of times when i turned the kitchen light on in the middle of the night.
Bought a trap and first night killed the mouse.
Set the trap up again and second night killed another.. huh. Third night - same and so on, for weeks! Moral is.. you rarely just have one mouse. Be prepared to completely change the way you store food and clean up after eating / food preparation. It really is the best way.
I've lived in houses with mice for most of my life (various houses, all old with drafty cellars) and have successfully dealt with them countless times (note: they often come back) so take my advice as being solid advice:
First, humane traps? Christ alive... you aren't dealing with 1 mouse, this isn't tom and jerry. I guarantee you there will be several at least, probably a lot more. Not to mention that "releasing" it outside just allows it the chance to get back in, and can you honestly be arsed to drive miles with a mouse in the car every time you catch one, just so you can "safely deposit" it? Is it worth the time, effort, petrol costs and car pollution for the sake of vermin? No, it's not.
OK, so the actual solution: get some trusty "little nipper" (or whatever brand you can find) spring mousetraps from any half decent hardware shop, B&Q probably has them. 2-3 of them should probably be enough. Put a bit of biscuit on the platform, cheese is a myth and won't work, chocolate biscuit works best, maybe "glue" it down with some butter/lard or the mouse might be able to sneak it off. You NEED to set the trap as sensitive as you can possibly set it - serious, like blowing on the trap will set it off. Mice are very, very light and you need the spring bar to hit the mouse squarely on the head for a quick and clean and certain kill. If the trap is set too heavy then the mouse may only get injured, or the trap simply won't go off at all and the mouse just steals the bait.
Also, get some mouse/rat poison too. Something strong to be effective, like warfarin... "Rattak" I think was one brand and put them in some dishes for the mice to eat. They won't drop dead immediately, they will instead eat as much as they want to, then disappear and eventually find a gutter to die in.
Oh yes, place the traps/poison in a combination of areas where you have sighted/heard the mice, as well as places where mice can sneak about (gaps in skirting boards, dark crevices etc.)
Every time a mouse is caught, reset the trap. Every time the bowls are less full, refill them. It will probably take a couple of weeks to get all the mice, but eventually they will disappear.
I've never had any luck with the humane traps sadly, and I have persevered. The snap traps always get them by the next morning.
I've bought and used a couple of these from Sainsbury's about a month ago.
My success rate is 1 out of 2 so far. The second one seems to have taken an evolution 101.
They hate the smell of peppermint oil, and it's really cheap. A few drops in the kitchen every couple of days should keep them away.
Get a shotgun and sit up all night with a bottle of rum
When I had a mouse in my flat I found that normal traps don't work very well. Nor did poison. I ended up using glue traps, which are apparently cruel and nasty, but at least they worked.
I got them off Amazon.
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Because I don't want to share my house with wild animals? I even said my first choice is to avoid killing the mouse.
What sort of stupid comment is that. Op asked a serious question.
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And that is based on.....?
B&Q does both humane and kill traps, at least in their online store. Your local shop might not have any in stock. If you've got a small DIY shop near you, they might do mouse control products as well.
We had mice in our house last winter. We tried humane traps, but the little blighters avoided every single one of them. We resorted to poison bait trays in the end, which worked magnificently.
If you go for humane traps, remember that you'll need to release the mice you catch several miles away at least, to prevent them from coming straight back into your house.
I tried the humane traps and had a similar experience to you. I think we caught one mouse with those.
Then I tried the instant kill 'spring' type ones, which I abandoned after finding a half-alive mouse one morning - not something I ever want to see again.
Now I have two cats, and they take care of the problem quite nicely!