I have an unwelcome house guest

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Plax

Guru
Location
Wales
In my airing cupboard. I think it is a mouse. I noticed droppings when I went to get a fresh bar of soap this evening. I think it must be a new arrival as I never noticed it a few days ago and my dad went in there yesterday to check on the immersion heater and I'm sure he'd have noticed. So I'm wondering if it has arrived recently and come out to play last night. It seems to have just chewed the edges of two bars of soap, I couldn't see any attempts at chewing my toilet rolls, and everything else looks fine as well.

Anyway I have cleared and cleaned the airing cupboard including taking out the small bit of carpet and binned that, so it's just floorboards now. I know duct tape won't stop mice, but for this evening I have duct taped every imaginable hole / gap I could find. I've also put talcum powder down on the floor. This should hopefully give me an indication of whether it is still in there and where it's coming from.

I have scoured the rest of the house and can find no evidence of mice, so it seems to be just confined to the bathroom for now (where the airing cupboard is).

So tomorrow after work will be a trip to B&Q to buy a mouse trap. I think I'll go the humane route otherwise I'll probably cry if I see a dead mouse in my airing cupboard, as I'm sad like that. I don't want to go the poison route as knowing my luck it will decompose under the floor boards and leave me with a pleasant smell.

Any tips appreciated.
 

CopperBrompton

Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
Location
London
Unfortunately you're a bit far away for me to lend you a kitten. :-)
 

Brains

Legendary Member
Location
Greenwich
We get mice every autum. They come un from the cold

The only long term solution is poison - the best stuff comes from places like Farmers Warehouses rather than the local supermarket
 
OP
OP
Plax

Plax

Guru
Location
Wales
I don't think I could cope with a cat, it might eat my guinea pigs for a start. I'd also worry constantly that it's get run over by a car on its travels. We had a cat when I was little and it would kill anything it could. We regularly had half eaten mice left lying around the house and one time it managed to catch a crow which was bigger than him!
 

alecstilleyedye

nothing in moderation
Moderator
Plax said:
I don't think I could cope with a cat, it might eat my guinea pigs for a start. I'd also worry constantly that it's get run over by a car on its travels. We had a cat when I was little and it would kill anything it could. We regularly had half eaten mice left lying around the house and one time it managed to catch a crow which was bigger than him!

no problems with cats and a guinea pig ime. we have both and even when the guinea pig was indoors last winter, the cats never gave him a second look. they did pay more attention when we got a rabbit though…
 

Baggy

Cake connoisseur
XmisterIS said:
Sod the humane trap, just get a standard trap and a jar of peanut butter - put it against the wall where the mouse will run.
...and then hope the trap works properly first time instead of catching mousey a glancing blow so it smears blood for 3m along your skirting boards and then suffocates, sticking to your carpet in the process...
 

XmisterIS

Purveyor of fine nonsense
Baggy said:
...and then hope the trap works properly first time instead of catching mousey a glancing blow so it smears blood for 3m along your skirting boards and then suffocates, sticking to your carpet in the process...

Nah, not if you get a good one! I had mice years ago, got a big ol' trap with teeth - no glancing blows there, it almost sliced the rodent in half!
 

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
Sod the smell - if there is any, and there generally isn't, it doesn't last long. There's only one solution: POISON! It works. Everything else is just mucking about.
 
Baggy said:
A humane trap with peanut butter as bait should do the job. You can always pop the contents through your neighbour's letterbox :tongue:

Don't forget to send it first class Bazooka though.
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
swee said:
I completely agree. I went the humane trap, then snap trap route and they still came on in force. Really nasty poison does work, and I had no problem with nasty niffs at all, even though my sense of smell is quite acute.

Here is a link to a recent thread on this subject...

https://www.cyclechat.net/

Your heart will harden when you discover mouse poo in your toaster, oh yes indeed.
 

buddha

Veteran
I've come to the conclusion that cats (well mine anyway) are usless at getting rid of mice. My cat just catches them in her jaws, brings them to me and then releases the bloomin thing! And then proceeds to catch the mouse again ... etc, etc.

Gave up depending on the cat and used the 'humane' traps and released the mice in some woods 5 miles away - transported by bike of course:thumbsup:
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
If you want a recommendation for poisons.....

"Mouse Killer" by Growing Success is totally and utterly useless. FFS, it says "Free from poisonous chemicals" on the box!

"Alphakil mouse killer" by Rentokil, on the other hand, most certainly "does the needful"

:tongue:
;)
:eek:
 
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