Mice (as in rodent variety)

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Anyone else having a problem with them at the moment? Seems very early in the year for them to be coming indoors but both traps had dead mice in them this morning (and not the first time this summer), we have evidence of them having been through all rooms in the house (from plants having been dug into, to the fruit bowl having been raided, apples with teeth marks in them, droppings everywhere....)

I know I live rurally and all that, but this is the first time we have had problems with them during the summer months (other than field mice when we lived in a really old farmhouse in the lake district). It's not even cold outside yet!

 

[Saluki]

We are not having a problem with mice but we do have 2 ecstatic terriers who are having a blast so early in the mouse season. They don't come indoors but there are plenty in the garden and near the house.

 

[Archie_tect]

Cat isn't craving food and is living in the back garden so there's enough to keep him occupied.... [mind you a feather floating about in the the breeze does that.]

 

[classic33]

Calling @slowmotion

 

[raleighnut]

Anyone else having a problem with them at the moment? Seems very early in the year for them to be coming indoors but both traps had dead mice in them this morning (and not the first time this summer), we have evidence of them having been through all rooms in the house (from plants having been dug into, to the fruit bowl having been raided, apples with teeth marks in them, droppings everywhere....)

I know I live rurally and all that, but this is the first time we have had problems with them during the summer months (other than field mice when we lived in a really old farmhouse in the lake district). It's not even cold outside yet!

1 pregnant female gets in and you can have a problem very quickly, keep it up with the traps is the only answer I know of.

 

[slowmotion]

Calling @slowmotion

Without wishing to tempt Fate, we seem to be fecker-free at the moment. They are starting major building work next door in the near future. That generally seems to trigger mass migration.

Edit: these are the business....
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1667662.htm

 

[Garethgas]

Without wishing to tempt Fate, we seem to be fecker-free at the moment. They are starting major building work next door in the near future. That generally seems to trigger mass migration.

I has a mouse here a few years ago, running across the attic. He needed to be killed or he could chew the electric cables.
I bought 3 mouse traps from the pound shop and put some Lindt chocolate on it as a good gesture and to ease my conscience.
Next morning I came down to hear a frantic struggle.
I'd rather not say here what I saw but it's haunted me ever since.
If you must DIY then get a good quality trap, or better still get a pro in.
To this day I'm still ashamed of what I did.
Never again.

 

[raleighnut]

I has a mouse here a few years ago, running across the attic. He needed to be killed or he could chew the electric cables.
I bought 3 mouse traps from the pound shop and put some Lindt chocolate on it as a good gesture and to ease my conscience.
Next morning I came down to hear a frantic struggle.
I'd rather not say here what I saw but it's haunted me ever since.
If you must DIY then get a good quality trap, or better still get a pro in.
To this day I'm still ashamed of what I did.
Never again.

The tube type ones are better if you don't like killing, just take them well away from the house to a wood or somewhere. Not just outside the door like a friend did (she reckoned the little blighter hit the floor and shot back in the house like a greyhound on speed)

 

[nappadang]

Why kill anything? Animals can suffer long, slow, agonising deaths in traps. Humane traps work just a well and as long as you release the mouse more than a mile from your home, it will not find its way back.

 

[slowmotion]

Why kill anything? Animals can suffer long, slow, agonising deaths in traps. Humane traps work just a well and as long as you release the mouse more than a mile from your home, it will not find its way back.

I would never wish any animal to suffer. When you find mouse poo in the crumb tray of your toaster, your attitude hardens. BTW, releasing a mouse elsewhere after catching it in a humane trap is like lobbing dogshit into your neighbour's garden.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

never found the humane traps to work - in all the years I tried them, I only ever caught one mouse in them (It was escorted some 5 miles away to a nature reserve, but I suspect its death would have been more 'humane' had we have killed it in a lethal trap). But I will only get the lethal ones that kill (almost) instantly. The type that snap pencils when they trigger... not ones to get your fingers caught in.
I won't use poison (takes too long and they suffer) and will bate the traps with Cadbury's fruit & nut milk chocolate - that has been by far the most successful bate I have come across after decades of sharing a my home with them - but I draw the line at them eating fruit out of our fruit bowl and digging up my indoor plants. They can live in the loft space all they like, but elsewhere is not an option (field mice being the exception)

 

[Garethgas]

Why kill anything? Animals can suffer long, slow, agonising deaths in traps. Humane traps work just a well and as long as you release the mouse more than a mile from your home, it will not find its way back.

Because I knew best.
I wasn't scared of trapping a mouse.
It said on the packet that it was humane and instant.
All, of course were wrong.
I didn't know best
I blinking flip was scared of it
And it was one of the most cruel, gruesome sights I've ever seen.
As I said, never again.

 

[nappadang]

I would never wish any animal to suffer. When you find mouse poo in the crumb tray of your toaster, your attitude hardens. BTW, releasing a mouse elsewhere after catching it in a humane trap is like lobbing dogshit into your neighbour's garden.

Nobody lives anywhere near where I release mice, so I'm not "lobbing dogs**t" in anyone's garden.
Sadly, attitudes like yours are one of the main reasons that some of Britain's indigenous species are persecuted to near extinction.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Nobody lives anywhere near where I release mice, so I'm not "lobbing dogs**t" in anyone's garden.
Sadly, attitudes like yours are one of the main reasons that some of Britain's indigenous species are persecuted to near extinction.

house mice (which is what we are talking about here) are nowhere near extinction...

 

[slowmotion]

Nobody lives anywhere near where I release mice, so I'm not "lobbing dogs**t" in anyone's garden.
Sadly, attitudes like yours are one of the main reasons that some of Britain's indigenous species are persecuted to near extinction.

It's the mice doing the persecuting round here.