Small furry visitors

[orienteer]

Before getting the plug-in repeller, I used glue traps. Sounds cruel, but must be more humane than poison, and they just lie still and starve to death within hours. Never caught any with conventional traps, they know how to remove the bait.

Humane traps are pointless, letting them go means they return or go to someone else's house.

They cost me loads in damage to bags and other items they gnaw at, so I never had any empathy with them.

 

[Fnaar]

We used to live in a ground floor flat in a huge Victorian house in Sarf London... we got overrun by mice one winter, and I took to putting out three "little snapper" traps per night. Caught 3 mice a night for a month, before getting the professionals in. I put the mice in a secluded spot in the big garden, thinking cat/foxes would eat them... nope! Ended up with a massive pile of rotting mice

 

[dub-no-bass]

Before getting the plug-in repeller, I used glue traps. Sounds cruel, but must be more humane than poison, and they just lie still and starve to death within hours.

Not necessarily. I used to train in a school with a mouse problem, and they used glue traps. It was not unusual to find little mouse legs stuck firmly to the glue, with no sign of the mouse. They become so desperate to get away that they gnaw their own legs off

It's not a quick fix but I have 4 cats, and no mice. The woman in the flat upstairs, however, has a definite mouse problem, so I can only imagine the cats must scare them from coming anywhere near my flat.

 

[phaedrus]

Before getting the plug-in repeller.

I'm quite interested in getting one of those. What kind did you buy?

 

[orienteer]

Just a unit that plugs straight into a power socket. Got mine from Aldi or Lidl when they were on offer, but must be obtainable elsewhere.

 

[Arch]

Before getting the plug-in repeller, I used glue traps. Sounds cruel, but must be more humane than poison, and they just lie still and starve to death within hours. Never caught any with conventional traps, they know how to remove the bait.

Humane traps are pointless, letting them go means they return or go to someone else's house.

They cost me loads in damage to bags and other items they gnaw at, so I never had any empathy with them.

I hope you're grateful the day someone offers you the choice between being poisoned and starved to death glued to the floor....

Another minus for poison, in my mind, would be the chance of some other animal finding the poisoned mouse and eating it - surely enough of that would have a cumultive effect, liked hedgehogs eating poisoned slugs. And glue traps sound awful. I'd rather they were dispatched quickly.

That said, I've never had mice, and on the second floor I'm not likely to. I did have a pigeon fly in and out again once, having left the window open while I went out.

 

[CopperBrompton]

What are mice?

 

[Rezillo]

What are mice?

These are the reprobates that bring the b*****s in in the first place. The next day, as some small rodent skedaddles out from under the TV and scurries across the floor to disappear into the bookshelves, usually while guests with a rodent phobia are in the room, all they do is briefly open one eye to see if it is worth bothering about before going back to sleep.

[edit] Perhaps that's why they brought an owl in, to see if they could dispense with the strain of opening one eye by having some in-house pest control.

John

 

[ufkacbln]

Spellcheck?

I was in a pub after 4 pints of Winter Warmer!

 

[rh100]

Use chocolate drops or peanut butter.

That's what we used - very powerful when they go (you normally find the trap and attached mouse a good few inches away from where it was set)

The best bait we found was bits of Cadburys Chocolate Fingers.

Set the traps around at right angles to the skirting boards - apparently they run along the edges of the room.

Beware of fleas when you dispose of them.

We tried the humane ones but didn't work for us, so resorted to above.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

Don't get cheap mouse/rat raps (Mouse Trap Shaped Object?)

My Dad made that mistake, setting them up was awkward and he nearly had his finger taken off!

 

[GavinB]

Before getting the plug-in repeller, I used glue traps. Sounds cruel, but must be more humane than poison, and they just lie still and starve to death within hours.

Glue traps aren't more humane than poison. They struggle so violently on them that they pull their skin off and break limbs. Glue traps should be banned, they are the perfect metaphor of how badly humans can mistreat those lower than them on the chain. Dreadful things. They also encourage disease because they'll poop and pee all over the trap, since they'll be frightened. The trap instructions tell you to simply throw the animal into the bin.

You let them starve to death, instead of just killing them outright? That'd be misuse of any trap, how utterly barbaric of you.

 

[GavinB]

Humane traps are pointless, letting them go means they return or go to someone else's house.

They're not because they solve the problem you are facing. Plus, you don't even know if they'll go to someone else's house. Like you'd care anyway...

 

[GavinB]

I'm surprised people mention poison. Not only will it potentially kill the mouse within your walls (making a horrible smell), but it might poison other animals. Sometimes it's the only way though... at least it's better than glue traps.

Is bleeding to death internally really that painful? I mean, by the time it gets to that stage, you'd lose so much blood that you'd effectively be unconscious or in shock. If it is painful, why can't it have a numbing agent to soothe the pain? Oh, they're "only mice" and it might cost a little more, eh?

 

[Dan B]

I'm guessing Gavin has not yet had the "shoot in the toaster" moment