Mice I hate them!

doctor evil

Feeling very despondent right now. I am fed up of the mice invasion and I am fed up of my parents refusal to consider rentokil. They don't want poison for the obvious reasons and they think that is all rentokil will do.

Those sonic yokes are pure hokum.

The snap traps with peanut butter is working well but some traps does not kill them outright. Our cat is useless but has caught a few outside the house.

They are in the walls which means they are everywhere, they have pretty much been spotted everywhere:(. The sound they make is unreal. I hate the fact that they are good at climbing.

I had difficulty sleeping so was going to treat myself to a ginger chocolate sweet. These are kept in cardboard tube, the pack was unopenned. I openned my desk drawer and found that the little f*cks had climbed up and gotten in through the back. There wasn't much tin foil left so I worry that the rest is in a nest somewhere. The snap trap in my room has caught two in the last few days. The mousehole is behind my desk in plain view. It appears to open into an internal space. The rodents have knawed through the skirting board and a section of carpet. What is the best way to deal with this? Will any steel wool do, I found one that was soft to the touch and I didn't think it would work.

What is good to clean carpets of their wee?


I hate mice! It has been so F&cking stressful the last few weeks. Stupid parents stuck in f%cking inertia. I have bought traps and I have tried to get things tidier, since it is their house I don't know if they will let me get rentokill in. I hate the idea of all the parasites on them yokes.

The worst is the one hiding in the internal cavity of the double cooker, it has access to the grill but not to the two ovens itself, it is wily and I haven't a clue about how to get rid of it.

dekbhoy

you gotta be messin if not burn the gaff down, place is probably disease ridden.........

bbam

There is lots you can do yourself without bad mouthing your parents...

1, More traps keep them cleared and keep them near signs of activity
2, The Sonic repellers do work but they need unobstructed space in front of them, no use plugging one in behind any furniture, there is actually one which also sends a repellant signal down the electric wres in the house as well. by the sounds of it I'd be having a good one in the bedroom at least.
3, Put the poison down yourself, in your own room hidden, the major draw back is a slight smell that will last a few days, it's only a few days if your really stuck you could consider it.. At the least I'd have it down outside..
4, Stop hiding food round the place yourself, if you keep the sources of food down to a minium they will go for the traps quicker. Move food into higher presses where access is more diffucult..
5, Start blocking entry points, go round the outside of the house and block any hole along drain pipes and the like.. the get in through tiny holes so be particular. the is the time of year for mice to look for warmer places to winter, stop them getting in and things will improve.
6, Vermin love crap lying round against a house, it gives them a staging ground to spend time near the house looking for ways in.. if need be do a tidy up..
7, Stop feeding the cat or feed it less... why run round after mice when some shlo will hand you food on a plate.

mad m

If you lay poison, you better be prepared for the smell...First things first, how are they getting into your home.

tommy21

mad m wrote: »

If you lay poison, you better be prepared for the smell...First things first, how are they getting into your home.

Unless it is immediately obvious (e.g. waste ground next to house or something) or a really obvious entry point, I would not bother to look. Mice can fit through miniscule spaces like you would not believe, and would just be a time waster for a lay person. Do you mean your parents can't or won't justify the expense of Rentokil (fair enough), or don't like the thought of killing the mice? As another poster said, buy some poison yourself - its very cheap. Google for the best foods to put it with, I've heard chocolate is good, as is cheese. If you have pets though, be very careful and make sure to wear glooves yourself too. The danger with pets is that even if you keep them away from the poison, you run the (unlikely) risk of dog/cat eating a poisoned dead rat or mouse. Maybe send them to a family member for a week if you have animals?

Also, poison works as far as I know by dehydrating them and sending them away to look for water, although all too often they die in the walls or floorboards. A risk you will have to take. Even if you follow none of the advice, do make sure your water tank in the attic is covered, it has happened before that they can contaminate your water supply, fall in and block pipes etc. (relation is a builder!).

mad m

Mice dont really need water, they get their water from foods they eat. Rats are the ones who need a constant supply of water...Goodluck to you. I wish I had mice to contend with instead of rats at present...

King Mallie

Sorry to hear about your mice problem. but if you put an add looking for a cat or kittens that are good at catching mice, your issue will be quickly sorted.

My uncle had two kittens and one of them was unreal at catching mice and the other was useless.
So if got 2 good cats they will sort out your unwanted vistors at no cost.:rolleyes:

argosy2006

get 100 mouse traps. set them everywhere,

tommy21

King Mallie wrote: »

So if got 2 good cats they will sort out your unwanted vistors at no cost.:rolleyes:

But won't he either have to buy cats or kittens, or pay someone for their use?

RKQ

A small piece of Mars bar or Caramel bar on a timber trap works well.
They love chocalate. Set it so its very sensitive and will "snap" easily. Place traps where you have seen mice, close to skirting.

Kashkai

I know that the OP's post seems a little unreal but that has happened to me on two occasions. First time was in a newly built house where the little feckers had taken up residece when the place was being built and they were in between the floors, the wall spaces and in the attic. Lying in bed at night and hearing them running up and down in behind the partition walls was creepy to say the least. I used poison to kill them by putting it in the attic and in the space behind the kitchen presses. Worked practically immediately as the scampering noises soon stopped but what came next was the godawful smell from their decomposing carcases. It was akin to raw seage and lasted for about a week.

The second time we had them was when we bought a bungalow in the countryside and I soon noticed their droppings in the kitchen. I laid traps and caught a few but they still came in. I finally traced their access point to a hole in the outside wall where a wastepipe came out. I filled the hole up with steel wool and expanding foam. Never had a problem with them since - touch wood.

deelite

On another thread here somebody made a great suggestion of "peppermint oil" - mice hate the smell of mint. Get a squirty and make a spray to do the carpet - and wash all floors with the oil.

Failing that buy your own house...

King Mallie

tommy21 wrote: »

But won't he either have to buy cats or kittens, or pay someone for their use?

No. If ya look on any site there are loads of ads for cats and kittens for good home. :eek:

ballsymchugh

we had mice last year, and set a load of traps with nutella. the little fckers loved it. i watched them dance all over the traps licking the stuff off without any problem at all.... to them. the traps just didn't work. got one of the humane ones then, it was a metal box with a spring trap door. worked slowly but surely. over the next month or so we caught about 13 mice.
block up as many holes as you can apart from one, and leave the trap beside it and then patience.

let them out a long way from your home then... if you want them to live. the first one we caught got a belt with a hurley. sorry folks! but they were driving us nuts at the time!!

doctor evil

Parents don't want poison due to the smell which I can understand. I think it is embarassment that they don't want anyone to come in a van with a big slogan. My dad is a bit of a hoarder, it is all work stuff for building and fixing things. I managed to clear some of it during the summer with a few discrete trips to the recyling. The house also has an unfinished extension that has been unfinished for some twenty odd years, my mum is pretty much resigned to this.

I think they mainly got in through some piping near the kitchen which is now covered with a metal grid, I'm going to fill this in with some coarse steel wool. I believe they also get in through the unfinished extension through the rafters. It's strange as we never really had mice before. I'll have to make some sort of ladder for the cat to get up there, previous cats were able to climb up when more stuff was stored there.

I'm going to investigate peppermint oil/essence. I tried my local hardware shop but they only had soft steel wool but I though it might be useless.

The Nutella sounds like a good idea I'm afraid that I am too partial to it on toast!

We mainly hear them in the ceiling of the livingroom/kitchen one or two bedrooms. Haven't seen any sightings lately and the only dropping I could find were underneath the kitchen sink. They turned up once in the front room and the living room where my cat was surprisingly quick to kill it.

Cat did catch another mouse the other night, I think he felt guilty that he nicked 'my one' from the trap and tried to parade it as his own.

I have about eight traps out and I'm going to get some more.

Is there any brand of trap that will always kill them outright? I don't like seeing them flopping about. Could a mouse set off a rat trap?

When I empty the traps into the big bin I spray the mouse first with some flea killer as I don't them jumping on me! Cat is also frequently done.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I felt very down when I made the inital post.

Kashkai

I tried many different types of new fangled traps and they didn't work. The traditional spring loaded ones worked every time and they're cheap enough to buy.

Bit of advice re. access holes - do you know that a mouse can access any hole the width of a pen? If you can stick a pen into a hole, a mouse can fit through it. No point fitting metal grids over holes as this would not be an obstacle to a mouse. Plug the hole with steel wool and use expanding foam on top of this.

With regard to exterminators, most of the bigger companies have unmarked vans that will call to your house so the neighbours won't know what they're there for.

With the winter on the way, I'd do something about this problem quickly as mice will be looking for somewhere warm to hole up for the winter. The real problem will be in the Spring when they start breeding.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

JonathanAnon

Hi Doctor Evil, I had RATS, never mind mice .. that broke a hole in the wall of a dive I was renting a couple of years ago ... It's simple... you must first close off where they get in... There are loads of cheap and easy options to fill the holes but you need to be brave and find the holes.. Get no more gaps or some strong gap filler to prevent any more from getting in...

Along with this I would set traps all over the place as well.. Poison certainly works, but there's traps are definitive and dont have the ambiguity that poison does.. If you have a mouse in the trap, you know you have got him, not so easy to detect with the poison, you just have to assume that they are gone..

I agree that the electronic deterrents arent great..

caroj

The hair is standing up on the back of my neck now at the mention of RATS!! Uggh. Last January during the big chill, a rat got into our garage, which is attached to the main house. We reckon he dashed in when the back door was open.

The dirty f*cker, it took about a week to catch him. I had to buy one of those rat cages that cost feckin €20. A couple of times he ate the bait and trap failed to work.

Eventually caught him, the screeching off him was unreal, plus him sh*itting like mad. We set him free to join his pals!! Even now, I can still hear the rustling of him behind the washing machine... :eek:

I bought one of those rodent repellers to-day for the garage to keep mice out as there are a few gaps in the ceiling. I hope it works. I've a handy man doing bit n bobs about the house and he's going to fill the holes in for me.

charlemont

I once knew a house like that in Tipp Town.. They are clever out but at least with mice you know you dont have rats..:cool: