Mice

[Flump]

I think I have mice in my kitchen, while I haven't seen the little critters I've found poopy evidence below as of last night under my central heating boiler in the kitchen and I've been finding dust and little bits of plaster under it which until now I put down to the wall behind boiler needing to be re-plastered. So from this I'm assuming they are behind there??


Plus we had a rat in our outbuilding that I have since got rid off just by clearing out the shed so I disturbed it into not returning.

So what's the best way to get rid and also I know a neighbor next door from me has been having problems with them (leaving dog food outside as she doesn't like feeding the dog in the house as its dirty ) and I suspect its her thats been encouraging them so to speak. We pride ourselves on hygiene and this just takes the biscuit. The neighbor in question has had pest control over and has had poison bait laid traps but not sure if this has rid her of them or not. I don't want to use bait as my other neighbor lost a cat to suspected poisoning so you could put two and two together. I get on with all my neighbours apart from the 'mouse' problem one so I don't quite know how to address this

Advice please much appreciated.

Oh and i have missed being here I've been till now too busy to put my ten peneth in as of late in this lovely forum

[Gwyndy]

We had a mouse in the kitchen a few years ago. It was coming in to the garage, up the wall, through a gap between the ceiling and the wall, in to the ceiling cavity, across the downstairs toilet, across the kitchen, down alongside a boxed in soil stack, and under the kitchen units. It appeared one Boxing Day morning as I sat at the breakfast bar, bleary eyed, drinking a cup of tea. Luckily it beat a hasty retreat the way it had come!! You have to admire its exploration abilities. It was attracted, almost certainly, by wild bird food which my wife kept in one of the kitchen cupboards.

The solution -

Find the points of entry and seal them all. (They can get through extraordinarily small gaps so make sure that you seal all the likely points.) I used expanding foam on every gap I could find. Store all bird food, etc. in a lidded bin in the garage. Put down traps and poison in suitable places. I have traps in the garage alongside the wall where I think that they usually come in. Last year I caught about 4 mice, but this year only one so far, so I think that I am winning the battle. The good thing is that since I sealed up the points of entry there have been no signs of any more in the house. Fingers crossed!!

[kethry]

we have mice in our kitchen too - drawn in by the filthy guy who lives upstairs (we're in a groundfloor flat). Unfortunately we can't block off entry holes as its a) a rented flat so we're limited as to what we can do in the way of repairs ourselves b) the gas pipes actually run between the floors because we used to share a gas supply, and there's no way to change that (and the gas pipes are how the little buggers get around).

things i've found work: 1) starve em out. box up everything in either tins, glass jars or plastic boxes. and i do mean *everything*. they will get into stuff you wouldn't consider that they'd want to: flour packets, cereal packets. packets of noodles. If they can chew through it, they'll eat it. Don't assume they can't get up to high shelving: they probably can. Wash up everything every night, clear up all food and make sure there's absolutely nothing available for them to eat.

2) wash the areas where they come with neat bleach (and don't wipe it off again - although limit this if you have pets to the areas where pets can't get in). Apparently they don't like it, it sticks to their paws a bit, they dislike the smell and although it won't stop them if there's food that they can smell, done in conjunction with no 1 it may be enough to discourage them.

3) traps. We tried bait traps, and they worked initially, but then the mice stopped eating the bait and we had to resort to spring traps. We got special traps from the pest control guy which are stronger than the traps you can buy in pound shops, and they work well - kill instantly. don't load up with cheese - that's a fallacy, and expensive! Peanut butter will do the job, they love the stuff. Buy a cheap jar and mark it "MOUSE" or something, so you don't transfer germs.

regarding the neighbour, i can understand her preferring to feed the dog outside. We have a dog and our pest control guy keeps on at us to remove the bowl with dry dog food that is always down (together with water) for her, even though we've never seen mice or droppings in that area. my suggestion would be to ask her to at least cover the bowl when the dog isn't eating food, even if she can't remove it completely.

good luck!!!

keth
xx