Question Mice in the house

Azul Quinton

New member
Joined
Nov 28, 2020
Messages
13
Reaction score
3
Points
3
Location
London
Does any of you have any experience with having a mouse infestation at home? My old school chum has 2 young kids and had to move to stay with family last week after calling pest control out to deal with a mouse problem. They put lots of trays of mouse poison in the affected spots and one of the trays was emptied (eaten) a couple of days later. None of the others have been touched. But the pest controller put some poison down a hole in the floorboards too. All has been quiet since then. Does it seem they might have died/disappeared? How long does it take to get rid of mice? The pest control will come back in a week or so to check. Of course he knows all about keeping the trays away from the kids, we are just curious why only 1 of about 12 or 13 have been eaten! Are there any more effective means to get rid of mice?
 

Azul Quinton

New member
Joined
Nov 28, 2020
Messages
13
Reaction score
3
Points
3
Location
London
At the moment we try to figure out what attracted the mice to the house, AND how they were getting in.
 

liber

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
949
Reaction score
2
Points
18
Location
Room
Website
www.bw.org
Cats doing fine with mouse,snakes,lizards. Get some semi wild cat's around house.
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
Cats are no solution. My cat brings living mice home, and then teaches me how to catch them. He holds it in his mouth and when I come for taking it, he simply drops it and starts purring happily while I try to catch it, enjoying the fun. He also brings living birds, which is especially cruel since cat bites are essentially poisonous for them.

Dead mice are easier - just take them and put them on the compost heap. If you have one. Otherwise, make sure that there are no ways for the rodents to get into the house again. Is harder than it sounds. Or learn to live with them, which is also one valid option. Mice aren't terribly loud, cause only limited damage and can be kept away from food rather easily. Rats are FAR worse.

If you want a rather quiet solution: Try it with owls. They might be a bit communicative every other night, but prefer not to talk to loud. Stay away from horned owls. They are rather chatty and trust me: They always reply booo-hoooo when you talk to them, which can be quite ennerving.

If you like it loud: Martens. You sure don't want one in your wall, they are terrible neighbours.

(Yeah, I love the wildlife around me. just had spent a week in my small workplace apartment far from home without any animals there and it the silence was deafening.)
 

N_Molson

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Mar 5, 2010
Messages
9,271
Reaction score
3,244
Points
203
Location
Toulouse
I had such an issue 2 years ago in the flat I had in Toulouse. They used water pipes as highways to run throughout the building ; because there's always some empty space around those. So yes rat poison. The one I used was anticoagulant. But you need to put a lot of bags and they have to eat quite a lot of it to get killed. It causes internal bleeding so it can take 3-4 days to kill the rodents. I also used auto-expanding polyester foam to fill the empty spaces around the pipes in the flat. They don't like to eat plastic foam as it can probably kill them too.

Be sure your up-to-date with your vaccines before handling dead (or alive) rodents, and use plastic gloves. Rodents can carry dangerous diseases.

As a sidenote I'm quite familiar with cats and if they are used to be fed, as Urwumpe said they will only hunt for sport and playing, and yes they like to bring you half-dead rodents as presents. Also most will flee if they see a rat.
 
Last edited:

Arvil

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 20, 2008
Messages
400
Reaction score
315
Points
78
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
I don't prefer poisoning as the mice become toxic to anything that eats them, and sometimes they can die where you can't get to them and maybe cause an odor. I prefer the old fashion mousetrap. The ones with the yellow plastic trip don't work as well as the traditional metal trip. Just use peanut butter as the bait, they love peanut butter. I usually throw the caught ones out in the field where wildlife will take care of them in short order (Urwumpe's cat, no doubt).
 

n72.75

Move slow and try not to break too much.
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Tutorial Publisher
Donator
Joined
Mar 21, 2008
Messages
2,687
Reaction score
1,337
Points
128
Location
Saco, ME
Website
mwhume.space
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
I don't like poison.

You end up needing to do a scavenger hunt to find dead mice, and if anything eats the poisoned mouse, like your cat (or owl), it gets poisoned too.
I had an Instron tensile tester at work be destroyed by dead mice because our janitor was poisoning them.
If mice get sick from eating poisoned food, other mice will learn not to eat it.

Spring traps are quick, humane and effective.
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
Now that's what I call driving out the Devil with Beelzebul... ?

Oh well, since I saw them in the Otter center near my hometown and the results of the research projects there, I see them with different eyes there.

They researched with Volkswagen, which pipes and cables in a car are mostly bitten by them and how to best prevent damage. Not sure how effective this all really is, but my current car was never visited by a marten.

Especially the pine martens are extremely cute animals, but you will never find them in your house.
 

GLS

Well-known member
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
5,877
Reaction score
2,869
Points
188
Website
github.com
I will not tolerate infestation! :ROFLMAO:
 

Padre Pedro

New member
Joined
Dec 12, 2020
Messages
9
Reaction score
2
Points
3
Location
Denmark
Does any of you have any experience with having a mouse infestation at home? My old school chum has 2 young kids and had to move to stay with family last week after calling pest control out to deal with a mouse problem. They put lots of trays of mouse poison in the affected spots and one of the trays was emptied (eaten) a couple of days later. None of the others have been touched. But the pest controller put some poison down a hole in the floorboards too. All has been quiet since then. Does it seem they might have died/disappeared? How long does it take to get rid of mice? The pest control will come back in a week or so to check. Of course he knows all about keeping the trays away from the kids, we are just curious why only 1 of about 12 or 13 have been eaten! Are there any more effective means to get rid of mice?
Hi Azul Quinton :)
Let's hope your friend's mouse problem has "gone away".

It's possible that the mice got a lethal dose of the rat poison and have gone off and died.

As long as your friend doesn't see any further evidence (mouse droppings) of the presence of mice and the pest control person has re-inspected, I would be comfortable the infestation has gone away.

Be sure to suggest to your friend that he get rid of all the poison traps that the child could get into.

If similar situation takes place in the future I would recommend your friend to use ultrasonic repellers. They are said to be really effective and don't harm pests.
 

Arvil

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 20, 2008
Messages
400
Reaction score
315
Points
78
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
Hi Azul Quinton :)
Let's hope your friend's mouse problem has "gone away".

It's possible that the mice got a lethal dose of the rat poison and have gone off and died.

As long as your friend doesn't see any further evidence (mouse droppings) of the presence of mice and the pest control person has re-inspected, I would be comfortable the infestation has gone away.

Be sure to suggest to your friend that he get rid of all the poison traps that the child could get into.

If similar situation takes place in the future I would recommend your friend to use ultrasonic repellers. They are said to be really effective and don't harm pests.
Don't know about the ultrasonics, had them for some years, they were still here.
 

dman

Active member
Joined
Sep 2, 2014
Messages
179
Reaction score
8
Points
33
Cata are good at keeping pests out of gardens, When growing up had a cat which loved to hunt - would keep birds and rodents (squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits) out of mom's vegetable garden

When cat got too old to go outside , the vegetables would all get chewed up by the pests
 

MaxBuzz

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 19, 2016
Messages
1,392
Reaction score
2,126
Points
128
Location
Kursk
I have not come across apartment mice, I have rats in the hangar on my farm, but it’s hard to say who will win cats or rats
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
I have not come across apartment mice, I have rats in the hangar on my farm, but it’s hard to say who will win cats or rats
Depends on the cat. My old farm cat had no problems with those, he even hunted stoats and once bought a red milan home.

The cat we called Boomer on the other hand, was usually only catching harmless mice.

The current one seems to be confused, when a mouse does not run away from him - but he is at least a good hunter. Too good.
 
Top