Unwanted visitor

I saw a mouse scurrying through the door of our spare bedroom this morning. If I hadn't had my leg in plaster I'd have jumped on a chair! Stupid & irrational I know but I hate mice - As it was, I let out a feeble squeal & threw myself on the bed!!

Huby has set a trap for it with a nice bit of chocolate - it's days are numbered.

It got me wondering where it had come from - we haven't had a mouse for years ... Perhaps it's come in out of the cold?
When was the last time you had a mouse & how do you catch them?

Re: Unwanted visitor

We saw one in our garden about two years ago and I bought a couple of those humane traps but no luck.

Re: Unwanted visitor

The house i just moved out of had fields at the back ,in the first 15 years we had them in the loft following the pipes from the water tank up there .At night we could hear them coming down the inside wall of the stairs , we would bang on it and that would be the last we heard for a while , we set traps each year in the airing cupboard and under the floor boards ,and if one was caught there would be a bang.
Then one day i saw one in the kitchen ,it ran behind a cupboard , me and daughter jumped on bench ,and there we stayed till Al came home , who looked behind cupboard and spotted it and stamped his foot on it ,
Since that time ive caught no end by traps, in garden shed where they was most distructive,.
After loft insulation was laid we never heard them in the house so i guess they stopped up there ..
Carol if you have one in the house you may have its partner
, they breed rapidly .
id look at putting all food stuff away ,and dont leave crumbs Josh may have dropped on the floor .

Re: Unwanted visitor

The mice we get around here tend to be fieldmice and I often get them in the garage in the winter .
I can not bring myself to kill them and they don't bother me providing the vegetables I store are kept in bins . So I leave them alone .


One year I put an arrangement of dried flowers and grasses in the garage and when I went back to get it all the corn in the arrangement had been eaten .

Re: Unwanted visitor

I get the little darlings occasionally they squeeze under the back door I suspect they come from the Scout Hall a few doors away The best trap I have ever used is one of these:


They trip at the lightest touch (as my grandson found out once) There is no chance of the mouse taking the bait without tripping the trap as with those old fashioned lever and spring things.

The best bait is definitely NOT chocolate, save that for yourself. Peanut butter works better than anything I have ever tried, it has a good smell and because it is like a paste the mouse cannot run off with it but has to try and eat it in the trap..Another advantage is that because it is oily it doesn't dry out quickly and can be left for days.

Re: Unwanted visitor

Poor little meeces .........
Didn't you ever watch Tom an Jerry !
I'm sad at your quest to kill the little meece
but you did make me laugh Carol, the picture of you hurling yerself on the bed with yer leg in plaster - FAB !

Re: Unwanted visitor

We sometimes get them in our garden I put down a humane trap for them.
The reason being that we have been on holiday and seen evidence of them getting in the house and I am afraid I can"t put up with that sweet as they seem .

Re: Unwanted visitor

The only thing I kill are fleas on my cats. Everything else including mice,
flies, bees, wasps, snakes if we had any in Nottinghamshire get put out
to live their short lives. I hate standing on a spider or a snail. Accidents do happen but no killing. They have the right to live without harm in my mind.
Not surprised there would be some killers amongst us.

Make you laugh about a mouse one of our cats brought in once a few years ago.
She brought it in from the garden and it was only a baby one. I saw her and chased her to let it go. She did eventually drop it upstairs in my bedroom. It went under my wardrobe. I stayed up until after 12 midnight
and it didn't come out so I decided I had to sleep at some point so went to sleep.
Unbeknown to me as I was then asleep, my cat left to go downstairs. and the mouse ran from my bedroom down the corridor to my Sons bedroom and crawled under the door. Only a small gap. About 1am he was dreaming of something running over his head and didn't realise it was not a dream but the mouse Rio had brought in.
He went back to sleep and it ran back over him the other way.
He then realised it wasn't a dream and woke up. It took him an hour
to catch it and put it in his waste paper bin and he went downstairs and
put it out into the garden.
Poor lad went back to bed after 2 and then got up for work at 5.
Next time I will stay up and catch it

Re: Unwanted visitor

We lived in a rural spot a few years ago and I was often brought 'prezzies' of live field mice. I'd usually trap them in a corner, then pick 'em up and let them go outside.

I also had baby bunnies which I'd cover with a towel (kept for that purpose), then put them in a carrier bag and release them in the nearest field. This was ok in the day, but the cats used to bring them in at night, so I'd have to do the same thing - wonder how there was never a report in the local rag about a woman wandering into a field with a plastic bag in the early hours of the morning !

Re: Unwanted visitor

That trap looks eerie Bruce, like a gas chamber for mice. Good tip about the peanut butter.