Blocking mice?

[Old.bodger]

Yes stainless steel wire wool. They don’t like chewing that, with or without foam. Obviously be careful if electrics pass through any of the holes, but then foam is also not a good idea as some types react with the insulation. I use the wire wool trick in all under ground ducts after a major attack on fibre optic cables.

 

[stuckinthemud]

If using live traps, drop the mice off along way away, we had mice which I released a half mile off, came straight back, caught and released them 3 miles away, problem solved. Mind, my wife insisted on lethal traps when a mouse came calling this winter...

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I definitely agree. Unfortunately traps don't last. They also often don't fit into the spaces I have mouse infestations (gap between shed roof and insulation for example). If I wasn't waging a permanent war of attrition then traps would be the way forward - I can recommend the battery powered electrocution things, but every rat you kill dribbles urine into the trap, and eventually it stops working. At £30 each, it soon mounts up.

Poison is agressive, environmentally unfriendly, leaves smelly dead animals in wall spaces and is pretty indiscriminate. It also works, and has the minimum amount of labour input. Wherever you have chickens, you have rats and mice (although chickens like eating mice, which helps).

As a final reason not to use poison, the dye can cause alarming colour changes to pig fat - bright, bright blue. For the non squeamish, here is an example: (warning: dead animal inside view) https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kE8WO6cOuPE/maxresdefault.jpg

After all that, I still use poison because it is the most effective solution to the problem. For me, at least.

I haven't yet found an electric one that is rainproof and doesn't eat batteries - it's a shame because they basically do work well in principle. I haven't found a prob with the urine - maybe stainless steel would be an upgrade from galvanized.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I may be wrong but I’m not sure just blocking the holes they get into rooms through Is a viable solution.

A mouse can collapse it’s body to the extent that it get get through any hole as small as the diameter of it’s skull. If they are getting in through the perimeter and cannot then get through a hole they have been using to get into a room they won’t go away ... they will just find another hole or gap into the same or another room.

I would simply despatch them to Mouse Heaven with traditional traps. House Mice carry 35 diseases that can transfer from animals to humans and one mouse can produce 2,000 progeny in a year.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I haven't yet found an electric one that is rainproof and doesn't eat batteries - it's a shame because they basically do work well in principle. I haven't found a prob with the urine - maybe stainless steel would be an upgrade from galvanized.

I used rechargeable batteries, and I don't have rain for 7 months of the year. Rat urine is more than enough to make things gooey enough to fail, provided you catch enough rats...

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I used rechargeable batteries, and I don't have rain for 7 months of the year. Rat urine is more than enough to make things gooey enough to fail, provided you catch enough rats...

I think these gadgets are really cool, but expensive
https://goodnaturetraps.co.uk/humane-rat-traps/Last time we had an infestation of rats I thought I might make my own, run off a pressure vessel filled from a compressor - I haven't got round to it yet!

 

[julianf]

We get rats, not nice, and use those fen mk 4 traps. They're like man traps, not traditional snap things.

I don't much like killing things at all and have no issue or fear or rats, so long at theyre not in the house chewing up stuff.

Much as poison seems tempting, I've never had the heart to use it. Its one thing to kill somthing but another to do to it what poison does... Plus we have dogs (yeah, crap ratters) and I don't want to poison them.

We have the traps permanently set outside in dedicated tunnels and out of reach of other wild life.

 

[Arutha]

The most effective way to avoid mice is to cut the grass closest to the house in the end of the summer.

 

[glenfield2]

The raptors love them, had this guy come around a few months ago when they started coming in.
Came back again last week for some discount roast beef that was too far gone for the doggos.

And if this buzzard happened upon a poisoned rat or mouse .... one less buzzard .
Don’t use poison, use traps and wire wool. And I’m speaking as someone who discovered a leaking plastic water pipe in my kitchen caused by a nibbling mouse!!

 

[Trainee neophyte]

This guy obviously has a problem - an entire chanel devoted to mousetraps: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCYbru-MPO1xjes4FVn61JUQ

 

[Rorschach]

If you are not willing to kill them then you are not going to solve the problem. Mice communicate, once one has made a path into your property they will keep coming until you kill off enough them to break that chain. Sealing a house against them isn't impossible but can be very difficult as others have pointed out they need only a tiny gap to squeeze through.

 

[Bristol_Rob]

We had some rat prevention installed and they rolled up chicken wire, shoved it in the gaps and the filled everything with expanding foam.

So far so good

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I encourage (well, I don't discourage, which is almost the same thing) snakes in our chicken coops. The snakes do eat the chicken eggs, but also do good work on the rodents. Unfortunately you occasionally lose a nest of chicks, too, but I see it as a fair price to pay.

These eggs hatched the following day, so I wasn't too upset with shooing the snake away. The local name translates as "tree-hugger", and they can grow to more than 6", but not poisonous, so nothing to worry about. Except when you put your hand in to collect eggs and you find one of these.

 

[Robbo60]

I had a problem with electric tripping out so got electrician friend out - mouse in fuse board, fried. They get in cavity wall. I put traps under kick boards in kitchen and get a few. We've got fields all around us.
Agree with wire wool and foam also.

 

[Lazurus]

Whilst it sounds like a fairy story a friend of mine had mouse issues in an old suffolk thatched cottage, beleive it or not he used very strong double sided tape on areas like beams where a trap was not viable and he caught and disposed of several dozen over a winter. When he got up the little critters were solidly stuck to the tape, remove dispose and replace tape.

 

[Danieljw]

A mouse can deform and reform its skeletal structure instantly, needing a hole no bigger than the tip of your little finger to get into your house.
They are also opportunistic, if there is a hole they will investigate but not necessarily dig one.
They leave urine trails for other mice to follow, so once they get in the problem grows.
I live in a forest and had a big mouse problem, traps arent a solution in the house.
Course wire wool pushed in the hole and then over filled with expanding foam works a treat.
Eventually, as part of the project , I re pointed the exterior of my stone walls and have no mice in the house now.

 

[Mark Karacsonyi]

Can’t you call the local council. I think all provide pest extermination services for free. I know ours was free when they removed a hornets nest.

 

[Phil Russell]

Try to identify where they get in. The lady next door had problems and we concluded that entry was via air bricks close to ground level. I fixed perforated zinc over the bricks and it seemed to work.
We had problems as well.. mice in the roof. I would regularly catch them. The entry point (pretty certain) was via a very large bush (Philadelphus, mock orange) the branches of which grew against the side of the house up to eaves level. The bush was severely cut back and, hopefully, the problem is resolved.

Good luck., Phil

 

[okeydokey]

I don't think the mice are entering the house at night as the original post suggested, they are there all the time. Mice are nocturnal and sleep during the day. From my recent experience I suspect they are sleeping in nests somewhere, possibly your attic or under the floor and come out when its dark. I discovered "mine" (in the bedroom ceiling) when I heard scrabbling noises when in bed surprisingly noisy! Then a couple of days later one decided to come out of the fireplace and run around the perimeter of the room -they run around perimeters of rooms. I tried the plastic humane traps but they weren't very successful. So bought 8 of the original wooden spring traps and found that 1cm cubes of mars bars are the best bait, any chocolate will do but something sticky that will stay stuck in position, don't waste your time with cheese They are a bit tricky put down without them triggering but you get the hang of it.
So put 4 each side of the attic again a wall - then consistently for about a week got 2 or 3 each day, gave up counting at 20, obviously reduced the number of traps and ended up using a couple and in due course no more mice. The chocolate looses it smellability to attract after a day or so and needs replacing. I used pointed pliers to open/release the body from the trap and shook the mouse body loose at the end of the garden - they disappeared so something must have eaten them.

 

[TomGW]

My daughter had a mouse problem after moving into a 10 year old house. I eventually found the ‘source’ and resolved the issue. The mice were using the mains cable duct to enter the external electric meter box and from there into the wall cavity. I sealed the end of the duct, around the cable, with silicone liberally stuffed with a handful of 50mm wood screws, pointed end first. Now 5 years later, not another single mouse.