House Mouse

Hightower · 09 July 2006, 23:02

I have this little visitor at the moment, as you watch TV He or She sits under the Video unit watching us. Have tried catching it with a humane trap, baiting it with all sorts of goodies from Grapes and pet food to peaces of Chocholate for a week now without success, just too fast! Could be a Ghost mouse or something! I can't find any droppings.

Any Humane Ideas?

codprawn · 10 July 2006, 01:14

Not Humane but Feline???

You could try making your own humane trap - I used a 35mm slide storage box with a vertical drop flap - worked a treat - you have to take them a few miles away though or they will find their way back!!!

Nate · 10 July 2006, 07:39

Get an empty kitchen roll cardboard tube or similar, cover one end securely and place this along the skirting board in the mouse's likely path of escape - open end facing them: form a "wall" with paperback books to hold it in place and make the hole the only available "exit". . When you next spot the mouse encourage it to run in the direction of the tube. The mouse will usually take the option of legging it down the hole in the open end of the tube rather than crossing open ground. Once the mouse is in the tube just lift it up vertically and the mouse slides to the bottom.

Neal · 10 July 2006, 08:37

Keep them coming we have the same problem thanks to the the cat bring friends home, was close yesterday with a fishing net but the little ....... was too fast.

Lawrence · 10 July 2006, 09:04

Nate's idea is sound - the mouse will run for cover so you need to provide something portable for him to run into.

A few years ago in a hard fought intellectual battle between man and mouse, I managed to herd a heavily pregnant ladymouse into an empty cornflakes packet on my kitchen side by a cunning arrangement of utensils and crockery. I picked the cornflakes packet up and the mouse slid to the bottom and then popped her back outside in the garden.

Hightower you're lucky about the droppings; before we realised what was happening I just removed them from the sugar bowl thinking "I wonder what these black bits are" before sprinkling the sugar on my cereal

Nos4r2 · 10 July 2006, 09:16

I made quite an effective trap with a dog food tin and part of a coathanger a couple of years back. The damn things kept coming in in the winter between the brick casing and the lath and plaster on a really old house I used to live in.

It caught 15 of them over about a week and a half. I guess it works because it looks like rubbish and probably smells strongly of food.

You can tell I'm bored...I'm drawing diagrammes

Back to work tomorrow

You'll have to save the image and blow it up to read it

Nate · 10 July 2006, 09:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

I made quite an effective trap with a dog food tin and part of a coathanger a couple of years back. The damn things kept coming in in the winter between the brick casing and the lath and plaster on a really old house I used to live in.

It caught 15 of them over about a week and a half. I guess it works because it looks like rubbish and probably smells strongly of food.

You can tell I'm bored...I'm drawing diagrammes

Back to work tomorrow

Nos - we're discussing returning small animals to the wild - you appear to be talking about self-sufficiency!

Nos4r2 · 10 July 2006, 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate

Nos - we're discussing returning small animals to the wild - you appear to be talking about self-sufficiency!

It WAS rather bad there-but thats what happens when you live in a 900 year old house that's grade 2 listed. We weren't allowed to block it up to stop the little bastards getting in.

codprawn · 10 July 2006, 13:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

It WAS rather bad there-but thats what happens when you live in a 900 year old house that's grade 2 listed. We weren't allowed to block it up to stop the little bastards getting in.

Sounds great - I HATE new houses with a passion!!!

Nos4r2 · 10 July 2006, 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by codprawn

Sounds great - I HATE new houses with a passion!!!

ditto but this was the last place anyone would have wanted to live. Damp, full of dormice in the winter and wierd shit kept happening there.
My ex swore she was followed up the stairs by something breathing down her neck and anywhere in the back end of the house (it was 50 yards long) it felt like someone was watching you. The back kitchen wall is roman-the bit in the pic below is 1680 which was the newest part of it.

It's the house to the right of the hotel below-our bedroom was above the arch. The pic isn't distorted btw...

ADS · 10 July 2006, 13:49

I can lend you this one for a few weeks if you like

Nate · 10 July 2006, 16:03

ADS, can I borrow yours to do some anti-magpie training on this lot?

ADS · 10 July 2006, 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate

ADS, can I borrow yours to do some anti-magpie training on this lot?

No problem at all he is fully coded for charter, and if any of you are having any problems with your auxiliary outboards he has a broad knowledge of seagulls

Neal · 10 July 2006, 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADS

I can lend you this one for a few weeks if you like

Yep she brings magpies in too and lets them go, had two in the house this year

Hightower · 10 July 2006, 17:10

Love the stories! I have obtained another mouse trap (Humane one) and will also bait this. On a kitchen roll front....Our Gerbils get all these. For some reason they had a falling out yesterday and have had to be seperated for the first time since we got em, might be mouse related?

MikeCC · 10 July 2006, 17:50

If it helps we found the best bait was Cheerios and trap placement along skirting.

Mollers · 10 July 2006, 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

It WAS rather bad there-but thats what happens when you live in a 900 year old house .

900 years!! What is it, a mud hut?!!

Mollers · 10 July 2006, 18:11

A shot gun will do the trick as long as you don't mind a little colateral damage.

Headhunter · 10 July 2006, 19:51

Try peanut butter for bait never fails here.

John

Phil Davies · 10 July 2006, 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Headhunter

Try peanut butter for bait never fails here.

Yep, works particularly well on squirrels, too! One of my neighbours caught six (!!!) squirrels over the course of a couple of weeks in her loft using peanut butter in a Fenn trap.

Andy, I do admire your diligence in attempting to catch that mouse alive, but it's really not to be recommended having them using your house as a latrine for over a week, particularly if you've got young kids. The spring loaded traps are humane in that they are lethally effective - the mouse literally won't know what hit it.