I used to breed pet mice as a child, and loved the little critters.
Maybe 20 years ago I’d either had a few too many or there was one dancing atop my LP12 and I surmised it had come through the floor where the radiator pipes had not been packed/sealed off.
New neighbours arrived to our Victorian terraced street 4-5 years ago - they did a hell of a lot of renovation next door and I think the mice had enough and either came through the attic or under the floors due to the noise and disruption.
We’ve had these cute yet unwelcome pests on and off for a few years now, perhaps coinciding with the death of our cat.
Traps seem for the most part useless but have occasionally worked when we’ve been away for a few days suggesting food debris/crumbs must have sustained the critters when we’re at home.
Last year I caught one I’d cornered with the Miele hoover, today one scampered into the hearth under logs and I managed to seal it off and get it once again with the hoover.
Both times the hoovered mouse suffered few ill-effects which was nice to know, but just releasing them outside would not have worked as they ‘home’ I gather - first one was taken a few miles away and released, today’s had the more precarious fate of being put in the refuse bin ‘packed’ in a few bags I surmise it would escape from quite easily over a few hours. Hopefully the little chap hasn’t been crushed, but I also assumed there’d be some nibbles in the cumulative rubbish he could feast on!
I remember my mum telling me she once caught a mouse that was sitting in the sitting room hearth, looking at her. She took it outside and released it into the garden some way from the house. It was raining hard and when she got back to her chair, a bit bedraggled, she was surprised to see the mouse was already back. She told me its fur was wet, sparkling in the light from the fire, so she knew it was the same one and she was quite cross (but also amused) that it had got back before she did!
Many years ago daughter was not feeling well. So my wife joined her in bed, but was woken in the night by a rat on the bed covers looking at her. As she tried to shoo the rat off without waking my daughter, the rat jumped off the bed…sat at the door looking back at them. It’s the lack of fear, that really spooked her.
I eventually found the point of entry, the previous owner had removed a brick in the cavity wall, put it back without any cement or mortar.
Presumably that was just the way into the house and it escaped via the outside entry point/roof space wherever?
I’d seen no sign of mice for months, but a couple of weeks ago heard gnawing in the cavity our our dry lined kitchen wall - these cavities must be a lovely environment for rodents.
Many years ago I was conducting a food hygiene inspection in Southall. There was a customer in front of us; the shopkeeper rang up the till, and out popped a mouse. Needless to say he voluntarily closed the shop so that it could be treated.
You should have seen his face - he was mortified, especially as it was a top end Indian sweet shop. The infestation was heavy, particularly in the storage areas. Those were the days …
Living as we do out in the back of beyond, surrounded by fields, we used to get regular infestations, particularly at harvest time and when it got cold. Our home’s an old thatched cottage, with lots of holes, nooks and crannies, so it’s not easy to eliminate the little darlings. Our cats were no help - in fact one of them used to bring live mice in, play with them on the floor for a bit, get bored & let them go. Strangely enough, since the cats died & we now have a couple of dogs, the only place we get infested is in the garage.
Wife decided to rescue the bread maker from the garage last night and start using it again. The little darlings had chewed up the recipe book and made their nest. Could be some interesting tasting loaves coming my way!
A Little Nipper trap baited with strong cheese will get the buggers. Has to be genuine Little Nipper as the cheap knock offs don’t work. They are very delicate to set if adjusted correctly but out in the country surrounded by fields we generally kill between 20 and 30 a year. They tend to arrive in batches of 5 or 6 with a gap of a few weeks inbetween. If you don’t keep on top of them they will breed and then you are in real trouble so we keep a trap set all the time under the kitchen sink next to the waste bin. No hope of making a 180 year old cottage rodent proof as I believe they can get through a gap the thickness of a pencil!
Found peanut butter especially effective in tempting them. Bagged about a half dozen of the critters in the past couple of weeks, the joy of winter in an old house.
We used to keep chickens and suffered from the inevitable problems with rats. We used a combination of live and spring traps (when the chooks were away at night) and found that peanut butter, dairy lea cheese and chocolate spread all work really well to entice them into the cage or onto the spring trap.
Several years ago my wife and I were watching the TV. Because of the way our lounge is organised, I have line of sight to the doorway to the hall, but my wife does not. So a field mouse wanders in and stops about two feet into the lounge.
“Darling”, says I, “there’s a mouse in the lounge”.
Naturally, I get the “he’s finally got nuts” look, and she responds with a more ladylike version of “WTF???”
“No really”, says I, “and he’s watching the TV,”
This got my wife’s attention and she moved in time to see the mouse disappearing under the hifi rack. We built a wall of books around the rack, which I then noisily dismantled, until the mouse ran out and was captured, and escorted back to the bottom of the garden.
It goes without saying that our four “apex-predator killer kitties” slept through the whole episode…