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Any tips on how to deal with mice phobia

(66 Posts)
Coronation Tue 24-Sept-24 09:26:10

I've just seen a mouse, and whilst I am dealing with the situation, I will be very jumpy and on edge in case I see one again. I will really struggle to relax in my own home, especially in the dark nights!

I need some tips please

Babs03 Tue 24-Sept-24 17:18:30

We once had a pest control company come round and they said the mice were probably coming under the floorboards from next door. No surprises there. We know our neighbours, a 95 year old woman and her 70 year old son are extremely tardy when it comes to keeping the house clean. When we visited once food was piled up everywhere, I think they hoard it. Asked the pest control company to call on them to explain the problem but they were less than cooperative. Thankfully we should be moving soon.
Anyway this means that we have a recurring problem with mice, but we watched what the pest control people did, and just repeat it everytime. We are successful in getting rid of them but when winter rolls around I will hear them chewing behind the skirting boards.

MissAdventure Tue 24-Sept-24 17:47:48

When I said to my boy I thought we had a mouse, he said "Oh yeah, it lives under the toaster - I videoed it and put it on tiktok" blush

Hellogirl1 Tue 24-Sept-24 18:18:16

I quite like mice, they`re cute, but obviously don`t want them in the house. We haven`t had any for a few years, but we also have a cat, which could explain it. I sometimes see the cat quietly trailing a mouse round the edge of the yard, so I try to catch it before it`s harmed and transport it to the canal bank round the front of the house.

MissAdventure Tue 24-Sept-24 18:23:34

They're cute, but have no sphincter muscles.
I researched for ages, made myself watch videos of different traps, and decided the snap trap was the most humane killing method. (That's backed up by pest controllers, too)

Now I have an electric trap thing.

Salti Tue 24-Sept-24 18:43:07

BlueBelle

They do make you jump as they are so fast but they are really rather sweet little things and I have a soft spot for them but of course I don’t really want to share my home with them.
I find the plug ins really don’t detract anything I bought one that was suppose to stop cats in their tracks and I wanted to stop cats from pooing in my garden I watched a cat actually doing just that close by this electronic thing, and so I sent the item back with a photo I got my money back

I wish I had a "like" button.🤣🤣🤣🤣

Baggs Tue 24-Sept-24 18:53:46

MrB and I had a conversation during our last mouse visitation. There were two of them in the loft but it sounded like there were dozens having a ceilidh! Noisy buggers! The thing is, mice really want to live with we humans and if they weren't such destructive little beasts (and noisy!) we felt sure we could have come to an amicable arrangement with them.

As it is, I've overcome my jitters about them over the years with good traps (made by a well-known pest control company) and chucking them into the field alongside our garden for crows to scavenge.

Now if signs show they're inading again, I just think "Blighters!" and set the traps which, as well as being efficient, are also humane as the mouse doesn't know a thing about it and dies happy with a sniff of peanut butter in its nostrils.

Baggs Tue 24-Sept-24 18:54:30

*invading

Coronation Tue 24-Sept-24 19:35:26

Thank you everybody for taking the time to reply , I really appreciate this.

MissAdventure Tue 24-Sept-24 20:20:43

I meant to say, if you use a trap, you can put it inside a box, so that you don't have to look at anything upsetting.

Just throw the box away and anything contained within.

flappergirl Tue 24-Sept-24 20:26:01

I keep humane traps around loaded with peanut butter on bread. Fortunately I don't have a phobia of them as the cat regularly brings them in but I've become quite a dab hand at catching those myself.

MayBee70 Tue 24-Sept-24 20:36:15

To be fair to mice I always keep sticks in watering cans, buckets etc outside so that if they fill up with water due to rain so a mouse could drown in them they can climb out. I’ve found some that have drowned and felt awful about it. But they aren’t allowed in my house, I’m too germ phobic.

meddijess Wed 25-Sept-24 12:05:38

I don't have a problem with mice, but I do hate spiders. I put an old dressing gown alongside my bed (we sleep in separate beds) against the wall to try and stop them coming up from the floor. Went to settle down last night, and there was one on top of the dressing gown. I disposed of it, but then couldn't sleep for imagining more of them on the bed. Anybody have any ideas for spider phobia?

MissAdventure Wed 25-Sept-24 12:08:07

It depends if you want to remove them, alive, or need to annihilated them.

I absolutely cannot stand spiders - I'm petrified of them.

knspol Wed 25-Sept-24 12:43:43

I live in the countryside and years ago we had mice inside one of the walls and could hear them scuttling around at night. Pest control ended up blocking all possible entrances and basically waited for them to die. Took around 6 mths and smell was dreadful. Now have bait boxes all around outside perimeter which i regularly fill with rat poison.

MissAdventure Wed 25-Sept-24 13:12:51

I suppose they have to be kept away from other animals, the bait boxes?
I'd have some outside if I could, I think.

colliemum Wed 25-Sept-24 13:14:09

We live in rural France with farms all around. From September onwards we get field mice coming indoors to get cosy for the winter. Peanut butter baited snap traps are usually the only way of dealing with them, which makes me sad. But RATS are a big problem. The house and barn are connected, with a boiler room in between, and last winter rats got into the boiler room, and into the boiler itself and the kitchen chimney, which is shared with the boiler flue. The rats chewed a hole in the register plate above the kitchen woodburner and were jumping down onto the hearth - then jumping back up again. I never saw the actual rats, just their footprints on the hearth and back wall of the fireplace! We had no choice but to poison them and now have many poison bait boxes on the rafters in the barn. It took me many months to get over the horror of it. Every time I go into the boiler room now I bang on the boiler to make sure there's no shuffling noise inside it.

Welshy Wed 25-Sept-24 13:15:55

I am of no help sorry. But I just wanted to say you are not alone I am terrified of mice & rats. Just reading this thread makes me feel sick!!! My skin crawls.
Last year there was a DEAD mouse in my garden. I would not go in there until that mouse was removed.

Ktsmum Wed 25-Sept-24 13:43:35

Peppermint oil is the key, sprinkle on cotton pads and place them.around the house, mice and rats can't cope with the smell and will stay away. Also plug in ultrasonic devices will repel them

missdeke Wed 25-Sept-24 13:56:15

Definitely having a cat that's a good mouser is a great deterrent. No mouse has ever entered my house willingly since I got my boy, unfortunately mice in my neighbour's very overgrown garden are fair game for hi so he frequently catches them and brings them in, generally already dead or near to death. This morning as I got up I went to the kitchen to find a present of a dead mouse on the floor, whilst I was clearing it up he jumped through the cat flap with another in his mouth. He let go of it as he new it was breakfast time anyway and as it moved I realised it had a broken leg. I got my mouse/spider catcher but it managed to scuttle down the side of the washing machine. Shadow finished breakfast and dived into the space which leads behind the cupboards and came out with it straight out again with mouse and a face covered with cobwebs. I knew I couldn't help it as it was alreaady badly injured so I let Shadow take it back outside where he took it back to where he found it and left it. I've now got the task of letting my neighbour know that she's probably got another dead mouse somewhere.

MissAdventure Wed 25-Sept-24 14:05:13

The devices send out high frequency noises, but, only in places with nothing impeding them, such as furniture.

Baggs Wed 25-Sept-24 14:09:34

misdeke, this is what puts me off ever owning a cat. Efficient mouse traps are so much more humane.

MissAdventure Wed 25-Sept-24 14:18:35

That's how I feel.
They don't belong in my flat, so they have to go, as quickly and humanely as possible.

No room for sentimentality.

susz Wed 25-Sept-24 14:51:36

I don't have a phobia and really don't mind mice - but not in the house! I can vouch for peppermint spray, smells ok to me but mice really don't like it and it works well. You can find it on Amazon. Failing which get a cat - I'm not a cat person.

MissAdventure Wed 25-Sept-24 15:18:09

Peppermint oil is seen as a valid deterrent, and is sold by some of the big name companies.

Apparently it's good for keeping spiders away.
(The spiders this year are FAST runners!)

SillyNanny321 Wed 25-Sept-24 15:34:06

Dont mind mice I can deal with them if my cat hasnt already. What I really do not like are the massive spiders at this time of year. Hate killing them as my Nan always said if you wish to live & thrive let a spider run alive! I try to catch them with one of my spider catchers, at least one or more in every room but yesterday I felt like crying. Walked down the hall & as I went to put my foot down a very big spider ran right under my foot & was squished! Felt very guilty for rest of the day as if I had seen it coming would have caught & evicted it poor thing! Hate them with a passion but hate killing them. Sad me!