First mouse of the season....

Hetty58

MamaCaz, when I'm out walking my JRT (a dedicated mouser) she'll clearly indicate which parked cars have mice - and there are quite a few.

A chap was working on his engine when she stopped to show great interest. I told him there were mice in there!

That's really interesting! I would like to have seen the chap's face when you told him

DD2 has delivered a primed mouse-friendly trap to my doorstep and says she will collect it when full! Like a sort of pizza delivery woman!

I have to admit that I use the splat-traps as I think leaving the mice in terror in the human traps is itself cruel. I feed the bodies to the buzzards in the back field - all part of nature's rich cycle.

MamaCaz, when I'm out walking my JRT (a dedicated mouser) she'll clearly indicate which parked cars have mice - and there are quite a few.

A chap was working on his engine when she stopped to show great interest. I told him there were mice in there!

Mice can definitely get through the tiniest of holes. We've moved our 2 rabbit hutches into the garage, as we do every winter. Many times I've gone in to find a mouse has squeezed through the tiny mesh squares on the hutch, doubled back on itself and become stuck. I'm now very good at snipping the wires with secateurs and setting them free. Only trouble is that they now have an easy entrance/exit from the hutches to get warm & cosy! The rabbits don't mind, but I'm forever cleaning the hutches as mice urinate wherever they walk.

Just set four traps in the loft as the weather will be getting colder soon.I don’t like doing it but it’s necessary, we have had so many wires chewed through and being an older house have many mice in Winter.

We no longer leave anything soft (such as cushions off sunloungers, gardening fleece and mesh) out in our shed over winter, because mice have eaten huge holes through them in the past.

Last year, I discovered that a mouse had been visiting the glove compartment in our car (parked outside next to the road). It had chewed all the fabric covering off something that was in there, and chewed right through the corners of the metal container beneath!

As yet, I haven't heard anything too disturbing from our loft this season - we've had rats, mice, squirrels and bats in there over the years (not sure why the bats disappeared, unless they didn't like the rodent invaders!) so I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Sark, same here, my cat regularly brings mice in. She comes in through the flap in the laundry room and loudly miaows hello - so the mouse always escapes her!

They are never harmed so I just have a Trip Trap permanently set up to catch them, for release back outside.

George'sgran they will have a job on squeezing out after having eaten that lot!

We used to get dry dog food delivered in 25kg sacks, which we then decanted into dustbins, but a friend asked for a sack, so it was just left in the garage for her to collect. I was going to meet her a couple of weeks later and went to pick up her sack - it looked intact, but was completely empty! The little b***ers had gnawed holes in the plastic and eaten every last pellet of food. They must have squeezed in under the garage door.

I had mice just before lock down in February. I assumed it was because of a very wet month and I was putting seed out for birds. I'm hoping they don't come back!

Our cat is always bringing in mice but he never kills them so I have become quite a good mousecatcher!

A few years ago, I had a baby rat inmy*bedroom*!

(I have had pet rats as a girl - this was not one of them.)

The cat and the dog showed no interest in it whatsoever.
MrC killed it with a plastic toy spade.

I don't know how it got in the house.
I doubt that the cat bought it in; it may have followed her through the cat flap.

Hetty, our local gamekeeper said 1/4 inch! Even less than a centimetre!

They are just after warmth and shelter as the weather gets chilly. They can fit themselves through any gap you can get a pen into (about 1 cm) - so get looking and blocking them up!

Merlotgran we had this at harvest for several years but then we noticed they were using an old airbrick to gain entrance.. By fixing a mesh over it one summer we kept them out. Fantastic! No more endless washing and scrubbing every morning

I could lend you my killer cat!
I nearly posted a photo of his latest catch here, but it might give people nightmares!

I agree Mokryna, mice (even rats!) preferable to spiders and other creepy crawlies any day.

My worry are spiders I don’t mind mice but then I don’t live in the country

I went into the garage today, to find they have been very busy. ?

We thought we could hear mice in our attic this time last year as they have been in before.
However after a couple of nights we were woken by what sounded like a party going on up there!!
Long story short- they were juvenile rats !!!
Pest control man came and baited over several weeks and still they partied.
Cameras down the drains next and sure enough an uncoupled sink waste pipe was allowing them to get in, up the cavity wall and then into the attic.
Very expensive pipe repair as,low and behold, the insurance don’t cover that !!!
Don’t mind mice so much anymore!

Same here. One was making a racket in the cavity of the bedroom wall last night.

As soon as the fields around us have been harvested they look for food and warmth. Hopefully soon the winter wheat will have been drilled and they'll have some food outside.