I feel so bad tonight

PamelaJ1

It’s cost us nearly £500 this week to get the damage caused by mice under the bonnet of our car. So, I’d like to say well done you but I won’t as I know that I will get a barrage of criticism.
They aren’t my favourite creature at the moment.
I could send you all a photo of the molehills in the garden, two new ones this morning🥴
To cap that, although we have rabbit fenced the garden a kit has found its way through somewhere so we will be searching for a gap later.
We are feeling a little besieged.

My mother's car seats were completely ruined, eaten by mice in the garage.

jan1956

very rare to get just ONE mouse am afraid they breed very rapidly so need to get rid

That’s what we were told too. The fact that, like many older people they wee whilst running, as well as leaving dropping so you know where they’ve been makes me feel ill.
No mice since we got our dog, and she’s great with spiders, flies and moths.

Sorry I have no compassion for rats and mice. My neighbours beautiful great dane dog was killed by a rat drinking from his outside water bowl and urinating in it. He died from leptospirosis and was only a young dog. Their next door neighbours encouraged rats by throwing bread for birds on the garage roof.
Rodents are a pest and cause dangerous diseases and fires. They chew through wires and that often causes the fire. My granny's neighbour lost her home from rearing and keeping a baby squirrel as a pet - which ate the electric wiring and her house burned to the ground. Very sad as she was a widow with 2 young children.

we moved into the house we're in at the moment, when the children were small, there's a bit of waste ground across from it...one night I saw something scurrying behind the settee, husband said I was seeing things...later on a mouse ran across the floor, one of the childrens little plastic pails was on the floor. hubby grabbed it and quick as a flash dropped it on top of the mouse...which carried on running....all we could see was a plastic pail moving at speed across the floor,I think he put a piece of cardboard under the pail and turned it upside down trapping the mouse.....then took it to the spare ground across the road and set it free.....it probably made it 's way back in at some point....

we had to get the pest man in eventually...and we got 2 cats..

A friend of mine had a cat that brought in a live mouse which disappeared. Eventually, all though their had been no sign of it, it was discovered to have chewed a hole through the bottom of her very expensive corner sofa and made a nest. Many babies were born and the whole lounge ended up infested. Luckily if my cat catches a mouse he usually brings it in after he's killed it. It can be messy but at least I know it's not breeding. I'm also fortunate that my new neighbour is blitzing her garden and the undergrowth where mice breed will eventually all be cleared and the cat will have fewer opportunities to catch them.

I back onto woodland and noticed droppings then saw a mouse strolling across the hall! Put humane traps down and caught ten. No more since.baited the traps with dog kibble. They love it.

Don't feel bad, they are vermin and if pregnant you would be over run with them. I had one and it left droppings on the kitchen work surface each night and drove me crazy. Finally did get it but a health hazard.

It’s very unlikely there will be a solitary mouse in anyone’s house . The little blighters operate in pairs and multiply at an alarming rate if action isn’t taken to remove them. They can produce another litter every 3-4 weeks.

MrJ is on permanent rat watch in the garden, he’s disposed of two this year, they come from next door who feed the birds, they also feed their two elderly labs outside ‘as they’re messy indoors’ (hence food left for rats).
They are, as has been said, vermin.

I hate killing anything. I don't even kill a fly, I will shoo it out of the house.

However, years ago we lived in a house which backed onto fields. We had a couple of mice in the house. They used to sit on the hearth and stare at us.

I used to think, 'Oh, how cute', and no intentions of doing anything about them.

A few weeks later every food item in the pantry that was in a chewable container had been bitten through. We had mouse poo on the kitchen worktops. I bought plastic food containers but the poo was turning up all over the kitchen. We tried to block the bottom of the pantry door. You would not believe how narrow space a mouse can get through.

It was the poo everywhere that bothered me the most. I was told that mice wee continually when they are running about. This also made me feel that our health could be at risk.

We got the humane traps as I didn't want to kill them. They didn't work.

I desperation we ended up the with old fashioned traps - with peanut butter. We caught around six mice on the first night. I was shocked as I thought we only had a couple. In total we must have caught at least dozen mice over about a week.

Apparently, if you have one mouse and leave it be, you will end up with a house full.

A few months later we were pulling an internal wall down whilst doing some renovations. It was a hollow partition wall. There were about half a dozen mouse skeletons in the wall space. They had been there well from before we lived in the house.

As I said, I hate to kill animals but it gets to the point sometimes where you feel you don't have an alternative.

My old neighbour has just recently moved back into her house after having to stay with her son for 4 weeks while major repairs were required due to damage caused by mice. They caused an unbelievable amount of damage to the pipework under her floor which she was unaware of until it was too late.

She was aware of a low water pressure problem in her gas boiler which frequently needed topped up. The engineer said there must be a leak somewhere and struggled to locate it. Her floorboards were eventually lifted and it was discovered mice had chewed through fine plastic water pipes and the foundations of the house were flooded and the floor joists were rotting.

She had to move out while a team moved in to repair the damage, replace the pipes, fit new joists and floorboards and run an industrial dehumidifier to dry out the mess.

Arrived at our house in France and in over 22 years never had a mouse in the house. However as I opened the shutters in the corner of the lounge there was a small amount of something which looked like fluffy black soft wool. I cleared it but then turned a cushion over on a chair and found it had been chewed n was in bits. I’ve never seen anything it must have been a mouse. Two years ago arrived early in spring to find a large area of the hall covered in ladybirds. I had to scoop them up n put them outside. That night my eye swelled up I had been bitten by one. I had no idea they could bite.

veejay

I have the same problem with a mouse.oy shot past me from the kit hen into the hall.so no idea where it is now
I have set a humane mouse trap in several areas but not seen any thing chewed either
A few weeks ago I saw mouse droppings and again set a humane mouse trap.i could tell it was still around.it had even got into my medicine drawer and eaten some vitamins.do could be a very health mouse by now
Last year I found one of my snow boots chewed to bits and no sign of the other one at all
There could be several mice for all I know now but can seem to catch any

Have you tried bating the trap with either chocolate of peanut butter? My father caught mice very sucessfully once he realised that they cannot resist chocolate, and I have been told that peanut butter is just as good.

Reason and my experience leads me to suspect that there is never just one mouse. To us humans after all they all look alike and they breed fast, so one mouse can be many in the course of a few weeks.

They do spread disease, some quite serious, and they find chewing the plastic coating off electrical wiring great fun, so have been identified as the cause of house fires.

So harden your hearts and get rid of the beasties.

Yes, as others have mentioned, peanut butter in traps. Seems to be their favourite.

I’m the same - anything with a little beating heart 💓 just grabs me and practically ruins my day. I’m more of a catch and release person now. (Not so sure about reptiles tho…) This is temporary and you’ll get over it. But it shows you have a conscience. Bless you.

Top tip - get some spray stuff called Peppermint Mouse and spray it into all the areas that mice are likely to frequent. They really don't like the smell. I had evidence of mice in kitchen cupboards and spraying this stuff has got rid of them.

Peppermint also deters spiders so it's a double whammy. One single peanut in the trap also works well if you feed the birds with them but don't have peanut butter.
Taking a life of however small a creature is always upsetting - when you didn't mean to is worse. Good for you to feel bad - it shows you are a nice person.

Mice are vermin that spread disease. Don't know why people get upset about them being killed. I had mice in my house and I put poisen pellets in every corner. They are NOT cute. They can spread disease. How would you like it if your grandchildren picked something from them!! I have actually thought of getting a cat to keep the mice away

songstress60 Couldn't agree more. I found some mice droppings in my kitchen last week and immediately put down a saucer of poison pellets.

It is the same with rats in the garden. If I think we have them, I put down poison.

I put dead vermin in the dustbin so that the carcase isn't eaten by anyother animal.