Can I just say...

[taimatsu]

AAAAAAAAAAARGH MICE.

My room SMELLS of MICE. It is driving me BANANAS. The humane traps I ordered the other day have been dispatched but not arrived yet. Likewise the vacuum cleaner bags which I will need to get rid of the traces the horrible creatures leave behind (I know it's not necessarily great to vacuum up mouse poo but how the heck else do you get it off the carpet?)

I am going to have to go on a mouse-removal rampage, and may even resort to poison eventually (though if I do, I might put it in a large humane trap so that the mice die in there and not under the floorboards, in the walls etc.) as I just need the wretched things GONE GONE GONE and not fucking coming back. they are starting to EAT MY BOOKS and that is the unforgiveable sin in my residence. They are rampaging over my desk and probably weeing on my keyboard. I should get some hand sanitiser :( Actually I think there is a chemist up the road, I might head out and investigate it.

I really want to have a clean, non-mouse-stinky room for when Dave arrives to visit on Saturday but I am worried it's just not going to happen. Does anyone know of a shop in Reading where I could buy bags for an ancient Electrolux vacuum cleaner in person? Also, mint oil (which I hear mice dislike)?

I am looking into buying some wire wool for blocking up holes they could get in through (but it seems quite expensive for the large amount I will need). However, a major problem area is going to be the old fireplace in my room, which has been boarded up but there's a biggish gap at the bottom where the mice could get in and out easily. I have no idea what's behind there but it is probably old and holey. I think I might have to get landlady's permission and possibly help to take the board off, check, clean and seal the area behind it, and board it up again more solidly (part of the boarding is a bit loose anyway, so it could do with sorting out).

I dread to think what other things from my stack of boxes they have been eating away at. I hate them so much right now.

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Can you borrow a cat?

[taimatsu]

Not impossible. Also I may be able to get some tubs of lightly-used cat-litter to put around the place and see if that deters the little horrors.

Trouble is they are lurking behind my massive stack of boxes, and there's just no good places for those to go.

[thinkstoomuch.livejournal.com]

Sounds rubbish!

You might be able to get the vac bags in Robert Dyas (corner of the crossroads with the virgin megastore, on the side nearer the oracle). There are healthfood / weird-vitamin shops in Broad St Mall that will likely have mint oil in their aromatherapy section. I have my doubts as to whether it will have any effect on the mice other than possibly making them cooling and refreshing to a cat.

We had rats at an old house. The landlord is obliged to pay for removal services. I know your landlady is a hassle to deal with, but you've been going through a lot of hassle trying to get rid of them yourself! We had ours poisoned. The life of a housemouse is a short and messy one, likely ending being eaten alive by a cat. Poison isn't that bad, and it's not like you're going to drive mice to extinction. It's effective and it kills them all at once.

There was no smell of rat bodies, though there was a plague of flies confined to one room about a month later, that passed in a day. Was weird to wake up to though. It beat having the food in our cupboards eaten every day. The rats were actually quite cute (they'd come out at night if you were quiet), but they were poor houseguests and had to go.

[taimatsu]

The council do removal but they do it with poison, and I am honestly very worried about dead stinking mice in inaccessible areas. I really want to avoid that.

I know mint oil likely won't help much but it's something to try untl other options present themselves. I am going to give the old bucket trap another go tonight, although it will probably stop me sleeping.

[thinkstoomuch.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! I'd forgotten, it was actually the council we got. The agents and landlord were so crap we got the council directly, who were so concerned they said they would be happy to write directly to them both, saying that the house was unfit for human habitation (many issues, not just rats). So that was nice.

The good thing about the council was that they blocked up access points as well, preventing re-infestation.

Poison in a humane trap may work, it's a good idea for getting rid of the bodies. The standard poisons are slow acting, I thought - so they take the food back to the nest and get all of them. But you have to watch the humane traps anyway, so not a problem?

Bear in mind that if they have young, they are going to starve to death and so it may not be possible to avoid stinking dead mice.

This conversation is cheerful and tasteful!

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Tiny corpses like mice mostly either mummify, or get neatly used up by flies laying their eggs (yes, it's gross, but nature's efficient) - I think you'd have to have one in a damp environment for them to actually get much of a chance to rot.

It's not like leaving a piece of meat on the counter to fester.

[taimatsu]

This reassures me at least about the starving-to-death baby micelings problem. Thank you :)

[taimatsu]

Re. vac bags - note: *ancient* vacuum cleaner. It is very old. I doubt Robert Dyas will have them, though I might look anyway.

[thinkstoomuch.livejournal.com]

The manufacturer may have just kept using the same size bags in later models? Dyas was just the only place I could think of :) I can see why bagless vacs caught on so quickly...

Oh, and the ultrasound things are rubbish. Cat smell might work a bit - rats and mice have a genetic fear reaction to cat smell. Hard to keep your whole house smelling of cat, but might keep them out of your tasty (?) books for a while.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Wire wool - could you buy the wire wool pot scrubbers that are all cheap, like, from one of the pound stores and improvise with that? Admittedly it would be soap-covered wire-wool, but it might be less pricey than buying wire wool which people assume you're going to do something crafty with.

[taimatsu]

Not a lot cheaper, I think, than actual wire wool. You can buy half-pound bags of the stuff for a few quid, and a pack fo three normal pot scrubbers is about a pound and weighs less. I think. I'll check it out.

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

apparently mice are incontinent and so wee EVERYWHERE. we had to resort to posion with ours as apparently they just don't respect humane traps but poison is a deterrent to other mice.

[taimatsu]

I did catch a mouse in a makeshift humane trap, so I have hope. As I say, I might do poison *in* a humane trap - then they will be DEAD but not behind things/in my books.

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

that sounds wise. although the poison we used was so quick acting (or the mouse so greedy) that it died with its teeth still in the poison!

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

I don't know how well these work, but it might keep them out of your room and into someone else's...

http://www.primrose-london.co.uk/pest-deluxe-mouse-deterrent-p-1903.html

You can possibly find them cheaper than that, B&Q or Dyas may have them.

http://www.garden-goodies.co.uk/acatalog/info_STV718.html that ones £6.50


Vacuum cleaner bags are getting tricky to find in the shops now, but there are a lot of online retailers (which doesn't help with the need them right now issue I know).
http://www.vacuumcleanerbags.co.uk

[taimatsu]

I have already ordered some online, I am just wondering if I can get them any quicker :)

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

You could go to a neighbour and take cat's hair. It would make the mice believe there is a real cat in the house. Someone told me something about cat's powder but I cannot find anything like that which should scare of mice only to scare of cats. Another option is a bit more expensive or maybe cheaper on ebay. You can get a mouse/rat repeller. It looks like an alarm thing you attach to the wall. I guess you can also just put on a shelf without attaching it.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Come to the Pembury Tavern on a Sunday and play with the Ferret. Bring a sack or an old sock for her to play with and you will have a friend for life.

On your return to your house, there will be a series of mouse-sized sonic booms as the unwelcome rodents smell the ferret and depart.

[oneplusme.livejournal.com]

Failing all else, the old-fashioned spring-loaded traps baited with peanut butter or chocolate spread seem to do a fairly effective job. They have the upside of the dead mice not getting a chance to crawl off anywhere before shuffling off this mortal coil. After a lack of success with other methods, I've found them to be the best of a poor set of options.

[medland.livejournal.com]

You should see if you can borrow a cat. They really are the best things for getting rid of mice for good. If it wasn't so far I'd lend you Lenny.

[ebq.livejournal.com]

We have a mouse in our house too!

Used every humane trap/deterrant possible, but to no avail...

Thinking of getting a cat to sniff around the house as it seemed to drive the last one away.

However, if all else fails, we will have to resort to a spring-trap :(

[wednesday]

Last time I had a mouse situation, I, uh, used BPAL instead of mint oil.

Admittedly, it was Mad Sweeney, which is single-note single malt, so you might be able to get away with bad scotch in a pinch.

[taimatsu]

I was considering trying various other strong-smelling things, but the boyfriend arrives on Saturday and he has a violent-illness problem with strong smells (perfumes, various oils, all that sort of thing). So nowt of that till he's shoved off again :)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Bah, why do you have to have mice? If it was spiders or ants I could give you suggestions :D (We got rid of our ant problem in an entirely vegan way, which was nice.)