Mickey must die!

[JumboBeef]

I live in an old but renovated rural house. Our bedroom is in the attic. The ceiling is modern plasterboard and well insulated. No access to above it, apart from where there are recessed lights fitted.

Mickey has taken to scratching and doing god knows what up there during the night, keeping us awake. I have a couple of those plug in pest repellent things: not sure they work though. Mickey sometimes goes away for a few days but always comes back.

Any suggestions as to how to get rid of Mickey, short of lying on my back on the bed and peppering the ceiling with the shotgun next time I hear the little............thing?

Thanks.

[0a]

Er? Isn't it too early for this kind of post?

[mickk]

Borrow one of these little cuties.

[JumboBeef]

Thanks.

mickk said:

Borrow one of these little cuties.

Er, how would I get that ABOVE the ceiling.....? I have dogs anyway....

[Simpo Two]

I had a cat that could climb ladders. During the day I'd had the loft ladder down for access, then put it back. At about midnight, whilst lying in bed, I heard an unmistakable pattering above me. Yes, damn cat had sneaked into the roof space!

That was over 10 years ago but you can still see her footprints in the old loft insulation! Haven't had mice since. Well OK I didn't have any before.

[66comanche]

+

[Who me ?]

Looks like taking one or more recessed lights down ,putting in traps ,replacing lights and waiting for the snap of a trap .Could be it's a field mouse where you'll need to use very sensitive traps as most of the normal ones are a feeding place for the little field mice -bodies are too light to trigger the trap .

[Simpo Two]

I don't see how sawing a honey badger in half is going to help.

Ah - two halves make a hole, and the mouse falls out of the hole. Gottit.

[grass widow]

We get field mice in every year, and our bedroom is in the roof so we have the same problem. I believe the King Span is now like swiss cheese There must be somewhere that you can access, or the mouse must come into the house somewhere, they usually do.

Last year we put down humane traps and then took them far away and released them, but this year one of them has decided to move into the house and found the rabbit food. Then made a home in our settee in the snug and ripped the cr@p out of it. So this year we have put poison down upstairs in the under drawing that we can access. We used to see the mouse come out from under the cooker, run around the units, down the stairs to the rabbit cage, pinch the food then reverse his trip. We tried the trap laced with peanut butter, but due to the easy access of rabbit food it wasn't interested.

We have stoats in the dry stone walls around us and we think one of them got into the wall cavity and killed them all last winter, as one day they were there and then we heard nothing more till they moved in again this winter. We also found a hole in the outside wall where something had dug the pointing and cement out.

[Willy Nilly]

Neosorexa Gold until the scratching stops.

[JumboBeef]

To update this:

I set some traps downstairs, and caught three mice in the first night. The traps have been down since but have caught nothing. However, the noise upstairs has gone.............

[pacman1]

Use the mice as bait to catch the real nasty mofo.

[GLENRED]

I had similar problem recently, luckily I had loft access. Tried every humane option and failed, then the poison did the trick.

Greedy bugger ate the lot, never heard a peep since.

[anonymous-user]

OP whereabouts in the UK are you?

I have a friend in pest control and he does private jobs

[JumboBeef]

I'm in Scotland.

More traps set last night, and two more caught. How many of them are there?

[jagracer]

JumboBeef said:

I'm in Scotland.

More traps set last night, and two more caught. How many of them are there?

They're like terrorist insurgents, kill one and ten more will take their place. Are they field mice or house mice, brown are field and grey are normally house. The best thing you can do is cut off any supply of food and they may move away. You could get a kitten and it should be OK with the dogs although I have two cats and they just bring mice in from outside to play with indoors, my two Jack Russells do similar although they prefer rats.

You need to find their nest and kill at source. The mice from the loft will come down looking for food so don't leave any titbits upstairs, we had a problem with mice upstairs until I found things like half eaten pizzas under my daughter's bed. I use sticky pads although you have to be a bit ruthless and bomp them on the head to kill them, it's also quite expensive although sometimes I can get two or three mice on one pad. Mice are also quite clever, I once put some peanut butter in the centre of a sticky pad, came back next day and there was a small piece of wood laid across the pad and the peanut butter was gone.

Edited by jagracer on Wednesday 8th February 09:21

[fatboy b]

JumboBeef said:

To update this:

I set some traps downstairs, and caught three mice in the first night. The traps have been down since but have caught nothing. However, the noise upstairs has gone.............

I've taken to having a number of traps around the outside of the house against the walls. Used to get mice in the loft, but so far nothing up there this winter. Plenty caught outside though. Just before this cold snap I got 7 in a week. They'll always come back unless you control them.

Also have the same problem with younger filed mice that they don't set the traps off. I use The Big Cheese snappy traps, and get a higner success rate than the old wooden ones.

Edited by fatboy b on Wednesday 8th February 12:18

[gtdc]

We have traps set around the attics at all times of the year. Peanut butter works a treat.

[minky monkey]

jagracer said:

Mice are also quite clever, I once put some peanut butter in the centre of a sticky pad, came back next day and there was a small piece of wood laid across the pad and the peanut butter was gone.

Having visions of mission impossible inspired mice!