Mammalian invasion

[treecreeper]

This afternoon my wife Margaret was reading in the front room when she saw a mouse run across the carpet and dive under an armchair. I responded to the cry for help and deduced the mouse probably entered a gaping hole in the armchair's undercarriage and is snugly ensconced in its inner recesses.

I have just answered another call from the kitchen. Another mouse - I presume it is another one - has dashed across the floor and secreted itself under the freezer. I only have one mammal trap so I have left it there, charged with some broken chocolate biscuit.

Margaret is not a Wabber so I do not blame her for failing to have made the observations that would confirm the species. This information will follow if my safari results in a capture. I must say I'm a bit miffed though. Domestic mice in a well-kept house in leafy Meols!

[Farplace]

Sounds like the LIKE your well-kept house!! Keep us updated as to species as and when - and best of luck. Oh, and if the choccy biccies dont do the trick, try peanut butter.
Jan

[tcvarlh]

I wonder what your good lady wife was reading? Steinbeck perhaps?

h

[treecreeper]

Originally Posted by tcvarlh

I wonder what your good lady wife was reading? Steinbeck perhaps?

h

Ha ha! It wasn't. Neither was it The Three Mouseketeers

[Jim Ford]

We've got 2 humane traps (from B&Q - very effective. They're a square section tube with a crank in the middle.) and in the last six months have caught over 60 wood mice in the bedroom and around 20 in a downstairs study. Sometimes I've caught 3 in one night!

I release them in the garden. Some people have suggested that they come back inside, but I don't think they do - they're not really smart enough to retrace their steps. I think that what happened is that a pregnant female came in through the open French windows in the early Summer, and they've been breeding.

The trapping frequency has dropped off sharply now, so I think we've just about run them out of town!

They're cute little creatures and whilst I'm fed up with them, I bear them no ill feelings. They stink though!

jiM

[treecreeper]

Thanks Jim. I've had a look at the B&Q site. They sell several traps and there are user reviews on some of them. It's amusing to read the comments on the less successful models. The mice either remove the bait without springing the trap or the mechanism works but the mouse chews its way out. The anger of the reviewers only adds to the humour

[Za]

I recently caught 2 mice who seemed to like a bag of crystalised ginger that I had on my desk next to my computer, both of them just sneaked up and jumped into the bag, about a foot from where I was sitting, I just picked the bag up and took them downstairs and let them go on the grass.
I bought some humane traps, but they havent caught anything and I havent seen any more mice.

[Jim Ford]

I've tried the 'Procter Trip Trap', but it wasn't very reliable. I had a look at the B&Q online store, but they don't show the traps I bought from them locally. It basically look like a black plastic square tube with about a 20 degree bend in the middle. They work very well. I bait them with peanut butter.

Jim

[~T~]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

We've got 2 humane traps (from B&Q - very effective. They're a square section tube with a crank in the middle.) and in the last six months have caught over 60 wood mice in the bedroom and around 20 in a downstairs study. Sometimes I've caught 3 in one night!

I release them in the garden. Some people have suggested that they come back inside, but I don't think they do - they're not really smart enough to retrace their steps. I think that what happened is that a pregnant female came in through the open French windows in the early Summer, and they've been breeding.

The trapping frequency has dropped off sharply now, so I think we've just about run them out of town!

They're cute little creatures and whilst I'm fed up with them, I bear them no ill feelings. They stink though!

jiM

Oh they will come right back in. One Christmas I had a woodmouse in my kitchen that I would catch and relocate outside upto 50 feet away in some wasteground behind my house. I caught it several times and sometimes I would catch and release it early evening and it would be back in the trap by the next morning. I knew it was the same one as it had lost most of it's tail and the end was kind of bent. I lived on the second floor too so it was pretty determined. I eventually took it much further away and released it in a local park as well as doing my best to block up any entry holes (it was getting in from a tiny hole behind the cooker). It never came back after that or any others for that matter.

[Billabong Karen]

Originally Posted by treecreeper

Ha ha! It wasn't. Neither was it The Three Mouseketeers

I bet she's an Agatha Christie fan...