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Mice


Onoff

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Received an email from a tenant about mice. Victorian terrace, 2 up, 2 down with a rear ground floor extension. Seems in the cold weather they've moved in! Other residents along the road are reporting similar. The pest control guy reckons the source is an empty property next to mine. I've contacted the landlord and he's said he'll go round and put fresh bait down though as there's no food on the premises they can't be coming from there...

 

The two main rooms downstairs of my let are suspended wooden floors. Basically a lounge at the front with newly fitted carpet then the kitchen diner at the back, the two rooms separated by the stairs with a cupboard underneath.

 

The kitchen/diner has quite a decent spec laminate floor but it appears the last owner's kitchen fitter put the units up on the old floor boards then only did the laminate up to the cupboards not under. Consequently there's gaps at the edge:

 

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I previously went round before letting, getting behind all the cupboards hoovering any fluff, rubbish etc and intumescent foam filling any gaps between board edges and wall. (I appreciate they can eventually chew through foam).

 

Went over yesterday and with an endoscope and by pulling a couple of kickboards off, found a couple of holes under the units I'd missed before. Stuffed with wire wool and intumescent foamed over.

 

Did similar where the mains electric comes up through the floorboards under the stairs. Not immediately obvious but gaps around that "bigger than a pencil".

 

I'm also thinking the air bricks might be an ingress point? I've ordered some 5mm stainless mesh I'll cut to size and CT1 in place. Meanwhile I'll pop back and fit some galv mesh of similar size temporarily.

 

One like this a couple of metres off the deck and two similar at low level.

 

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Wait and see now if it makes any difference.

 

I'm quite happy to get a pest controller in but guessing he'll only he putting poison down and hoping for repeat business rather than stopping them getting in!

 

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I had mice coming from next door in a previous terraced house.  I reckon they were getting through the crappy brickwork around the ends of floor joists, tracking across the void and then popping out around the pipework in the nice warm boiler cupboard.  If there is no food next door, that's probably why they're visiting your tenant.  Get some traps down!

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I doubt you will make a standard Victorian house mouse proof.  They only need a tiny hole to get it, an air brick hole s all they need.

 

A pot of rat poison and knowing where to put it is a pretty standard thing is a house in the countryside up here.  Usually putting some in the loft deals with them.  I am convinced at out lasy house they got in by climbing up the render outside then in through the obligatory roof vents into the loft.

 

Our new house, air tight, has proved mouse proof so far, there simply is not a hole large enough for them to get in. 

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Pain in the butt. My daughters house is a Two up, Two Down, with a 1990 extension on the rear. The ground floor is concrete, and the walls solid brick. The extension is brick and block cavity. Lots of noise in the extension ceiling. I spoke to a pest control buddy, who said you can put poison down forever, but you have to find the entry points or you will be doing it forever. Turns out my daughters unpaying guests are rats..... I inspected the outside of the extension and found a rat burrow in the next door garden. I think they are somehow getting in to the extension cavity wall, and crawling up the cavity into the roof space. I stuffed  wire wool down the burrow as far as possible, and temp blocked it with bricks to see if that was the entry point. ( I will concrete it up if i am right) I also put poison in the ceiling cality, by cutting a hole in the celing, and fitting a cheap hatch from Screwfix. My mate said that if the rat, or rats were trapped inside it would take Two weeks for them to die. If noise continued after that time, then they still had a get in, get out place.... Anyway, exactly Two weeks later the noise seems to have stopped (fingers crossed) So it would appear that i might have found the entrance. She now has the smell, and a lot of air fresh plug in things. I'm hoping that the smell will go before the summer heat hits...My only alternative will be to pull the ceiling down....Fingers crossed that i have atleast stopped them getting in. Do your best to find and points of entry and get them sorted. I sometimes think mice are worse, as once inside the little buggers seem to be able to climb onto counters etc with ease. Good luck with your quest OnOff, and keep your fingers crossed for me.

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Always traps for me inside the house; the smell of decaying rodent turns my stomach ?

(I also only use traps outside now too; we've a healthy and varied owl population and I don't want to risk secondary poisoning).

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Update. I popped over to the tenant today and meshed over the 3 air bricks temporarily with some galv mesh held in place with dobs of CT1. Stainless mesh will replace it later on.

 

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One bit of good news the tenants report they came downstairs this morning to no signs of mice overnight. I'd like to think I maybe did find the hole(s). Time will tell.

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Update...call from the tenant just after 10pm, could hear noise from behind the washing machine.

 

Went over and pulled the kickboard off. Mouse ran out and into the airing cupboard under the door. Got everything out of there and after a bit of a chase THINK it went out the open back door. At least it can't get back in the air brick. Fingers crossed a local moggy gets it! ?

 

Pulled the WM out and found a hole where it had chewed through the expanding foam applied months ago for draught proofing. It appears it was trapped in the house and trying to get back under the floor as all the debris was top side. (I didn't pull the WM yesterday as it was full of baby clothes and didn't want to disrupt them too much). 

 

Packed the latest hole tonight with bunched up fine stand copper wire (all I had) and gun foamed in place. 

 

If the issue reoccurs I'm going to cut and fit lengths of aluminium angle iron where the floor boards meet the wall (and screw it down to the floorboards).

 

Tenant reckons nextdoor and nextdoor but one have them too. He was very apologetic for calling so late. Whatever it takes, who needs sleep? ?

 

 

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Down to one mouse...we think, or a least a lot less. Hoping maybe a trap will sort. 

 

I reckon a big issue is where they removed the original skirting exposing the ends of the floor boards where they don't quite meet the wall. I'm hoping to pay another visit. One more cupboard to get behind then maybe angle iron time!

 

IMG_20210307_133404380.jpg

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On a related note, was walking the (new) dog a few days ago and was watching two red kites duelling in the sky. Cue something plummet to the ground and my lab pup snatch it up and run off with it and evade my best attempts to retrieve. As she got closer, I saw it was a disembowelled mouse and I eventually persuaded her to drop it and have a nice doggy treat instead.

 

Felt bad for the kites loosing their lunch like that...

 

 

 

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52 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

On a related note, was walking the (new) dog a few days ago and was watching two red kites duelling in the sky. Cue something plummet to the ground and my lab pup snatch it up and run off with it and evade my best attempts to retrieve. As she got closer, I saw it was a disembowelled mouse and I eventually persuaded her to drop it and have a nice doggy treat instead.

 

Felt bad for the kites loosing their lunch like that...

 

 

 

 

My cat would bring a mouse home and the dog, a flat coat retriever would snatch it and gulp it down if it could just to deny the cat. It ALWAYS came back up at the most inopportune moment...whilst we were having dinner etc. 

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1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Our cat always eats the mice she catches, but for some reason will never eat a Shrew if she catches one of them.

 

Think I've mentioned before our cat always leaves that greenish internal organ on the stairs right where I tread on it...

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Found a dead mouse in my shoe the other morning .... the D$%k Head, lazy, greedy ball of fur i live with has a death wish (P.S. this is a cat im talking about ... my GF lives in her own house).

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1 hour ago, markc said:

Found a dead mouse in my shoe the other morning .... the D$%k Head, lazy, greedy ball of fur i live with has a death wish (P.S. this is a cat im talking about ... my GF lives in her own house).

I can beat that.  I found a live mouse had made a nest in a welly left in the garage.

 

And on another occasion, a mouse had collected peanuts from the bird feeders, and tucked them away as his winter store in one of my rigger boots.

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58 minutes ago, markc said:

Found a dead mouse in my shoe the other morning .... the D$%k Head, lazy, greedy ball of fur i live with has a death wish (P.S. this is a cat im talking about ... my GF lives in her own house).

 

Good mouser ours.

 

IMG_20210311_175108.thumb.jpg.427282740515e50a4d2dcc9993c7075d.jpg

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23 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I can beat that.  I found a live mouse had made a nest in a welly left in the garage.

 

I'll raise you a RAT under the fabric battery cover of my then daily driver, the Golf GTI where it had built a nest. I'd not been driving the car much during the first lockdown.I popped the bonnet to check the fluids etc and it was like whack a mole.

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