A big complaint

[Wilderbeast]

I don't usually complain about stuff, but at the moment I am very dissapointed and angry.

Recently our house has been over run with mice, so far we've caught 9. The trap we were using was a humaine trap. This was working fine but eventually the mice worked out how to get out of it, so we started to play hard ball. I wanted to use the classic "little nipper" mouse traps, strong and reliable, nice clean kill. However my mum was coaxed into buying these,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Cheese-..._17?ie=UTF8&s=outdoors&qid=1256664994&sr=1-17

as she's a little squemish and was told these would be cleaner and easier, however they were far more expensive than listed here. When she produced them this morning I was certain they would be rubbish, they just don't look strong enough to kill a mouse. However mum was assured they would work so we set them. About an hour ago I had to collect a mouse that was squirming because it had caught its neck in the trap, the trap hadn't killed it, just damaged its neck so it was in alot of pain. I then had to collect the squirming mouse in a glass, I took it down to our drop off point and released it, it limped away, and unfortunatley got itself into a place where I couldn't finish the poor thing off.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not sentimental about killing rodents, not one bit. But I am not a fan of unnecessary suffering which this clearly was. I am angry because these mouse traps simply do not work, and is a classic example of a namby pamby way round to killing a mouse, instead of a clinical clean death, it's had a slow and nasty one why? Because who ever designed that mouse trap clearly didn't know how to ensure a clean kill the majority of the time. This is why "clever and fashionable design" should not be implimented into a machine for killing, it really annoys me!

Has anyone else used these traps and had a similar sort of thing? Did they work with you? Also does anyone know a better way of getting rid of our infestation??!!

Thanks for your time, as I say I don't usually complain but this has annoyed me greatly!

Thanks

Will

 

[locum76]

Borrow a cat?

 

[relfy]

As you say little nippers work..... something that definitely doesn't work is those ultra-sonic noisy things that are supposed to repel them. The mice/ rats don't mind them, but I certainly did, terrible noise, did my head in.

 

[Wilderbeast]

have a cat it's bloody useless!

 

[demographic]

The mice must be getting food from somewhere, stop that and the mice problem will calm down'

 

[jojo]

I agree these things are worse than useless and don't work. We had a lot a mice last year and I tried those, and one of the poor beasty got damaged in the same way. I don't particularly like to kill animals because they inconvenience me, but there were really a lot of them. So I ended using the little nippers which do their job quickly. I have 2 cats... useless things bring the mice in and let them off into the house :AR15firin No wonder there were a lot of them...Enough said about cats (where is the skin a cat smilie )

 

[Wilderbeast]

The mice must be getting food from somewhere, stop that and the mice problem will calm down'

The food is comming from the person next door, and they're comming into our house but we don't know how or where!

 

[British Red]

Thirded - tried them and found trapped and not depatched mouse. Despatched same and threw away traps for something with more snap. Truly dreadful equipment.

 

[pwb]

Couldn't agree more Will.

I came across those traps while working on an old farm house on the estate. At first I thought they were a joke item, you could actually set them off on your finger, very weak coil spring.

I've always used these at home along with bait in out buildings. Living in the country, come the colder nights is when we see an influx , got to keep on top of the problem.
Nine sounds like quite a lot.

Pete.
PS I find it better to tweak the trigger mechanism a bit , watch your fingers though.

 

[bigant]

we had the same problem but with rats... so my dad was supposed to get some proper fast humane kill traps but he got some of these.... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-X-HEAVY-DUT...ants_Weed_Pest_Control_CV?hash=item1c0c946503

what a useless pile of... not one of them managed to kill a rat 2 of them just held the poor thing there other 2 the rat just pulled its head out and 1 disapered and we cant find it.. i went out and got some proper jobbies that do the job.. hate having to kill anything esp when its just doing what they do naturally but when they are in the house its time to act.

 

[Toddy]

Not sentimental about rodents, but that's really bad if the traps are so dire.
Tell Amazon, if no one complains, nothing changes.

We had a mouse came up through the pipe chase into what had been the boiler cupboard,( and we had been wondering why on Earth the cat kept wanting into the cupboard , ) it ate the insides of a trainer

Anyway, not being squeamish, but not really wanting to kill the beastie for just following it's nature, and knowing that I was about to totally fill in it's access, I bought the rentokill
humane traps. Worked fine baited with peanut butter, Wee mouse released over the burn and the holes fixed so others couldn't come back in. The rentokill ones came from poundland of all places. I think they are their last years models. No fuss, no bother.

Next week the cat caught and ate at least six mice, that I saw her with, in the garden, but there were no more in the house; population explosion maybe among the rodents.

If your cats haven't been used to finding and catching mice they won't make much effort at first. Mine spends most of her life wandering around the garden and among the trees along the burn, mice are just another meal for her......frogs on the other hand well, let's just say that even cats learn

cheers,
Toddy

 

[stevesteve]

I am trying to get the little beggars out of my garage. I think they are there for the shelter rather than food as they make nests everywhere I store paper, cloths... I even found a nest in my box of plumbing stuff this evening!

I have tried the humane trap from the Big Cheese people. Lots of poo on to og=f it so it looks like they were having a party but none inside it. The plastic BC traps were useless but the old wood and wire Nippers seem to snap the necks pretty cleanly. I may well invest in some of those metal jobs though for the winter.

Interesting to hear how well the ultrasonic things work for folk as I was considering them.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Neumo]

Those traps sound rubbish. I would go for lots of good old fashioned ones (wood or metal base) with a strong spring. A single cashew nut on the post/trigger has worked well for me in the past. It helps a lot if you can find where they are coming into the house & then bloc that off. A bit of the old builders foam (plastic foam in a can) works well if you squirt a load into the void in the wall has worked for me. I have found that they usually come in a floor level through a hole chewed in the wall, so it's worth checking all the skirting boards, beghind fridges, washing machines etc.. You can usually take the plinth off the bottem of kitchen units and have a look with a torch. Good luck with the problem When I was a student we used to sit in the lounge & hear the traps going off in the kitchen every 20 minutes at one place we had.

 

[pwb]

Interesting to hear how well the ultrasonic things work for folk as I was considering them.

A friend ,who's car the mice took a liking to causing two big garage bills, tried the ultrasonic deterrents .
He's now using mouse bait .

Pete.

 

[demographic]

The food is comming from the person next door, and they're comming into our house but we don't know how or where!

Ahh, fair enough.
Might not be the traps that's the problem...

 

[MoocherMick]

The food is comming from the person next door, and they're comming into our house but we don't know how or where!

An adult mouse can get through a 6mm gap so getting in your house is not really a problem for them, as to where try putting flour or talc on horizontal surfaces to track movement.
seal any holes around pipes etc with expanding foam and wire wool (can't chew through wire wool).
Little nipper spring traps are probably the pest/cheapest method.Humane traps are pointless as its illegal to release rodents back into the wild so you have to kill it. Not very neighborly but you could consider reporting neighbor to local authority, everybody has a duty to keep premises free of pests (it's the law).

Mick (retired pest controller)

 

[spamel]

Little nippers up against the wall, baited but not set for a few days. Once they are taking the bait, set them and eradicate the mice in no time at all. I had to clear a hangar in the Falkland Islands from an infestation of mice, took me ages to find out where they were coming from until I spotted them running up the breeze block wall and in to a small hole in the ceiling, living in the cavity there. For me, double deckers and toffee crisp worked well on the traps.

 

[Adze]

Don't use bait unless you like the smell of decomposing mouse. All they'll do is feel a bit ill, hide under your fridge/floorboards/etc. die and cause the most unholy stink.

Humane traps generally aren't as effective or humane as people like to think - if you release the mice within about half a km they just find their way straight back to you. If you take them long distance, there will almost certainly already be a resident rodent population and the mouse you've just released will end up getting killed by the residents.

The definition of humane trap, as far as I'm concerned, is one which kills the mouse as instantly as possible. Although, why use 'all metal shop bought' traps? It's not very bushcrafty is it? Come on, where's the deadfall trap practice or the spring snare powered by a willow sapling?

Another -1 vote for the ultrasonics they really are cr...ubbish. Mother-in-law (who is a budhist) swore it would work, didn't make a lick of difference, trapping cleared them in a weeked and repointing a section of brickwork on the back of the house stopped them getting in - job done

 

[Indoorsout]

Find a freind with a ferret. Much better than a cat. My ex has never had a rodent problem despite the amount of animals she has even though the surrounding houses got them during one bad year. They wouldn't come near a house with a ferret!

 

[Martyn]

Can I ask why you didn't kill the mouse straight away when you took it from the trap?


But you are right, that sounds bad. Little nippers are not good either - they are sprung only on one side and if the mouse approaches from the other side, it can trigger the trap without being killed outright. There are lots of examples of people finding crippled, but live mice in little nippers.

The "Rentokill Advanced Mousetrap" is the best by miles...

It is double sprung, very powerful and has a short travel, so it's very fast. Baited with peanut butter, it's absolutely lethal. There are other companies that make this design and they all seem good and you can also get a much bigger version for rats.