Mice

We have a mouse!

No it is not the nice kind that the kids have as pets in a cage in their rooms, no, we are talking the uninvited kind that visits you during the night.

We knew we had one several months ago when we started to notice droppings in the cleaning product cupboard under the sink in the kitchen.

There is a hole at the back where some water pipes come through and so we knew how they were getting in.

So we went through the usual treatments.

First Steve said he was not poisoning it, so we cleared the cupboard of all the bottles and laid a trap with food on.

Unfortunately we have a very wise mouse/rat because they proceeded to eat the food of the trap BUT never set the thing off! Including when Steve put thread round the food for the mouse to get its teeth caught, it still managed to get the food but leave the string and the trap!

After about 2 weeks of this Steve finally said to me "Get some POISON"

So we laid some poison traps at the back of the cupboard and left them to it. Over the last several weeks they seem to have eaten all the poison, poo'd green, but still come and visit us in the middle of the night!

Here you can see the hole, with the poison trap and that we have activity there.

Apart from the fact we can tell that they are back through the cupboard we have also noticed some strange going ons in the kitchen.

I came down the other morning to find an apple by the dishwasher.

Now I know this wasn't there when we went to bed, and the boys had not got up yet, so it was strange to find it there.

What was even stranger was the little bites all over it.

2 nights later we came down in the morning to find the banana half eaten. The black on the bench is banana skin, nothing else!

What amazes us about all this is just how they are getting up onto the bench? We can only assume they are climbing up the new curtains beside the bench.

2 nights ago we came down in the morning to find most of the apples in the bowl with lots of teeth marks over them where people had had little chews, and it is definitely not the boys, although I do know Alex likes to have a wee chew and put it back, but it is the wrong size and shape for him. Again the bits in the bowl are skin nothing else!

Steve informed me today that when he came down this morning there was another apple half chewed over by the dishwasher again.

The mouse can get under the dishwasher as it is next to the kitchen cupboard under the sink.

So we have now invested in an even bigger meaner trap, which I have been assured should work.

You load food, in this case we will use apple as he seems to have a liking for it, on the plate with the circle bit on and then when they step on the plate part to get the food the lid slams down shut, either trapping them or something worse!

Although Steve can be the one to come down each morning and check it.

And if I hear it go off in the night he will be the one that gets kicked to wake up and go check it out!

We will also look at ways to close off the hole under the dishwasher and maybe blocking the hole under the sink with temporary filling, as we do need to get to this hole if there is a problem with the dishwasher.

So I will keep you posted with our success and if any of you have any tips on how to get rid of our unwanted visitor then please leave a comment to let me know.