Any ideas please

Hi,

Whilst tidying my workshop this afternoon I noticed two things, firstly the damned mice are back and secondly I have a small rip in the rubber sheet that protects the vertical slide from swarf. My questions are this,

Firstly is there anything I can put down to make the mice want to go and live or at least chew things, somewhere else? if now what bait works best in a trap?

Secondly where have you found to be the best (err cheapest I guess) to but a small rubber sheet from?

Many thanks,

Ian

Mmmm couldn't edit the last post so erm make that quite a large rip.

Best bait for mouse traps I found was Rolos cut in half. Cheese doesn't work, the little blighters have to tug at the sticky Rolos to get them off and that's the end of them

For rubber sheet you could try your local tyre man, see if he has any old car inner tubes, or are they a thing of the past? I've had the fitted before now when the wheel rim went rusty and wouldn't seal, but it is a long time ago

Cats have been known to work.

I did briefly experience an invasion of voles in the garage and apple seemed to work for them. I felt a bit bad after I had trapped a couple and installed a sonic thingy that I plugged into a trailing socket near where I thought they were.

That seemed to clear them out, left the device in (about the size of a 13 A plug negligible power consumption) and nothing has come back since.

Thank you Duncan and Martin, I will try the sonic thing first, but if that doesn't work it's rolo and apple.

I bend the spike on the trap over slightly so it's a little bit hooked. Then push a nice raisin or sultana on there for them. The mice round here love them and they can't slip it off carefully.

Agricultural inner-tubes are more common....

Some more good ideas, thank you buffer and NDIY

That's exactly what I do, works a treat. We got 30 odd out of the roof of the bungalow when we moved in!

I don’t use rubber, I use used silicon oven sheets. They are thin and pretty heat proof, easily cut with scissors or knife. We buy them from Aldi.

We have had good success using the square tube human traps, mouse goes inside the tube where the bait is & his weight tips the tube. This closes the door on the open end of the tube trapping the mouse inside, you either let the mouse go if its still alive at a place of your choosing or do what you will with it. Mice are rather partial to a bit of peanut butter put in the far end of the trap & when the mouse goes in the door shuts. Whenever we have had a mouse we put 2 or 3 of these traps down to increase the chances of tempting the mouse.

Straight out of Uni I worked as a biologist for rentokill, if all else failed we used white unscented soap as bait. It will sit for many months without going bad and mice and rats love it.

Nutella (or copies) on dry bread for bait.
The problem with poisons is the predator that eats the dying mouse... and the unpleasant death.
A non-toxic option used by some here is to mix ground bait with pink finish (or the like). Still an unpleasant death but not toxic to the food chain. Apparently make good golf balls too if of a sick character...
Some may recall i fitted RatMat to protect my expensive car after it got eaten by rats - not a cheap excercise but cheaper than another car bill.

I also saw a teeter-totter design.. a magnet holding a baited walk-the-plank with enough force for mouse to climb ramp, go out on the plank when magnet hold fails and mouse falls into bucket...

pgk

Edited By Frances IoM on 25/03/2020 20:44:33

I like the ultrasonic deterrents, have them in my shed and garage, don't see any rodents or any signs of rodent activity, they have worked for years now.

Sheet rubber - if you can find a burst used tire tube, that will likely be cheapest. A tire shop or mechanic will likely give you a burst one free if he has one (they go in the bin otherwise)  You can also get sheet neoprene (oil resistant) from any seal or gasket supplier ie industrial supply firms, or maybe bearing suppliers.

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 25/03/2020 20:52:39

I use wooden breakback traps, our cat is useless usually bringing mice or voles in and losing them. The traps are cheap and may need some tweeking at first and don't forget to check them regularly, very rarely the creature can get caught but not killed quickly.

The traps need careful setting to easily trip. I bait with almonds or walnuts, most effective of the many baits I've tried.

Rob

Edited By Robert B on 25/03/2020 20:53:48

I use Nutella

I've had to deal with numerous rodent infestations, some very serious, where for instance in broad daylight in an occupied house queues of mouslings have been sitting in line waiting to be fed on the curtain rail over a front door. In the worst cases the only thing that works ultimately is poison bait laid out in generous quantities every day for two weeks at least; longer if the bait continues to be consumed even partly after that time. Traps of any kind don't work in the worst cases because the rodents learn to avoid them.

The best remedy is prevention: don't leave a sniff of food anywhere that they could get to in the night, and maintain scrupulous hygiene.

I have one of those electronic deterrent devices wired into the mains in the Shed roof - been up there many years. Also had a family of mice living there for even longer. I occasionally find the remains of a Grandad (or Grandma?) mouse who (I assume) has passed away of old age to a mousey cheese-laden heaven. I imagine enough mouse generations have come and gone by now that I've probably helped to breed a race of high-frequency sound resistant super-mice!

I suppose I could try to trap or poison them but that's been a bit problematic since (a long time ago) we started referring to them as the 'Shed Clangers' - a tail which my Sons unfortunately have passed onto my Grandchildren

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 25/03/2020 22:24:30

Make sure the trap is firmly held down. maybe screwed to a board , whatever bait you use try to fix it firmly to the trap. For squirrels I put the trap on safe for a few days to let them get used to it , your less likely to get escapers if they are confident. Last resort I apply pellets with a Walther .