Solving a wee problem
If you had the choice of a well bedded, safe, warm penthouse with meals gifted in your path, or a life bobbing on a rain-lashed barley stalk- where would you choose? Mice come into our homes, because they are invited in by insufficient physical defences and sloppy housekeeping. Unless confined to a cage with an adoring infant keeper and their own workout wheel, they are extremely bad news. Mice can squeeze their malleable, tiny bodies through the faintest 6mm gap around the wiring and pipe-work. Holes in cavity block-work, the warm warren of timber frame, and other welcoming cavities leave your home wide open. Height is no barrier to intrusion and they can leap up as much as 30cm and cling to rough render as good as any David Blaine.
The first time you will probably realise you are hosting Mus Domesticus (the house mouse) or Apodemus Sylvaticus (the field mouse), is when you notice their tea-leaf like droppings collected in drawers or glinting from beneath work-top appliances. However, what you don’t see is the invisible route written in mouse urine, but you may pick up a musky ammonia smell. Mice don’t have a sphincter muscle and happily trickle a ghastly trail of 70 droppings a day. The eye to eye introduction may take place anywhere from the end of the vacuum pipe to a soft springing across the duvet — an unforgettable and highly reactive moment.
Close proximity to orphaned foodstuffs, tracked into dark corners, will delight the opportunist mouse. Soon a female will be breeding up eight young a month and in a few short weeks those off-spring will go forth and multiply. A devoted pair of mice can result in a population of 3,000 little interbred friends over 12 months. As a mouse’s teeth continue to grow throughout its life it has to gnaw to keep them in trim. Evidence of nibbles may be on show or they may be discreetly chewing through hidden cabling. Mice carry the same diseases as rats including salmonellas and a family of diseases known as leptospirosis, the worst of which is Weils disease. The ‘smell’ of a cat does little to unsettle mice, even if the cat may snag the odd straggler.
You can of course call out the professionals. Mouse removal should only be part of a three-pronged attack to rid yourself of their poisonous pitter-patter in the long term. The three key issues are sanitation, exclusion (see our top tips) and finally the murky topic of population reduction.
The standard back-breaking trap is highly affective in dealing with most domestic mouse problems, and the stiff little body can be disposed of quickly and cleanly. Bait the trap with peanut butter or a little rasher (mice don’t favour cheese) and place close to the wall where mice are likely to run. Use several traps in one location for optimum results, set a couple of metres feet apart. Live traps and sticky boards that take the mouse alive are potentially cruel if you don’t check them on a very regular basis and dispatch your captive quickly and cleanly. If you are escorting a mouse from your premises deposit it at least 300 metres from the house or he will simply go home again.
Ultrasonic devices have a limited success repelling mice, and they soon become used to any repeated noise, and as the sound is directional it does not carry around corners. The nuisance of electromagnetic can be transmitted to a wider furry audience through household cabling. Put one device in per floor (around 50msq) and persist with their use for a month to allow parent mice guarding nest sites to pick up and leave. Argos offers a Beacon Advanced Dual Action unit for €40.49 that will also get any rats in an uproar.
If you have the heart to poison the mice (and your pest team are stoic in this regard), they will wander off to die in some distress. The type held in a mouse penetrable box is safer than loose granules. www.rapdipests. €6.08.
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