Forum Topic

Rodent Diffuculties and Council Pest Control

Has anyone used Ealing council for mice recently and what was the service like if so? I have the blighters and nothing seems to be working - every type of poison on the market, electric repellers and after some persuading traps. The final option did catch and kill one a couple of weeks ago but our furry friends never come in ones and I've seen plenty of evidence of their continued presence since. Last time I used the council at another address they only came twice and put poison down which was removed on 2nd visit rather than chasing them away/ identifying and filling up holes. Plus their rate has gone up a fair bit to over £100 since. Any ideas gratefuly received.

Rupa Huq ● 5209d10 Comments

It is worse than letting them in - they actually bring them in to present to you to show how clever they are and/or how they don't think much of the tin of whatever it was cat food you put in the cat dish...  or they bring them in to play with... and simply lose them.

Philippa Bond ● 5199d

Rupa,Iain Ward is dead right.  No food, no mice.  Remove all food remains however small.  We have had them on and off in our house.  They are out there.  If you leave food out you have mice.  End of.  Cats are no use.  They wound the mice and let them go inside your house - I know our main source of mice right now is the damn cat.

Phil Taylor ● 5201d

You can't blame them for looking for somewhere warm!Sometimes I think they're happy with eating labels. They certainly chew soap bars and nested in our shoe cleaning rags.  (We obviously weren't cleaning shoes enough.)Make sure you keep biscuits, pasta, rice etc in tins or jars. They'll try all sorts of things.Keep your toaster clear of crumbs.Keep lids on your bins.

Philippa Bond ● 5205d

I find that the only way to get them out of your home is to be very clean and remove all traces of things that they can feed on.  They are opportunists, so are looking for food.  No food - no mice.Bear in mind that they may be able to get in to your bins, into cupboards and anywhere you store food.  I've even had them going in to my recycling bin as the containers in there (although they were rinsed) did still smell of food.  Look for droppings and you'll soon work out where they're going - clean them away and re-check to see if they're back.I've tried traps and had limited success no matter what the bait, but removing the food is the only way I find I keep them out of the flat.

iain ward ● 5206d

Hi Rupa, After trying various solutions myself (with very limited success) I eventually called in Ealing Council's pest control and was semi-happy. The first guy who came was very helpful, pointing out all the possible routes into/under the house in both the front and back garden, which I subsequently covered with wire mesh or filled with wire wool. He then told me that in all honesty the £60 I was about to pay him (Ealing rats get a discount!) would buy a whole lot of poison, if I wanted to do it on my own. I decided that I'd just pay the money and use him because he seemed very knowledgeable and honest. He then deposited poison all around the place and told me he'd personally stay on my 'case' until it was resolved. Couldn't have been happier following that first session.A few weeks later, to my disappointment, someone else turned up and didn't seem interested or helpful. He was in and out in less than a minute! But at that stage it was clear that the poison had worked and he kindly left me with some 'pot pourri' for the smell (that's a-whole-nother story!). Finally after another couple of weeks I arranged the final session to remove any unused poison. As usual I took the afternoon off work and waited...and waited. No appearance despite several calls to the council - each time being reassured he was on his way. Anyway, having used up a fair bit of my holiday allowance I just told them I'd deal with the remaining poison, which I tried to do. Slightly worryingly, some years later I'm still occasionally finding packets of poison. He must have put down >40 packets, into every knook and cranny. If you have kids or pets you need to be careful.Coming onto the latter part of this discussion, I now have a couple of cats who keep the place shipshape. Yes they do occasionally bring mice in from outside, but unless I am aware and can quickly rescue the mouse, none survive very long. They are certainly terrifying hunters. And there have been no more underfloor noises, etc., so I'm pretty happy.I'm also in Northfields (is this a rodent hotbed?), but much as I'd like to, I'm afraid I can't really loan the cats out to you - they're rescue cats and are very nervous of new places and people. But good luck with your problem. If you are using poison, my one piece of advice would be - think very carefully whether you can cope with the problem a little longer until the weather warms up. If one of them dies in an inaccessible place then the smells can be so unpleasant you'll have to move out for a couple of weeks!

Philip Slater ● 5206d

All good advice from other posters, but cats are generally useless at catching mice, although quite good at bringing live ones indoors and leaving them in your bed.  Blocking access is vital, but bear in mind that they seem to have a good memory of where they have found food in the past and will therefore keep coming back to look for more.  If they can’t find an easy way in, they will keep trying, therefore it’s essential to block up every possible entry point so they give up and go elsewhere.I have caught lots of mice using the Rentokil trap, available from B&Q.  Peanut butter works, also fruit such as raisins, and I’ve had much success with a tiny bit of Snickers bar.  Mice seem to like the chocolatey / caramel gooey-ness. When you catch one, keep on putting traps down as there may be more ‘relatives’ about.  If you’re squeamish about finding a dead mouse in a trap, my only advice is - get over it!  Would you rather have live mice running around your home? Just put on a rubber glove, open the trap and the body will drop out into the bin.  It’s all over with in a moment.  (Or you could of course throw away the trap with the mouse inside.)

Colin Richards ● 5206d

Hello again, thanks for these suggestions. Arthur, yours in particular was very comprehensive. The cat one from Phillipa was intriguing - not a course of action I have attemped yet. I've heard however that the modern cat does not have the sufficient "killer instinct" to do anything about mice. Anyway anyone who wants to lend one let me know, am in Northfields/ South Ealing neck of the woodsFinally apologies for mis-spelling of "difficulty" above, it was late-ish when I posted that initial message.

Rupa Huq ● 5207d

We used the council service a few months back. I'm not sure it did much, except prompt me to properly crawl around the flat stuffing wire wool into every little hole I could find in skirting boards and around kitchen units.We saw no evidence of the poisons the pest controller laid down having any effect on the mice. The only dead mice to come out of the whole thing died after I hit one several times with a rolled up magazine, after trapping it in the bathroom. Not a pleasant experience. My wife, terrified of mice, had a face down with an injured mouse a couple of weeks earlier and ended up sucking it up with the vacuum cleaner in a hysteria. Really, the best thing you can do is block their access to move around the house, and to your food. Don't leave scraps of food on the floor if you drop them during cooking/eating. Get some decent tupperware for storing dry goods, etc. And cheapo snap traps....although as Arthur above suggests, you're more likely to find the traps empty of bait than full of dead mouse.

M. Duley ● 5208d

Rupa,We had mice. It ain't nice. Getting on a bit and therefore sensitive to death/pro-life I invested in two live traps at great expense. Both were rendered useless after one "success". I use the word with some care because I believe the mouse I let go posted trap details on the web because shortly afterwards one trap was triggered and the mouse ate its way through to get in to the peanut butter.The other trapped a mouse which ate its way out.I threw those away and moved to execution traps selecting Kitcat type chocolate biscuit cubes as bait. The next day I found the cubes neatly stacked in a corner, the traps remained set and an order for 2 dozen more chocolate biscuit cubes but please not to stack them on the metal peg of a sprung wooden device and please leave just them in the corner. Well it gets worse before it gets better. We had a spring clean yes in autumn. I found evidence on top of the curtain valence dogends, crisp packets, empty lager tins and well thumbed copies of Mickey Mouse magazines. How did they get there? Clearly this was a Hickory Dickory Dock mouse. Have you got those Rupa?This was beginning to get serious. You start seeing mouse droppings in your sleep and stop using the pepper mill because of the similarity of the mouse poo to ground pepper. I found they don't like bleach the smell I mean . Then I looked for holes. Any gaps will let mice in. Our food storage sorry their food storage cupboard is under the stairs on the suspended timber floor part of the house. A short length of quadrant was nailed to close the gap between the skirting and the floor at the back of this cupboard. The door with a tight fit to the floor kept closed. We still had them. The kicking boards to kitchen units are often held on by spring clips and can be prized off. Check for pipes and cables passing through floors and walls. The pencil test is correct. Use a torch. Check all the way round a pipe. Our entry point was a gas pipe with a gap below it. I had looked at it a number of times and passed it as OK. But you needed a torch and a mirror to see it. That sealed we threw the mouse signpost (M4food) away and haven't had any problems since. Rupa it is a do-it-yourself job or better stll involve family and friends and you can afford to be generous say £5 a filled hole, beats the council hands down and you get a deep clean in the kitchen into the bargain.

Arthur Breens ● 5208d

I haven't used the Council service but when I did need to get rid of mice went for old-fashioned traps baited with peanut butter.They were underneath the kitchen cupboards and coming out when it was quiet to steal the cat's food.  Very amusing to watch but when I did creep up and catch one I couldn't face killing it myself and took it out and down the garden.  So it probably came back.I'd heard horrible first-hand stories of poisoned mice dying in inaccessible places with extremely smelly consequences - and of traps which didn't quickly despatch the mice which I felt was even more cruel.You need to look for where they are coming in.  Unbelievably if you can fit a pencil in the hole then a mouse can squeeze through. I believe wire wool can be used to fill holes.  Our problem was caused by the cats bringing them in and losing them.

Philippa Bond ● 5208d