Little buggers

[Firebottle]

I did catch a couple of tiny little creatures with long noses and these were probably too light to operate the conventional trap but could still eat the bait.

Those will be shrews. Caught a few of those when we used to get mice in the loft in France.

[AJSki2fly]

Just had a read of this thread, and last 2 weeks we put and end to 6 mice in our roof. Sue heard them scampering around in the afternoon when she was recovering from her hospital visit a month or so ago. After a week now we seem to be free of them, luckily they do not seem to have done any damage. I have yet to find where they were getting in.

[Macca]

Those will be shrews.

They can be tamed.

[Macca]

Those with the mice might want to consider capturing a number of them alive apropos constructing a 'Mouse Organ' like in Monty Python

[mad-moon]

They also make great burger meat...

[goraman]

If you have room build them a little shed, stack some wood pallets and add some straw and hay ,cut pieces large PVC pipe .
A bag of dried corn, your old vegetables will keep them in the shed area, as long as they have food and water ,safety they are not prone to wander.
Do it right and you will have lots of little friends. You don't have to kill them.

The mouse organ is a terrible idea.

[dave2010]

Ants, I usually deter and kill with the powder in plastic tubs. Spread it around where they get in and they take it back to the nest. Couldn't find any of the Nippon gel stuff in the shops.

I was able to source the Nippon stuff quite easly via Amazon. Of course shortly after the new tube arrived I found the one we've had stored away for a while.

[nonuffin]

A little update on my rat problem.

Every single night we would get at least two rats inside the house and as fast as I was putting steel plates over the holes that I found they were making new ones. I canot tell you how anxious and stressed I was getting hearing them gnawing away night after night. I woke one night at 3.00am and saw one scampering down the back of the fridge (6ft tall no less), another ran across the sitting room and hid behind the settee, then another in my listening room behind the rack. Went back to bed feeling utterly despondent.

The next day the boiler stopped working so I called a plumber out and found the little shits had chewed through most of the wiring of our new boiler. Bill for nearly £200 to contend with. How, I don't know but they had even chewed through the cables that feed the under cabinet lights - the 12volt lines worse luck. Time to get serious about getting rid of them while I still had a house and my sanity left.

Went through each room with a keen eye and found several hidden holes which were covered over with plates. Then I went around the outside of the house with cans and cans of expanding foam squirted into every likely looking gap. Next, I went underneath the house and reinforced the foam inside with 13mm chicken wire folded double for good measure, then added more foam onto that. Where the wood floors were softened from water damage and where they were gnawing the most, that got a triple layer of chicken wire to protect it.

I had bought some poison blocks off ebay which are a reddish colour and although they were being carried away there were no dead rats as a reward. I then bought a large bag of blue BIG CHEESE blocks which got two of them into the traps and a day or two later the unmistakeable stink of corpses, a nice tally of four big males.

Having gone the belt and braces route, I read up that rats cannot abide the smell of peppermint oil, citronella and Bay Leaves, so there is a dose of each next to existing holes. It also said that rats love eating onions but it is fatal to them so a pile of that chopped into quarters is also under the house too.

As I type this it is now 10 days since a rat has been inside the house, although we have seen them out in the garden once or twice. I am perfectly happy for them to run around in the garden although a stone lobbed at them may give the hint this eaterie is now off limits.

I don't relish the thought of killing these animals but they are far too destructive and carry too many diseases to be allowed into my home.

[Sherwood]

A little update on my rat problem.

Every single night we would get at least two rats inside the house and as fast as I was putting steel plates over the holes that I found they were making new ones. I canot tell you how anxious and stressed I was getting hearing them gnawing away night after night. I woke one night at 3.00am and saw one scampering down the back of the fridge (6ft tall no less), another ran across the sitting room and hid behind the settee, then another in my listening room behind the rack. Went back to bed feeling utterly despondent.

The next day the boiler stopped working so I called a plumber out and found the little shits had chewed through most of the wiring of our new boiler. Bill for nearly £200 to contend with. How, I don't know but they had even chewed through the cables that feed the under cabinet lights - the 12volt lines worse luck. Time to get serious about getting rid of them while I still had a house and my sanity left.

Went through each room with a keen eye and found several hidden holes which were covered over with plates. Then I went around the outside of the house with cans and cans of expanding foam squirted into every likely looking gap. Next, I went underneath the house and reinforced the foam inside with 13mm chicken wire folded double for good measure, then added more foam onto that. Where the wood floors were softened from water damage and where they were gnawing the most, that got a triple layer of chicken wire to protect it.

I had bought some poison blocks off ebay which are a reddish colour and although they were being carried away there were no dead rats as a reward. I then bought a large bag of blue BIG CHEESE blocks which got two of them into the traps and a day or two later the unmistakeable stink of corpses, a nice tally of four big males.

Having gone the belt and braces route, I read up that rats cannot abide the smell of peppermint oil, citronella and Bay Leaves, so there is a dose of each next to existing holes. It also said that rats love eating onions but it is fatal to them so a pile of that chopped into quarters is also under the house too.

As I type this it is now 10 days since a rat has been inside the house, although we have seen them out in the garden once or twice. I am perfectly happy for them to run around in the garden although a stone lobbed at them may give the hint this eaterie is now off limits.

I don't relish the thought of killing these animals but they are far too destructive and carry too many diseases to be allowed into my home.

That's a tall rat! Should be easy to find how it is getting in. My guess is the front door!

[walpurgis]

A shotgun is rather effective against rats. The only snag is the devastated woodwork and plaster.