How Can You Get Mice Out of a House in Duxford? – Price and Problem Guide

We are asked about this often, usually by people who do not want to kill anything and are looking for a way not to. That is a perfectly reasonable position and it deserves an honest reply about what does and does not work.

Live-Catch Traps Do Catch Mice

They work mechanically. A baited box or tube with a door that closes will catch a mouse, and mice are inquisitive enough to enter one readily — considerably more readily than a rat would, because they do not share the rat's fear of new objects.

The problem is what happens next.

The Release Problem

• A released mouse has to go somewhere. Releasing it in the garden means it comes back — it knows the property and the way in
• Released a long way off, it is put into unfamiliar territory already occupied by other mice, in weather and conditions it has no shelter for. The humane intent and the humane outcome are not the same thing
• It does nothing about the rest of them. Mice are social and a property that suits one suits several
• It does nothing about the gap. BPCA put a mouse at 5mm, and the gap is the reason there are mice at all
• Traps must be checked frequently — several times a day is the honest requirement. An animal left in a live trap for a day is not being treated humanely

The Genuinely Humane Approach Is Usually Prevention

The most humane thing anybody does about mice is make the property unusable before there is a problem, because no animal is harmed at all.

1. Proof the building. 5mm is the target, in metal — wire wool packed and sealed, or mesh. Foam and sealant do not hold.
2. Remove the food. Dry goods and pet food in sealed hard containers.
3. Remove harbourage: stored cardboard, undisturbed clutter, material in a garage or loft that never moves.
4. Deal with it early. A small problem needs less doing to it than an established one.

What We Do, and What We Will Discuss

Where a household would rather not have rodenticide used, say so at the point of booking. It changes what we do and it is a legitimate preference we will work with — trapping and proofing resolve a good number of mouse problems, and where there are children, pets or non-target wildlife to consider it is frequently the better approach anyway.

What we will not do is tell you that a live-catch trap will clear an established infestation, because it will not.