Where Should You Look for Mouse Entry Points Around a Duxford Property? – Practical Local Guide

The inside search tells you where the mice are. The outside search tells you how they got there, and it is the half that decides whether it happens again.

Before You Start

Take a torch and hold it low, raking across surfaces rather than pointing it straight on — a 5mm gap and a smear mark both disappear in flat light. Go slowly, at ankle height, all the way round, and then do a second circuit looking up. Photograph what you find and note it; do not seal anything yet.

At Ground Level

• Every pipe and cable entry. Waste, supply, gas, electrical, telecoms, satellite. Look at the filler around each one — shrunk, cracked or missing is the usual finding
• Air bricks. Cracked plastic covers, missing covers, or a cover with a slot wide enough to matter
• Door thresholds, particularly a back door or a garage door. The gap under a garage door is rarely small
• Where the wall meets the ground, for gaps into a cavity
• Where an extension meets the original building, for shrinkage cracks at the junction
• Around a soil pipe where it passes through the wall
• Around an outside tap, a meter box or a boiler flue
• Beneath a conservatory or a porch, where the build-up leaves a void

Then Look Up

This is the half people skip, and mice climb confidently.

• Eaves, where the roof meets the wall
• Soffit and fascia joints, especially at a corner
• The verge, at a gable end
• Vents, including old flue and extract terminals
• Lifted or slipped tiles
• Where a downpipe or a soil vent passes the roofline
• The junction where a lower roof meets a wall, over a bay or a single-storey extension

Outbuildings and the Rest

• Garage, shed and outbuilding doors, at the bottom corners
• Where a garage is attached to the house, and any connecting door
• The base of a shed on bearers
• Bin stores and log stores against the wall
• Anywhere stored material sits against the building

What Counts as a Find

Anything you could push the eraser end of a pencil into. BPCA put a mouse at a gap of 5mm, and mice gnaw, so anything close to that is worth writing down even if it looks too small today.

Smearing at the edge of an opening is the strongest single finding — a greasy dark mark where an animal has repeatedly squeezed through. That is not a possible entry point, that is the entry point.