YIKES! Mice!

Our masses of bird food is stored in large plastic tubs outside - it’s been several years and nobody’s gnawed through them yet, touch wood.
We do quite often see little mice in the feeders, though - usually after dark, when dh is filling them up.

I used to have a problem with mice here, which I solved by catching them in humane traps and taking them for a long walk, or drive. ( I can't bear to kill them). But I read last year that they don't like the smell of peppermint oil, so I now sprinkle it around where I suspect they used to come in and have not seen a mouse, nor any droppings, since. It seems to work. Unless it's sheer coincidence and they just don't like it here any more..

Very amused by all the mouse catching stories, which ring lots of bells! Past cats have brought live mice in to play with and we have caught them in a net. I once heard yells from the utility room when my young granddaughter had put her foot into her wellyboot and found a dead mouse inside. I still have the picture she drew of a mouse emerging from a boot.
Agree that peanut butter is the best bait for humane traps.
Please keep the stories coming!

Since having cats over the last few years no mouse problem, apart from the one that Mia brought in and obligingly dropped on the living room carpet. Took me ages to catch it and release it outside. I know they`re not healthy, but I must confess to a secret liking for them, they`re pretty, pretty clever as well.

GrannyOwl5

We keep the seed in the shed in an old kitchen bin with a tight fitting lid. We knew there were mice around, but they were left in peace until DH saw two tails whisking around a corner of a shelf. With visions of a growing family we bought a humane trap last week and baited it with pieces of fat balls. So far, in a week we have caught 14 mice ??; never mind a family, there’s a town in my shed! DH has released them into our nearby park; he releases them by the same shrub so they can find one another and we just hope that no one watches what this man with a blue plastic bag is doing lurking in the bushes several times a day! ??

They come home.

Put a dab of red shoe polish or something on them and you’ll see?

I keep my seed in a metal 'bin'. Too tempting for them otherwise.

I once went into the garage to open up a new sack of dog food - Skinner’s 23 - to find the sack completely empty! It was still standing up and looked fine, but the mice had gnawed a hole at the bottom corner and eaten every last bit. We kept the sacks unopened and opened after that in clean dustbins.

They’re little buggers in the greenhouse too, any sort of bean seeds, sunflowers and sweet pea seeds. All started indoors now.

Oh no, I would have gone to pieces, if that happened to me!

I once worked in a school with a mouse problem. The pest control person told us to store anything edible in tins rather than plastic boxes with lids on.
Hope they go away ASAP.

We now use an old metal lidded milk pail to store bird seeds now, after mice nibbled their way into the plastic tub we used to use!
My husbands rucksack, stored in a cupboard now has a neat hole in the top pocket where a cereal bar had been overlooked!Mice must have an excellent sense of smell!

One spring I discovered that a mouse had decided my wellington boots in the garage would make a good place to build a nest to overwinter in ?

Love all these mouse tales lol. Maybe I’ll buy a thicker tub.?

Two dogs and a cat, recently my husband humanely caught 17 mice in our utility room. I left some dog treats in my coat pocket and one of the little blighters had eaten through the bag.

I use an old jam jar to transfer bird seed from the bag to the feeder. Imagine my shock one day when I went to empty the jam jar p, only to see a wee mouse staring back at me from inside the jar! ?

I keep the seed in a study crate now.

We had mice in our (brick-built) shed. They made a lovely nest in our cat's carrier . They went after a while.

We keep our bird seed in plastic tubs in the garage now and the mice don't seem interested, although we did used to find them eating their way in to the bags and thinner tubs. Maybe they can't smell them or something. We still find the odd mouse in there - we have lots of boxes where they can keep warm over the winter.

We keep the seed in the shed in an old kitchen bin with a tight fitting lid. We knew there were mice around, but they were left in peace until DH saw two tails whisking around a corner of a shelf. With visions of a growing family we bought a humane trap last week and baited it with pieces of fat balls. So far, in a week we have caught 14 mice ??; never mind a family, there’s a town in my shed! DH has released them into our nearby park; he releases them by the same shrub so they can find one another and we just hope that no one watches what this man with a blue plastic bag is doing lurking in the bushes several times a day! ??

They can chew through plastic and metal.

We keep our seed in the shed in thick plastic boxes with tight fitting lids and have no problems. But I really don’t like them. I was once at my best friends and saw one walk across her bread board I nearly passed out lol.

They like peanut butter, MerylStreep

We decant ours into a polythene tub and so far, so good.

However, a friend got a rat in her garden shed after she put a large bag of bird seed in there.

My OH has caught ( by hand) 4 in the past 6 weeks. Yesterday we thought we had seen the last of them. Now today, another baby has appeared. We have every trap known to man. They don’t go near any of them.
The DONT have access to any food. The waste bins are put out every night.
I have to admire there fortitude in a bizarre way.

Haha! I know what you mean about them giving you a fright!
I had two opportunist mice who spent one winter happily living in a cardboard box of fat balls I'd stored on a shelf in my undercover outdoor play area. They were the fattest mice you'd ever see ?
The main problem was they'd also chewed their way through loads of my outdoor toys, so I'm afraid they had to be deterred.
I bought a strong Really Useful plastic box to put the fatballs in.
I still get mouse droppings on the shelves over the winter so I know the mice still visit, but the fatballs are safe so far ?

Rentakil mouse traps are good (i.e.effective and humane).

Rats can. Not sure about mice.