Personal Ramblings (Well it's mainly all Mice really) 01/10/2007
Mon, 1 October, 2007 – 10:07 pm
It's been a long week this past week. Mainly due to the mice we've experienced in our kitchen (yes that's mice, plural!!!).
If you're not interested in our ongoing mouse saga, jump to the rest of my ramblings.
Tuesday morning I heard a noise coming from the fridge/freezer, however I put it down to the actual fridge/freezer just being noisy (you know, when it sounds like it's going on then off). Later on that day we were both working and heard a similar noise. After going out into the kitchen again we heard the noise coming from a plastic storage box where we kept our pasta and noodles in. Dave picked the box up and put it on the floor and this little mouse jumped up. Arrgggghhh! I opened the kitchen door and he took the box outside, the mouse then jumped out and ran off. We then emptied the entire box into a rubbish bag and gave it a complete wash out and left it soaking outside. About an hour later I heard another similar noise (and our door and window were both tightly shut!) coming from beside the fridge/freezer. We couldn't see much so I moved my deckchair out the way (stored flat down the side of the fridge). I put it on the floor and suddenly a mouse jumped off that and ran under some shelves. I jumped quite far back too! So we put out some more mouse poison, shut the kitchen door and ordered takeaway for the night! Which unfortunately was pretty rubbish (see more on the takeaway at Food 'n Drink).
On Wednesday I braved the kitchen for some breakfast and couldn't hear anything. We got through the day without any problems, until it was time to do dinner. I opened the kitchen door and saw the mouse running along the back of the worktop. At the time Dave didn't believe me (I have started seeing things to be honest!) so he said he'd cook dinner until the mouse ran back and forth in front of him along the worktop again. So at this point we made our own trap, the large storage box with a bit of bread and stacks of poison pellets in the bottom of it, left it in the kitchen and went out for dinner!!
The next morning I ventured into the kitchen and the mouse was in the box. To add to that, it couldn't get out. Much cheaper than a £10-15 trap from the DIY store! Later on, with Dave in tow, we went into the kitchen to take the mouse outside and kill it this time. Sorry, but I can't afford to eat out constantly! Plus it was eating poison and killing it would possibly be far more humane to it. Anyway, whilst going to get the box I heard a noise from the cupboard to me left. Another mouse was under there – great 
So we killed the first mouse, threw it all away, washed out the box and set up the box trap again.
Friday was pretty quiet, although I'd stopped going in the kitchen by then. In the evening we both ventured in to cook dinner, well I ventured in to grab all the food and take it back into the lounge with me! Whilst sorting things out we saw the other mouse run back and forth from the fridge to under another cupboard. That was the point at which I realised we needed another plan to get rid of these mice. We've had poison out for over a month now (refreshing it of course), and it's not made much difference. So Saturday morning I was out early and down the DIY shop again, on the phone to my Dad, the person you call when things are going wrong!
A friend had told me about a plug-in sonic noise thing to keep the mice away, but then my Dad pointed out that it may scare them out the kitchen, potentially into the rest of the house! So instead I grabbed a different type of poison with the comment of 'highly palatable'! I also got some more trays to put it in too.
We were away this past weekend. A friend of mine had a party on Saturday evening and we stayed on until today so that I could go into the company I contract for in Cardiff, show my face and keep everyone happy for a few more months! So we laid 7 pots of poison around the kitchen floor, shut the door and left. Mouse free for the weekend!! Coming home this evening, we found most of the new poison eaten, plus another bag of pasta had been attacked a little (so that's in the bin!). We've got new air tight storage containers for everything now. The mouse is still alive as Dave saw it briefly when we got back, however hopefully the poison will start doing its job. Of course we don't know how many mice there are.
Otherwise…
So, all mice aside, this week has been a bit mad with work. I had to set up a geo targeting script for a client so that they could target adverts to different people from different continents. Pretty cool once I'd found a database to use and configured it all. Plus of course the launch of my first WordPress plugin. Hopefully I may be able to think up some more when I get a bit more time to myself.
As I mentioned earlier (if you read the mouse stuff), we went down to a friend's house in Wales on Saturday. Her boyfriend was celebrating his official redundancy from a large ISP/Media company. Any excuse for a party! We arrived there soon after 6pm and the drinking commenced. We had a really good evening catching up with a few friends and making some others. We stayed with my friend for both Saturday and Sunday as I'd arranged to go into the office of the company I contract for, today. I don't go in very often (5-6 times a year maybe) but considering I was already in the area I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and save myself a second trip down before Christmas. Plus it was good to catch up with my friend after the party, when it was a bit quieter and she was less stressed! And, thankfully, they don't have mice. Probably due to their cats!
So that's that for the past week. We're still on the look out for somewhere new to live, ideally without mice in the kitchen! We've got the possibility of a house plus garage at the end of October, plus it's through a private renter so much less if any fees at all, and the rent is cheaper too. Fingers crossed the main bedroom is big enough!
Hey Sarah,
Oh my gosh, sorry to hear about the mouse situation. That's so scary. There's nothing worse than seeing a mouse running along the floor in your house
I hope you can get rid of them soon. So unsettling isn't it?
We saw a mouse in our house about 3 years ago. Our neighbours had been doing some work on their house – turning their loft space into another set of rooms and shortly after that we heard scratching in the walls. I spotted it running along the floor in the living room. It was tiny, like a field mouse, but I bet I was more scared than it was
We bought some little humane traps that you fit over the top of a tin can. It has a little door on it, like a cat flap kind of thing so the idea is to put some cheese in or some strong smelling food so that it goes in and basically the door does not open the other way, so it would be stuck in the can until you take it outside and get rid. We put about 3 of them around the house with a piece of cheese in smeared with peanut butter as apparently they are really into that. We also got 3 sonic plug ins. It didn't show up again and we heard nothing since. Like you we bought airtight containers for everything so there was no food to tempt them to stick around.
However, about a month ago I was lying in bed and I could hear the scratching again – really close to the bed. It's like it was either under the floor or in the walls – but we only ever heard it around the bedroom. I slept with one eye open the whole time, sure that I was going to see it scurrying across the floor *shivvers* Anyway, we noticed a hole that it had made between the skirting board and carpet behind the bed, so it must have been coming and going through it's little access point for a while as it had really dug down. My Dad came and patched all that up for us and of course I have the sonic plugs back in but I still hear it a few times a week in the walls/under the floor, or maybe it's in the loft space. But oddly we only ever hear it in the bedroom, nowhere that there's actually any food for it to get at
I hope you manage to get rid of them so you can relax in your house (especially the kitchen) without unwanted visitors. Oh and fingers crossed for the new house which sounds promising
By Sam on Mon, 1 October, 2007
Sam, those traps sound pretty cool. Although, I wouldn't set the mouse free (unless it was miles from here). The one we let out first came back in, I'm sure of it.
Gotta say, I wouldn't stay in the house if I thought they were anywhere near the bedroom! That sounds awful and really would keep me awake.
When I was younger, around 8 or 9, we had a fire at the end of our road in the field and all the mice came down to the village and invaded the houses. We had at least 15 or so. I used to hear them in the loft, airing cupboard, running up the curtains, in the fireplace! At the time it didn't concern me so much however now I understand the hygene issues associated with them, plus I don't like being jumped out at as it is!
By Sarah on Tue, 2 October, 2007
LOL, yeah, I wouldn't want to set the mouse free either unless I was well away from the house
There's been some foundation work and roadworks going on not very far from here and someone J knows who lives nearby says he's recently started hearing scratching in his house walls – so I wonder if the work being done there is what's making them scarper to people's houses. We only ever seem to hear it when house/road work is being done in the area.
It is SO unsettling to hear scratching in the bedroom walls. I didn't hear anything last night so maybe keeping those sonic plugs in permanently may be forcing them out. I can't understand how they are staying alive as they certainly aren't getting food from here. But, it's bizarre to switch off the TV and lights at night, then about 10 minutes later you can here scratching. I check around the skirting boards everyday to look for any telltale signs of visitors but nothing since we patched things up.
By Sam on Tue, 2 October, 2007
Well we've either got a bionic mouse or it must be dead by now as it's eaten a heck of a lot of poison! Maybe that's normal though. Still, fingers crossed, by the end of the week I may actually feel happy enough to go and get breakfast once more!
By Sarah on Wed, 3 October, 2007
Good grief. Any sightings of the little pest recently?
By Sam on Fri, 5 October, 2007
Well yesterday morning it/they had still been eating poison. Not much and they didn't seem to go far from where we think they're hiding. I reckon there's more than one as the little bowls of poison are being eaten so far apart and nothing's being touched inbetween.
So that's almost 7 days of eating poison! I've not ventured to look today yet but I'm hoping that it won't have been touched and perhaps we're finally killing them off. Else I'll be onto the council!
By Sarah on Sat, 6 October, 2007