We live in a new build at the end of an old street. Screened floors (so no gaps), really tight fitting doors. But the little blighters still get in! How? Our builder doing another job thinks whilst we leave the garden door open to to go into the garden! Damn those mice.

They lived in the living room behind the sofa. Ate my Bombay mix. Then they found my porridge oats. And so it went. The humane traps worked initially. I dropped the buggers off at the canal on my way to work but they were distressed big time so not sure if that's any better than snuffing them out. In the end they sussed out the humane trap and just walked off with the bombayix bits. So we switched to the traditional traps alas! We caught them at a rate of knots. Ne ver regained credibility with my two girls again for quite some time!

beware the mouse! the law of unintended consequences was ably illustrated by Lee Evans in the comic film masterpiece 'Mousehunt'. you attack the malignant beast at your peril!

You could get your own personal rodent control operative. I have four, otherwise known as cats.

I've caught a few using a humane trap that cost ~£7 from ebay. After much trial and error I found the perfect bait was chocolate. I have released all of the mice into a small patch of woodland nearby.

Genuine Little Nipper traditional traps are the only way to go, sweet red pepper as bait (mice are posh too thesedays). Watch ya digits.

I had a mouse in my kitchen and caught it using a 'humane' see-saw trap. When I released it, it staggered a few steps and lay there shivering pitifully. I doubt it would have survived for long outdoors in that condition.

There was only one mouse though. If there had been a few I think the spring traps would be the best option. The idea of the glue trap is revolting - I think that you'd have to actively hate the creatures to inflict that on them!

Haven't heard about peanut butter but they are generally suckers for chocolate - humane traps work well in my experience.

Touch wood we haven't had mice in the house for years. The last one left after a hard stare in the middle of the night. When investigating a loud rustling noise I found it sitting in the pantry with a piece of raw pasta in its paws - it was cute apart from the whole peeing, pooing, destroying every packet point of view. I glared at it and said 'what are you doing in there' shut the cupboard door on it and went back to bed. It took the hint and was never seen again.

Please don't get a cat - unfortunately they can't be trained just to deal with mice in the house and continue to be a plague on our beleaguered wildlife.

The electronic thingies work a treat but you do need to site them properly. We had an invasion a few years back, I was catching two or three a night in humane traps. I was loathe to resort to poison because of the household cats ( yeah, I know but my cats just corner mice and look at them... the mouse may eventually die of boredom but that's about it) and also fears about the food chain ( we have owls and hawks nesting in the garden). So I bought two ultrasonic things, read the instructions, set them up and the mice packed their little mousy bags and departed. Furthermore any mouse a cat brings in
( presumably so they can look at them till they die of boredom) just sits transfixed to the spot until I pick it up and take it outside.

Here's a list of tried and tested methods from various lifestages in the Minyip household.

1 Wire wool and toothpaste work wonders at keeping mice out. They can't gnaw through the wirewool and hate the smell of toothpaste.

2 Cats are good. Apart from being able to eat the mice, they give off a smell which makes female mice more likely to miscarry or have smaller litters.

3 Jack russells are also efficient at rodent disposal.

Mouse free since 1999!

But a horse.

Feed it the muesli.

Mice starve.

Job done.

NB - the other problem with poison is it gets in the food chain when some other animal eats the dead mouse.

I had a mouse problem, and as a nature lover I struggled with having to kill them, but they are a nuisance and more importantly, very filthy, so tried allsorts:
1) A cat - she limits the number and where they go, but they live in the loft, in the walls and in cupboards so don't need to venture out too often. In the summer I had a shedload of flies appear which turned out to be 3 little bodies lined up under the couch - courtesy of the cat, I assume.
2) Humane traps - I tried this but after a few days, since mice need to be taken about half a mile away or more, and I don't have a car, I decided that I had to come down hard.
3) Sticky traps - that's unnecessarily cruel.
4) Old style - did work well (used peanut butter), but after being woken by one snapping and hearing it thrash around for about 5 seconds I couldn't face that again - what if it just caught the end of the nose or the tail ...?
5) Poison (old style) - not good if it dies in your wall, must be a long death for them, and definitely not good if any other creature gets it.
6) Poison (kills just rodents, not actually poison) - same problem with where it dies.
7) Electric traps - electrocutes them as they go for the tasty treat. I finished with this, and although expensive (£30-£50 & Four C-size batteries every 12 captures), it works and all you have to do is tip the mouse into a bag.

I actually used some of the glue traps for a few very smart mice who were impossible to catch with humane traps. If you leave them to slowly die on the glue traps that is not nice but they are quite easy to remove with a bit of vegetable oil. It is no doubt stressful (tough) but they live and clean themselves up within a day or so. I know because I kept them in a comfy cage for a while over summer and then set them free in Holland Park after they had served half their sentence for trespassing....wear thick household gloves because they bite like crazy.

I wonder if journalists just write articles and expect posters to do the research for them. Certainly, no research has been done on this subject.

Mice within the M25 mile radius are immune to all the old poisons, largely sold by Rentokil and mentioned here as causing the dead bodies to give off an odour.

Sorexa-D is a fairly new poison which will kill mice in London and the London area and it causes the body to decompose without giving off any odour. It can be obtained over the internet, not from the DIY stores whose poisons the mice may be feeding on.

Cats are a good deterrent for mice. The mice can hear and smell them and will not come into a house where a cat lives.

Terraced houses are the worst affected. Mice enter houses through the air bricks so the first task is to cover the air bricks with wire mesh. Mice don't like metal so they won't chew through this. If mice do get under a terraced house, they can easily then enter all houses in the terrace.

It is basic common sense to me, but not to some posters here: do not put food in floor cupboards. Food should be stored in the fridge or in wall cupboards.

I forgot to say above that mice have a homing instinct. If you have caught them in a trap, you need to release them at least five miles away as otherwise they will make their way back to your pad.

efmcandrew 8 January 2012 12:18AM:

"Cats are a good deterrent for mice. The mice can hear and smell them and will not come into a house where a cat lives. "

It ain't necessarily so. I had a cat which refused even to eat mice (placed in food bowl as obvious hint). When offered a live mouse, condescended to walk over and have a look, turned up nose and left. The mice emphatically were not seriously deterred.

GirlOpensFridge 7 January 2012 01:32PM:

"Genuine Little Nipper traditional traps"

Totally agree, that's how I got rid of mice friendly with above cat. The point about actual Little Nipper, not lookalikes is very important; LN traps have a wooden platform which if touched anywhere triggers; lookalikes often have merely a metal tongue much easier to eat food off without triggering. I've caught mice in unbaited LN traps (unintentionally, on a mouse run), and two mice in one trap. You need to be fairly tough-minded, you don't always get a clean kill. Corpses can go down the toilet (appropriate size, shape, and colour). Peanut butter is always good; haven't tried chocolate or peppers. Peanut butter remains attractive to mice for months, no need to rebait frequently.

Have had little success with humane traps. Also initially tried improvised traps recommended on Web (upside-down dish propped up, forget how it triggered); no good. Have read that large wire multimouse traps are effective; mice see others eating and join the party, they're not deterred. Humanely trapped mice if released not a long way away turn up again very quickly.

All this is hard-won expertise that I'd rather not have needed.

Put everything they will find attractive (nuts, cereals, chocolate) in containers. They don't mind the beeping thingy, they just want food.

I reckon the humane traps work best - in the past 15 months I have caught 77 mice from under my bath. The last little chappie went out just last night. Bait it with peanut butter with a few sunflower seeds stuck in it and then at the entrance scatter a few more. As long as you check the trap frequently - the mice seem fine when they're released. I think they might actually be wood mice not house mice as they seem to have a white underbelly.

I have a cat - in fact I've blamed her for probably bringing them in initially. So the cat deterrent doesn't work.
Old traps and sticky paper are awful.
As for the high pitched emitters - ouch...I can hear them.

They don't seem to eat anything from my house - except occasionally the soap - they go next door for that, where there are plenty of goodies left around. Unfortunately plugging up every gap in old houses - especially semi's or terraces is nigh on impossible, they pass easily from house to house in the gap between floor and ceiling. So I guess I'll just keep catching them and encourage my neighbour to do the same as well as keeping her patio doors shut and putting her food away!
One day we'll crack it.