I have been speaking to quite a few pest controllers from all over the country recently and there are two topics that always come up:

  1. The lack of wasps – this year has been very poor in terms of wasp control calls across the country, the only exception I have heard about is in Scotland.
  2. The rapid increase of mouse sightings and mice problem related calls.

Ok we all expect to get an increase as the seasons change, but this year the frequency of the calls and also the number of mice being caught has increased significantly. Going back through our call records for the same time last year, it is clear to see a doubling of cases. What is causing this increase? My thoughts are that they know a hard winter is on its way this year, so they are looking to get indoors quickly out of the cold.

Unlike rats, we do a far bit of trapping for mice. Mice are less inclined to be cautious of traps and they cannot resist some of our special bait ingredients, where as rats are intrinsically neophobic of traps and bait boxes (frightened of new things introduced into their environment) making trapping very difficult . With rat trapping, you normally only get the young and the stupid ones, the real ones you want to catch never go near a trap!

With mice, trapping is quite straight forward. We normally trap “en mass”, putting several traps in one area, say under the kitchen units, pretty much expecting to find a mouse in every one. We tend to stick to the same traps all the time – there are so many on the market with different gizmos etc, but in our view you get to trust the traps you use and rarely change.

I attended a call to a mouse problem a few days ago where the client had been “on the internet” and bought some live catch traps. Needless to say, they ended up calling me in to sort the issue – I do try not to laugh at these pathetic devices, which quite frankly are rubbish and the company selling them should be ashamed!  For me, 6 traps down, next day  6 mice caught…the client had been trying for about 2 weeks to catch a single one (and had not succeeded) – interestingly she had not thought about what to do with one if she did ever catch one…!

On a serious note, don’t be fooled by the cute little mouse images you see in kids books, mice are dangerous carriers of disease – recently in America several people died from Bubonic Plague caused by mouse urine….These little buggers pee all the time – right over all your work surfaces and the kids high chair.

Also, mice cause lots of damage to wiring in lofts etc – many house fires are caused by wiring being chewed and shorted.

So if you hear the patter of tiny feet in the loft, or find your fruit in the fruit bowl with teeth marks in it, Call your local mouse control experts from Rapid Pest Control now. With offices on Newbury, Basingstoke, Reading Oxford and Swindon, you can be sure of a fast effective mouse control solution.