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Monday, 28 January, 2002, 13:57 GMT
'I hate cunning super mieces to pieces'
Forget about Mickey. The UK's mice are incontinent, disease-carrying vermin. And what's worse, finds BBC News Online's Ryan Dilley, they are getting wise to our attempts to eliminate them.Disclaimer: The BBC will put up as many of your comments as possible but we cannot guarantee that all e-mails will be published. The BBC reserves the right to edit comments that are published.
Fairy tales, Beatrix Potter and cartoons have lulled many of us into treating the common house mouse with an indulgence its ratty rodent cousins surely envy.
My concerns would have been heightened had I known my guest was one of a growing band of urban mice with a tolerance to poisons and - most worryingly - an increasing unwillingness to have any truck with baits or traps.
"We've witnessed the rise of behavioural resistance in mice. Where once they'd have gone quite happily into bait boxes, the past 10 years have seen them change their behaviour quite distinctly."
(Not) taking the bait
This bait shyness has been particularly pronounced in urban centres, such as London and Birmingham, raising concerns that city mouse populations may begin to grow unchecked.
"There's definitely a problem and certainly more mice as a result of this," says Mr Strand. "No matter how good our poisons are, if the mice won't take the bait, we can't kill them."
However, mice now seem to have developed a tolerance to certain of the poisons which were introduced to replace the original batch of defeated rodenticides.
Both difenacoum and bromadiolone have been shown to have only limited success in controlling infestations in certain parts of the UK.
Added to the house mouse's already prodigious talent to evade capture in our homes and businesses, bait-shyness and poison resistance could herald the arrival of the urban "super mouse".
Say "rat" and most people will immediately think of the Black Death, but thanks to pernicious propagandising by the likes of Walt Disney, the UK's 400 million mice are often seen as the lesser of the two rodent evils.
"Mice are more of a pest and a greater risk to public health than rats," says Mr Strand.
Apart for shredding wooden cupboards, doors and skirting boards with their diamond-sharp teeth, electrical cables gnawed by mice ignite fires in the UK every year.
Once installed, a mouse can also cause contamination seemingly disproportionate to its tiny size. A single mouse can produce 50 droppings a day, and - thanks to the species' utter lack of bladder control - leave a constant trail of urine in its wake.
Mouse eating habits also mean that even if they have a ready supply of food right in front of them, they will nevertheless go looking for something else to nibble.
Hence, a salmonella-carrying mouse can contaminate perhaps 10 times as much food as it actually eats.
"Lots of people feel they can deal with the problem themselves," says veteran pest controller Jon Carter. "When they fail, they call me."
Rather than seeking professional advice, I employed a technique borrowed from a timely question on a Radio 4 panel show, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Humphrey Lyttelton: "How do you humanely catch mice?"
Barry Cryer: "It depends on who's throwing them."
"Humph" went on to enlighten listeners that a large glass jar, chocolate biscuit crumbs and a ramp running to the lip of the receptacle would do the trick.
"Mice are very intelligent," says Mr Strand. "They can easily adapt their behaviour."
Oh, how I hate my super mieces to pieces.
Some of your comments so far:
I did have a horrible mice problem in my villa in a new district of Greater Cairo. These mice obviously came from the surrounding desert and they were very smart indeed. They managed to eat the cheese from the traps without being caught. Finally, I got rid of them by using non-toxic glue on boards with some food on them. Was it a humane method? I do not think so, but it worked very well!
My mouse (mice?) definitely deserve Mensa status. For the last month, three different traps and four bait trays have been untouched. Currently it is showing a preference for string and plastic bags. I have decided to get a cat.
We live in Leeds, in a huge victorian house infested with the little b****rs. The last occupants used to catch them in humane traps, and release them just round the corner. These new mice seem to know where the pub is, how to get back in from anywhere, and I swear I heard one unscrewing something the other night.
You just can't beat the good old-fashioned 'Little Nipper' mousetrap, baited with a bit of beef dripping. The mice don't get the chance to adapt and learn how to avoid getting their necks snapped!
I almost never have a mouse problem if I have a cat. Only one of my cats was too lazy to deter mice.
We have managed to catch nine mice in the last couple of weeks using a plastic trap and a blob of strawberry jam.
Just get nice, large cat or a couple of voracious cats. Mine are excellent mousers, who have never let me down. It gives them a treat and exercise as well.
I got rid of a mouse on Saturday night (oh, what a fun Saturday night it was!) using an "advanced" humane mouse trap. It was a plastic tunnel where the door closed once the mouse was inside. I caught it within two hours of putting it down. No sign of its return yet!
At my home in Nevada, we use cashews, tied with thread to the mouse trap. Works every time!
Purchase feline (1), mice catching for the use of.
Mother Nature knows best.
I found evidence of a mouse in my kitchen
and set a trap with dog food on it. Within
15 minutes I heard the trap snap and
I was rid of the mouse which my cat had let loose in my house.
Got woken up on Thursday night by a mouse tucking into a bar of chocolate. Went to discover that said mouse and its cohorts had eaten their way through a box of them under my stairs. Two spring-loaded mouse traps and five mice later (and its only Monday) I think this could become a war of attrition.
I may have already been an unwitting victim of a "super" mouse. First I tried the snap trap coated with peanut butter. For three evenings in a row I replinished the peanut butter while our little pest gorged him in relative safety. The snap trap had been set at a hairs trigger and went off multiple times while placing it in the cupboard, yet in the morning the peanut butter was gone completely, the mouse had even licked the bait holder clean.
Next to try was a "live" trap, one of those where the mouse goes into the tunnel but can't get back out. The bait was never touched and I got the feeling that the mouse knew exactly what the trap was and avoided it. The score currently stands at mouse 2, man 0.
Have you got a problem with a "super" mouse in your house? Or do you have a foolproof method for disposing of them? Add your comments by using the form below.
03 May 01 | UK
Tackling a bug's life
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