- Reaction score
- 6,872
Personally I much prefer traps to poison as a quicker / more humane end to the mouse, and no risk of a bigger animal eating one with the poison inside.
I stayed away from poison for a long time for the reasons you state and also the risk of one dying in the home - that's a stink everyone can do without. I finally relented as several outbuildings attached to the house have proven impossible to seal against rodents and in a rural setting it can prove difficult to dissuade mice from entering the only source of heat for some considerable distance.
I've seen years when only one or two are caught, but in other years they can be relentless. There's no logic to it - you'd expect a greater problem in cold winters, but numbers can be high or low in mild or harsh weather. I kind of like the little critters, but can't have them running around a house eating and wrecking as they please.
Oddly enough rats have never been a problem. We had one instance of them putting in an appearance over the years and I didn't hang about in sorting that.