Brown rats and mice (especially house mice) are attracted to human dwellings for two reasons: food and shelter. This is particularly true in autumn and winter when it’s cooler outside and nutrition is scarcer.
Often the first signs of their presence are raided bags of rice or cereal – and trails of droppings. Generally, these intruders are unwelcome as they can make a mess and, on rare occasions, carry diseases. But getting rid of mice and rats, especially humanely, is tricky.
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How do I get rid of mice and rats humanely?
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) advises that the best solution is prevention. Make sure all food is secured in sealed containers and that waste, especially food waste, is equally secure. Never put cooked food in a compost heap – this will guarantee a visit from local rats. Then seal up any holes in the outside of the house. This is easier said than done, especially with old houses.
Mice, in particular, can squeeze through tiny holes and are only constrained by the size of their skulls. As with rats, they will enlarge holes with their teeth. Mice and rats are rodents, from the Latin rodere, which means ‘to gnaw’.
If prevention isn’t successful and you can’t get along, you need to remove your visitors. Make sure you've identified what is in your house – the UK's dormouse population, for example, has more than halved since 2000.
The most humane method would suggest not killing. There are dozens of ‘catch and release’ traps on the market: the idea is that the baited trap catches the animal unharmed and then you release it outside. This means you must check the trap every day to prevent a trapped animal from dying of starvation. If you release the animal too far from home, it is not attuned to the new environment and will be swiftly found by predators or starve. Too close to home and it will return to your house. Thus, live trapping can be complicated.
Instead, professional pest controllers recommend using lethal snap traps, which, if set correctly, kill instantly. The tricky part is disposing of the bodies. Most professionals avoid poison or glue traps, which condemn victims to slow, agonising deaths. Poison also renders its targets vulnerable to predators and the poison spreads into the food chain.
And what about the traditional solution of employing a cat? As with any job that you freelance out, you can’t be sure of the result. Not all cats are killers, while others will bring in more mice from outside than they deter inside. When it comes to mice and rats, prevention beats intervention.
Main image: Getty
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