I visited the space this morning to find there were rodents enjoying themselves. Given the colder weather they will be migrating inside again and this will become a more frequent problem.
If you are eating food in the space, please either take your rubbish home with you, or empty the bins before you leave. Please try and sweep up crumbs, wipe counter tops, etc. before you leave.
Given the damage to equipment and wiring rodents can cause, we may need to consider placing traps around the space. These would be the lethal kind, as ‘humane’ traps need checking every 12 hours, otherwise they cease to be humane and become claustrophobic starvation chambers. If you have strong feelings about this, you are welcome to take a lead on this instead of me.
If you find holes in walls and other places you think rodents may be entering, please let us know and we can look at placing chickenwire or similar blocks across these areas.
I know it’s not super helpful or accurate - but I think they could be coming in around the kitchen/drainage areas. I found what I thought were mice droppings in the far right corner of Parkspace when cleaning. (They do have fewer areas to hide around there now the area is clear, but there were quite a few food wrappers/food bits around there so they might have been interested in that.)
I’ve read that steel wool is good for blocking holes that mice come in through if we have any of that. But I think mice can get through holes smaller than a pencil though - so we might have trouble blocking all holes.
I’m not a fan of the lethal traps, as I’m sure you’re not either - but I don’t think we’re likely to be able to check the non-lethal traps that regularly (I know I can’t get to the space that often)
Prevention is probably the best thing to do though, alongside traps. Clearing crumbs/emptying bins, as you suggested. Another thing with the food is we might need to put the crisps/cereal/tea bags (anything remotely edible) in the non-chilled fridge or a sealed containers too, as they will likely eat through the plastic bags.
If lethal means were preferred then poison would probably be better than traps, after having this issue at my old house and dreading coming home after twice having the distressing task of finishing off the job… the mouse won’t always have its head perfectly in the trap when it fires
Switching to poison made it a non-issue. If pets are ever in the space though then poison would be a no-go. Prevention and deterrence could be sufficient since most stored foods are in the refridgerators and surfaces should be cleaned before food preparation anyway.
We found, elsewhere in the past, blocking the entry hole when/if found, preferrably with something permanent like an air brick or cement works best. If we have a landlord, they should be doing that type of thing if building maintenance is in their contract rather than ours.
I saw the mice in the woodroom, and all our snacks are raised off the floor in the kitchen, so until they strike the crisps, I think we keep them as they are laid out.
We’d be using bait boxes in the space rather than the old fashioned snap close things.
Good point on the landlord! We pay a crazy high service charge for no service, so it’s about time they do something.
I have non-lethal rat traps if you ever want to borrow them and a ton of lethal mouse traps I’ll never use. I have free-roam rabbits so I can’t be leaving poison etc around
