The house mouse is small, quiet and astonishingly good at getting inside. If a pencil fits through a gap, a mouse fits too — around hot-water pipes, under external doors, through unsealed vents, along the garage-to-house wall. In Canterbury, mice move indoors as temperatures drop, but unlike rats they will also breed happily inside all year, which means a winter incursion left alone becomes a spring population of several dozen animals nesting in the walls, the hot-water cupboard and the back of the kitchen joinery.

The damage mice cause is out of proportion to their size. A single mouse produces dozens of droppings a day and urinates constantly as it travels, so open packets of cereal, pet food, flour and seed become contaminated quickly. They shred paper, cardboard, fabric and insulation for nesting material, and they gnaw — on skirting boards, on the backs of cupboards, and, most worryingly, on the wiring inside appliances and wall cavities, which is a genuine fire risk as well as an expensive repair.

Because mice are neophobic in reverse — curious rather than cautious — they investigate new objects in their territory within hours. That makes well-placed traps highly effective, provided they sit exactly on the runs: hard against skirting boards, behind the fridge and stove, inside the pantry kickboards, along the garage wall. Randomly scattered traps in the middle of rooms catch almost nothing. Inspection with a torch tells the story — droppings, smears and gnaw marks map the highways, and control follows the map.

As with rats, the lasting fix is exclusion. Door sweeps on external doors, mesh over vents, sealant around pipe penetrations, and intact fly screens remove the easy ways in. Inside, decanting dry goods into sealed containers, keeping pet food in lidded bins, and clearing the clutter mice nest in makes the house far less welcoming. Mice can survive on crumbs, so the kitchen tidy-up is not cosmetic — it removes the food base the population depends on.

A typical mouse job runs in two stages: knockdown with traps and, where appropriate, secured stations on the mapped runs, then a return visit to check activity, remove catches, and seal the entry points found during inspection. Where mice keep reappearing in a particular room, the answer is almost always a missed gap — a cable entry behind the dishwasher, a hollow wall meeting the subfloor — and finding it is what ends the cycle.

Why this approach works

Seals pencil-sized gaps: A mouse needs only a 6mm opening. Finding and closing those gaps is the core of lasting control.
Protects pantries and wiring: Mice contaminate stored food with droppings and urine, and chew wiring, appliances and insulation.
Uses pet-aware placement: Traps and stations go exactly on mouse runs, inside voids and behind appliances — never where children or pets roam.
Stops the population curve: Mice breed year-round indoors. Early action prevents a couple of mice becoming several dozen.

Signs you may need this service

Fine droppings like grains of rice in cutlery drawers, pantries and under the sink
Nests of shredded paper, fabric or insulation in undisturbed corners
Light scratching in walls and ceilings, often earlier in the evening than rats
Packets of cereal, pet food or seed with small gnawed holes

Common questions

Why do mice keep coming back to the same room?

There is nearly always an unsealed entry point nearby — a pipe penetration, a gap behind fixed joinery, or access from the subfloor. Sealing it ends the cycle.