How to Get Rid of Mice in a Greenwich Property

Why One Trap Where the Droppings Are Does Not Work

It is a completely reasonable thing to do and it fails for a specific reason worth understanding, because it explains the shape of everything else on this page.

A mouse population does not live where you found the droppings. It lives in voids - under the kickboard, behind the units, in the subfloor, inside a stud wall, in the boxing around pipework - and it uses the cupboard as one of many feeding points. Mice sample small amounts in a lot of places rather than feeding heavily in one.

So a single trap catches whichever animals use that particular spot. It genuinely reduces activity there, which reads as progress. The rest of the network is untouched, and within two or three weeks it has redistributed.

The population is a network. Anything that treats one point of it is treating a symptom.

What Actually Clears It

1. Map the runs, not the droppings. Which units, which voids, whether the kitchen is the source or just the canteen, and how the population moves between rooms or floors. In flats that usually means looking at service risers, boxed pipework and the gaps around waste pipes.
2. Distribute control across the network. Enough points, in the runs actually being used, in secured points suitable for the property. This is the single biggest difference between a professional treatment and a shop-bought attempt - not the product, the coverage.
3. Return and read it. What has been taken and where tells you whether the whole network was reached or whether there is a second nesting site still in play.
4. Close the way in - afterwards. Never before, because sealing the route while animals are inside leaves them there.
5. Remove what made the kitchen worth visiting. Free, and it is what stops the next population settling in.

The Good News About Mice

One thing genuinely works in your favour, and it is worth knowing because it sets a fair expectation.

Mice are inquisitive about new objects rather than suspicious of them. That is the opposite of a rat, and it means uptake usually begins quickly rather than after a wary fortnight. What takes the time in mouse work is not getting them to engage - it is reaching all of the network rather than the part of it you had noticed.

Things That Do Not Help

• Ultrasonic plug-in devices. There is no good evidence they clear an established mouse population. We do not sell them and we do not recommend them. If one is running, mention it - it is useful only as information about what has been tried.
• A cat. A cat may reduce activity in the rooms it patrols. It will not reach a nesting site inside a wall or under a floor, which is normally where the problem actually lives.
• Blocking the hole first. Sealing the route while mice are inside is how a mouse problem becomes a smell in a wall cavity - and finding that usually means opening up plasterwork.
• A deep clean of the kitchen and nothing else. Worth doing, and it removes a food source, but it does not reach the voids and it will not clear a population by itself.

The Gaps That Let Them In

Worth checking yourself with a torch, because the list is short and the routes are usually findable:

• Where waste and service pipes pass through a wall or floor, particularly under sinks and behind washing machines.
• Kickboard voids under fitted kitchen units, which are frequently open to the subfloor at the back.
• Air bricks with a broken or missing cover.
• Gaps under a door that no longer meets its threshold.
• Meter boxes and cable entries on an external wall.
• The door between an integral garage and the house.

If you can push a pencil into a gap, treat it as a possible route until proven otherwise.

Houses and Flats Need Different Answers

In a house

The routes usually belong to the property, which means they can genuinely be closed. That is why rodent problems in the interwar and 1930s housing across Eltham and the estate housing further out are so often seasonal rather than permanent - and why proofing at £180, up to 1 hour is frequently cheaper than a second treatment next autumn.

In a flat or a converted house

The routes are frequently in shared structure - service risers, communal voids, the gaps around waste pipes between floors. Sealing your own flat reduces what reaches your rooms and it does not close the building. Where the evidence says the population belongs to the building, we will say so rather than sell repeat treatments that cannot reach it.

What to Expect Afterwards

Activity dropping rather than stopping dead on the first night. Some continued evidence in the days after the first visit, which is normal. A follow-up that confirms whether the network was reached. And then - if the route has been closed and the food source dealt with - quiet that lasts, rather than quiet that ends in three weeks.

A Realistic Timeline

Not a promise - it depends on how established the population is and whether the route is inside your control - but this is the shape of a job that is going well.

1. First visit: survey, mapping of the runs, control distributed across the network. You will usually see uptake begin quickly, because mice investigate new objects readily.
2. First few days: continued evidence is normal. Activity dropping rather than stopping dead is the expected pattern.
3. Follow-up visit: reading what has been taken and where, which is what establishes whether the whole network was reached or a second nesting site is still in play.
4. After activity stops: proofing, if the route is in your property and can be closed.
5. The autumn after: the real test. A house with the routes closed should stay quiet through it.

A job that is not going well looks different: quiet for two or three weeks, then the same cupboard again. That is a coverage problem, not a product problem, and it is worth saying so rather than repeating the same visit.