Mice in the new building - floor installer is coming tomorrow

Dear forum community,
I recently moved into my new building. Due to delivery difficulties with the flooring, it is temporarily just screed. Unfortunately, the house was already inhabited by mice before I moved in, who are happily running across the screed and inspecting the moving boxes nearby. Then they disappear again into the cable ducts. These are open by a few centimeters. The plaster ends about 3-4 cm above the top edge of the screed. You can see the cables running vertically. A paradise for mice, but rather annoying for me.
In any case, they do not go into any traps and have so far refused the poison. There aren’t that many mice, but I would like to get them out of the house.

Tomorrow the floor layer is coming to install parquet (layered parquet in long click planks). Then oiling and waiting, and then the skirting boards will be installed.

My question: should I put a bit of mouse poison in the cable ducts and close everything up with the skirting boards and hope the mouse family meets its end? Or should I leave some spots open and hope they come out and eventually go into a trap in the room?

I’m thinking of getting a cat. Good tips are welcome!

Hello Bertram

if you close the cable ducts, the mice will die and eventually start to smell.
Buy the cheap mouse traps (why is it called mouse traps and not mice traps?), bait them with small pieces of chocolate. Important: place the traps against the wall. Mice are cautious and don’t like to cross open spaces. You will see, every morning there will be mice in them. Use Hanuta. The wafer can go, only the chocolate. Mice love Hanuta.

Steven

There are already 4 traps (2 live traps and 2 traditional head-cut-off traps) baited with Nutella and dark chocolate placed in the room. But the critters don’t go into the trap. Unfortunately, I only realized yesterday why it might not be working: 4 weeks ago, when I discovered the mice, I put all the supplies into jars and containers. Except for one moving box full of flour and oatmeal. Unfortunately, I overlooked that while cleaning. They apparently found the flour and the newspaper tasty and were able to live well for a while. Now there is really nothing edible lying around anymore (I don’t have a kitchen yet). Maybe it will work soon. Do I have to put fresh bait in every day or is dried Nutella also fine?

Hello

I never found Nutella exciting. I had also heard about it, but the success was moderate.
Only with the chocolate from Hanuta did the critters queue up. Put out at 8:00 PM, gone by 10:00 PM, gone again the next morning.
For me, it was the terrace. The mice were doing tap dance right in front of my nose.

Steven

I think we don't have Hanuta here. I live in Belgium. What would be an alternative? I'll take a look around the sweets aisle tomorrow (Damn, I always avoid it for personal addiction reasons :D).

There are different kinds of mice. Not all eat chocolate etc. There are also some that only eat sausage or meat. So it is best to set traps with chocolate and traps with sausage.