The mice plague continues to impact on regional homes and buildings, and local resident Lesley Price knows the struggle all too well.
Since the plague emerged in Narrabri, Ms Price estimates she’s killed almost 3000 mice on her property in Haire Drive.
“The place is for sale and we’re trying to get it ready for the new owners, but the mice are just uncontrollable,” she said.
Ms Price has found bait and traps seem to be the best way to kill the pests, but it can be a costly exercise.
“I’ve spent over $1000 just on bait trying to get rid of them,” she said.
“I bought two and a half kilos just last week and it’s almost all gone already.”
She’s tried a range of different baits from retailers.
Ms Price also uses home-made mice bait, which she creates from one cup of flour, one cup of sugar and one cup of bi-carb soda.
The homemade mice bait Ms Price makes, with a block of store-bought bait added on top.
“You can add water to the combination if you’d like but I generally don’t,” she said.
“Then I put the mixture on some little plates and dishes around the place and, when the mice eat it, the bi-carb reacts with their insides and kills them.”
“So that’s another good option if the stores run out of bait, and the other good thing about it is this mixture won’t hurt the birds who eat the dead mice.”
She’s been using wire traps and a double-ended metal trap.
Lesley Price’s wire trap, with one of the captured mice inside.
“Sometimes these traps can catch up to 30 or 40 mice just overnight,” she said.
“But they can be hard to come by, since mice traps are selling out so quickly at the moment.”
Ms Price also said that she knows properties have been aerial spraying to kill the pests.
“But other than that, I just don’t know what to do, and they seem to be getting worse than ever before now,” she said. “I’m totally ‘mice’d out’.”
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