Mice

kreuzkav · December 2010

What housing benefit? All the time I've lived in my flat I've worked and never claimed anything. I have a low wage too. When I subletted my flat I charged my subletter rent and bills and didn't factor in other things like fixtures and fittings. Stupid me, I made a slight loss but he did keep my flat going. And to clafify subletter, he took over my flat while I was away from England. My housing group agreed to it. I wanted to give my flat up but they told me I'd never get a chance like it again.

What I can't understand is the hatred towards people who have managed to get social housing which isn't easy. Maybe that hatred could be directed towards the trust fund and city boys who make a killing while the rest of us work our rocks off for nothing.

kreuzkav · December 2010

It's odd as I was having a discussion about this with a friend last night. She is a nurse and managed to get social housing with her ex husband and her son about ten years ago in East London just before it went all cool. We're baffled by the reaction.

I've never owned a car, never gone on an expensive holiday. I see people in Stroud Green with lots of money and who can take out a mortgage on a nice flat who are usually from a nice middle class background. Eating out is a luxury for me and after rent and bills i'm left with about £500 a month.

kreuzkav · December 2010

Daily Mail is taking over!

kreuzkav · December 2010

And I don't think I've ever said I'm hard done by because of social housing. I just mentioned that some of us have lived around here for ten years or so. For example my neighbours in my house have lived here for 20 years and fifteen years and the couple in the basement moved out of here after living here for ten years due to the noise. The people in the house beside me are a family who have lived here for 30 years and the people next to me are part of the same housing group who have lived here for over ten years.

All we have ever asked for is respect. We're not smug Stroud Greeners who can afford to mortgage.

miss annie · December 2010

Kreuzkav £500 disposable income every month and an affordable flat is quite a lot compared to a number of members of this forum. Really... stop complaining about everything and try to enjoy life in Stroud Green. After all you do live right in the centre of things.

kreuzkav · December 2010

I'm nearly 40, £17.000 a year is a crap wage for a full time job. But I'm lucky social housing helps me along. I'm quite happy with my life.

What I find odd is that I have kept my bargain and didn't post about SL on other threads but was giving helpful advice about mice and I got abused about claiming housing benefit. Seems odd to me and naturally I was angry.

kreuzkav · December 2010

And I've never said I don't enjoy my life. Life is precious and so sweet. The reason why I rant about one thing on here is I want my quality of life to be good and I feel it's important to stand up for your rights. I don't want Stroud Green Road turned into a playground for idiots. We live in a world of X-factor populism and I'm worried that people are turning into robots.

At this moment in history we are being told that the Oxbridge set are in charge and we should obey. I will never cower to them. They attack working class benefits like social housing but take massive ones themselves like trust funds, bonuses etc.

helen · December 2010

Back to rats and mice...

@Liz - I used Dennis - recommended back on this thread to get rid of the rats who'd got into my place. he was great. £150-190 I think so more expensive than haringey, but he came quickly and would have come back up to 4-5 times or until they were all gone (apparently a pregnant rat came in, leading to a mini-rat explosion in the internal construction of the house...yuk). If you're squeamish about getting rid of the bodies, he'll pop by and sort that too.
Good luck.

kreuzkav · December 2010

I'm glad I don't have rats. Seeing the mice now and again was bad enough. Good luck!

Ali · December 2010

Council where pretty useless for us. Came put down poison, came back two more times , didn’t stop the rat and removed the poison for Health and Safety reasons. No sort of guarantee of success. The rat run was pretty obvious it also was trying to excavate the cellar floor around where the metal sewer cover was. I eventually bought some poison which comes in plastic bags and put th m around the diggings. The little bag disappeared. A couple of days later coming down the stairs at the bottom was sitting the huge rat looking up, it was chased into the kitchen where it hid behind the fridge. I chased it out from behind the fridge, it then was wacked across the kitchen by a friend who had my cricket bat and it was finished of with a golf umbrella by my other half. I think the poison must have slowed it down. It was a girl but we haven’t had any problems since. You can get the poison in the hardware store for about a fiver. Quite a progressive no nonsense approach !

kreuzkav · December 2010

@Miss Annie. After bills, means after gas, electricity, council tax, water and not food. I really think having £500 quid, just over £100 a week is not a lot, as most people my age have children and not having them is is a sacrifice I've probably subconsciousily made. After food, travel and other essentials I'm left with about £50 quid a week to divide between savings going out, clothes etc. Not a lot I think. I don't have an iphone etc as it would eat into my budget a lot. I don't want one as i think they're fairly poncy. My point is I don't have much left over. I'm happy as a pig in muck though.

kreuzkav · December 2010

And how many people here earn under £17,000 a year in a full time job? Maybe some are on the dole or doing phds etc. How much do you earn? If memory serves me well you have an iphone and are out a lot of nights.

ActionVerb · December 2010

That's four replies already. Will you just keep going until Miss Annie posts?

sincers · December 2010

Sugar puffs works amazingly well. You'll not be able to empty your traps quickly enough! btw, I have a mortgage but I am not smug about it and I rather resent the generalization.

lizbet · December 2010

Most of the jobs that I would like to do actually pay around that amount. I choose to do something else because I have to earn more money than that to enable me to live in London. I don't have an iphone and don't feel the need to publicly disclose my salary either. You seem to continually contradict yourself and the more you continue relating everything to how much you earn, the more annoying it is. I do not know your personal circumstances, or how you earn a living, and neither do I want to. I have never read the Daily Mail in my life - I don't know what this has got to do with people getting irritated with your endless posts.

ADGS · December 2010

Speaking as the holder of an Oxbridge degree, I've never had a job paying more than £20k and am at the moment making an awful lot less part time simply because I can't get anything full time. We're not all millionaires in/mates with the Cabinet.

tosscat · December 2010

Do Sugar Puffs make mice's wee smell of Sugar Puffs like they do in humans?

Jenowl · December 2010

We had mice a year or so ago. We caught five or six in a row (progressively smaller) with traditional traps. I don't go near them but I am told they are quite tricky to set effectively. A couple of times they have taken the bait but the trap hasn't gone off.

Anyway, now they are back! Despite having a clean kitchen and not leaving any food/crumbs about, last week one was seen scurrying under the fridge so we laid some traps, and caught two mice. We are fervently hoping that we caught them early before they had babies. It is horrible seeing the bodies but at least it's a swift death and quick disposal.

We are in a top-floor conversion flat in a rambling old building with adjoining houses either side, so it would be impossible to mouse-proof the place.

sincers · December 2010

I can't say I really attempted to distinguish the aroma of the mice's wee. This was some years ago, now, but I do recall trying to inflict the ultimate insult by catching multiple mice with the very same piece of sugar puff.

Emma · December 2010

We've seen a couple of mice in the kitchen now it's cold out. They only visit us - there's no nest. They munch up the poison and I gleefully witnessed one in its death throes the other day, the little f#cker. I think trying to block holes is ultimately a mind bendingly Sisyphean task, since they can fit through holes the size of a biro. I HATE THEM SO MUCH.

ShaunG · December 2010

I like the cricket bat/ golf umbrella method. I once got one with a fish slice. When our children were toddlers, chasing little mice around the room with a saucepan or whatever provided endless fun and excitement. Mostly didn't catch them, but I don't really mind mice too much as long as they don't take over. Rats in the house is a whole different matter though.

Emma · December 2010

The thing I object to with mice is that they shit everywhere (and wee everywhere too but at least that is INVISIBLE). Stop shitting everywhere, you incontinent, selfish idiots.

The thought of rats in the house just freaks me out. I'd have to move. A friend had rats last year and they managed to OPEN HER JAR OF PEANUT BUTTER BY CHEWING THROUGH IT.

kreuzkav · December 2010

Jenowl, I know I've said it before but plug any holes in the floor or skirting board with steel wool. Ask for it at a hardware shop. Mice are very lazy. They live under the floorboards and often enter via a gap by the radiators. People kept going on about this for ages and I kept ignoring their advice. When I tried it, it worked. I live in an upstairs conversion too. I haven't seen any since.

[Deleted User] · December 2010

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Liz · December 2010

@ Misscara - I live quite near there so it could have been mine on an outing now that I have ousted it from my kitchen. I am pretty sure they are in my cellar and come up to the kitchen where the pipes run to the boiler, which is behind a cupboard so I can't block the hole. Am going to call Dennis tomorrow. Just don't have the stomach for dealing with traps/poison/etc myself, though I guess that might change if it gets worse...

ADGS · December 2010

Tying together two themes, I saw a damn hefty rat on that footbridge last week, and it ran off through the wall. I looked for a hole but really couldn't see one that looked like more than a slight weakness in the mortar, nothing I would have thought this monster could get through. But so long as they're out in the wild, I find them quite cute. It's only as home invaders that they need to die.

nick_m · December 2010

I called time on our mice problem the other day when one of the little buggers eyeballed me across the ktichen surface. I had been trying those 'humane' traps, but they were a waste of time. And ultimetely you then take them somewhere else and they become someone else's problem. So I resorted to the old fashioned traps and wire wool as recommended above: result! Worked a treat. I used a (very) small portion of Dunne's chocolate fudge cake and, once my wife had recovered from the loss of even the smallest portion of this tastiest of indulgences, we rejoiced in the catching of a mouse. Hurrah!

Jenowl · December 2010

No further mice to report. We are now confident we caught the two before they started a family! We have left one trap laid with Dairy Milk just in case.

Mirandola · December 2010

we should combine this with the vets/cattery thread. My cat Emily, for one, would be delighted to take on mouse extermination duties.

woolly · December 2010

That's inspired Mirandola! A mouse has been keeping me awake by having a party in my bedroom bin a couple of nights this week. I've often thought about borrowing a cat.

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