Talkback: Winter shelter for wildlife

mice or rats might be cute but in a house they will chew wiring and cause no end of damage as well as spreading disease.I had rats in the past and believe me they are not nice live with.Of course there will some outside always but you need to discourage them by not leaving food available or nooks or uncovered drains or holes.Rats are becoming immune to poisons.They do not like the smell of bleach so a bit down the drain helps.spiders on the other hand help to eliminate bugs and flies e.t.c so if you kill them you ll have more bugs.Ugly might not be cute but cute wont be friendly.

I have a mouse about the house.

I cheated slightly to get him to pose for the photos below. I put an empty chocolate bar wrapper on the floor.

He was a very brave little mouse. I was in the room, and the telly was on quite loud, but he still came to investigate...

Superb photos Georg, we also had mice just before last christmas, we only found out when we were wrapping grandchildrens presents. Hubby reached the foil wrapped chocolate santas, mice had chewed through the plastic bag and foil then eaten the chocolate. I think they deserved it after putting in all that effort.   

I must admit that they look cute,  but I had field mice take up residence in my shed a couple of years back and can only say It wasn't a pleasant experience, the smell was awful and they did a fair bit of damage chewing up things for nesting material. Try to move them on humanely if possible.

Many years ago an Irish chap told me that a cricket would move into the house of his elderly aunts in the autumn and stay there, living on the hearth until the spring. I had always thought that this story had a touch of the blarney about it until this autumn when a cricket moved into my conservatory. Sadly I had to gently move it out as I had sprayed parts of the floor with 'death lac' to get rid of the annual invasion of ants under the boiler. I would have really loved having a cricket around the house.

We have a little woodmouse living at the far end of the garden - somewhere near one of the hedgehog houses - he comes and takes the raisins out of the bowl of hedgehog food - I've just been watching him this evening - and I think he's pinched some of the hay for his winter insulation. 

i have a little mouse as well. i grew a whole seed tray of seedlings which were doing fine, but within a few days the whole lot was eaten. so beware seedlings and mice dont mix. lol