Mice in the balcony
 

Balcony is on the 2nd floor facing an alley on a townhouse complex.

What bugs me is they seem to hang around my balcony (and my neighbors) at night. I sweep my balcony every few days and there's rat shit here and there.

Last year, I covered up my bbq over the winter and found that they chewed through the bottom in the spring and there was rat shit everywhere. This coming winter, I wanna be ahead of the game and not have to worry about rats hanging out in my balcony and chewing through my bbq cover.

What's the best way to make sure mice don't hang around my balcony at night? Mouse traps? There's an outlet in there as well, do ultrasonic repellants work? I've got an indoor cat and a dog, will this affect them?
Any tips or suggestions?

How are they getting up to the 2nd floor? Thatd be the first thing I'd address.

I'm assuming the two columns that support the balcony. They've got that fake brick facade so it'd be pretty easy for the rats from the ground to climb up. But for all I know, they're just straight up climbing the siding or the gutter pipe.

I've thought about putting some sort of screen mesh around the balcony railing but apparently they'll just chew through that like its nothing.

I don't have plants in my balcony or anything, just a patio table/chairs, my grill and some car wash buckets.
I might try to bleach it over the weekend, apparently the smell of it keeps em off for a bit.

I swear the Vancouver mice / rat problem is getting worse every year.

The first 2 things I'd do are:

1) Clean out your yard and the vicinity in the alley as much as possible. Mice and rats love dark, covered places. If you make everywhere as open and bright as possible, they'd have less incentives to hang around your area.

2) Wash your balcony and all the hard places in your area with bleach-diluted water. Mice and rats pee everywhere to establish their presence and sexual availability, and they prefer returning to places that have their familiar smell / territory. You need to wash off that pee and scent to deter them from coming back.

Once those 2 things are done, you need to check around your premises, and in particular, your building to make sure that there are no holes, gaps, or openings anywhere that a mice might pass through. Remember, if a mice can squeeze its head through the gap, his entire body can get through, and these little fxxking critters can fit through some seriously tiny openings. If for any reason they managed to get into your building, you are basically GG and the battle to eradicate them has just gotten significantly more difficult. Or as soon as they start breeding on your grounds / building -- and these things love to fxxk and make babies -- again, you're basically GG, and the difficulty to get rid of them goes way up again.

Other than that, my personal preference is to use traps instead of poison.

Good luck!

Copper mesh apparently works to keep them out.

Yes, I forgot to mention. But pointing out the obvious, you want to make sure you seal off any openings where the mice and rat might squeeze through. And remember, it better be something sturdy cuz they are very good at biting through / grinding away things.

Vicinity is pretty good, my neighbours and the strata keep things pretty neat for the most part.
There's a restaurant across the alley so their dumpster is most likely the food source.

I'll give bleaching a shot since that seems like the simplest solution for now...in terms of copper/mice resistant mesh, where do you guys get this and how much?

Worst comes to worst, I'll start setting up old school mouse traps. I can't do poison...there are a few outdoor cats that roam around. Plus it's a pain in the ass cus the rats don't necessarily die right after ingesting poison.

It was a few years ago when I had to deal with this mess, and my old man carved / planed some wooden blanks to block off the gaps we had leading to the garage. So I didn't use any mesh things to block off holes.

Also when you are washing / bleaching, make sure you give anywhere along a wall and the ground near by a good scrub. In the absence of cover, the rodents will still prefer the sense of security offer by the path along a wall, as opposed to an open crossing. So they will leave the most scent there.

If you are laying traps, place those along the wall on what you'd expect to be the path they walk through. For me, mechanical traps with peanut butter bait worked best. Glue trap kind of worked as well, but not nearly as much as the good ol' mechanical trap. But the mechanical trap leaves a gruesome mess, so be prepared for that.

yeah...i've had to deal with em at my parents place before
the old school trap definitely works better than the sticky trap

i think they've evolved to realize that those sticky things are death.
i learned that the trick to the trap is to lay out a bunch of them (3 or more), with bait (peanut butter/oats) but NOT set them yet. Wait a few days and see if the mice approach it and eat from it. Once you notice that they're eating out of it regularly, set the trap. I set 8+ at my parents' old place with this method and almost all of them caught a rat within a couple of days. The clean up is always a bitch though.

Still curious about the ultrasonic things. I know the building management at my workplace uses em, but I'm not sure how they are for home/balcony use especially with pets nearby.

Instead of mesh, how bout some flashing, so there's nothing to grip to?

From my research, the ultrasonic stuff seems to work for some people, but there were definitely more reports that weren't effective at all. Esp considering the price difference between this electronic gizmo and the good ol' spring trap, the decision was pretty easy for me.

googled "balcony flashing"

was not disappointed

http://resources2.news.com.au/images...3a4a5398c3.jpg

not a bad idea...i might consider it...i'll have to take a good look at the balcony and exactly how it's laid out to see if that can work.

I'm not sure if it's true, but apparently they hate the smell of moth balls, so popping a few of those in your BBQ for the winter might help. I'd also check it once a month in the winter to make sure they don't build a nest or something in there.

you can be on the 2nd floor in a lawn chair with a can of beer

first 25 seconds :lol

A friend that lived in a townhouse complex had mice on their patios. It turns out the mice were getting around by climbing through the attics.