Tell the Landlord First, and in Writing
If you rent, the most useful thing you can do on the first day is report it. Send the landlord or letting agent a message saying what you have found, where, and when you first noticed it. A photograph of droppings in a cupboard or a chewed cereal box is worth more than a paragraph of description.
Put it in writing rather than mentioning it at a viewing or on the phone. It fixes the date, it gives the landlord something to act on, and if there is later a disagreement about how long the problem ran, there is a record that nobody has to argue over.
The one thing that settles most disputes: a dated written report, sent as soon as you see signs. It costs nothing, and it is far harder to sort out who does what months later without one.
Who Usually Does What
There is no single rule, and we are pest controllers rather than legal advisers. Who pays generally turns on the tenancy agreement and on the cause. Mice getting in through a gap round a pipe, a broken airbrick cover or a rotten door frame point towards the building. Mice drawn in by food left out point, fairly or not, towards how the home is being used.
In practice the split tends to fall along these lines:
- The landlord or agent often arranges and pays for treatment, and deals with repairs to the fabric that let mice in.
- The tenant reports promptly, keeps food sealed and surfaces clear, and gives reasonable access for visits.
- In a block of flats, shared roof spaces, risers and bin stores usually belong to the freeholder or management company, not any one flat.
- Both benefit from the same outcome, which is a home the mice can no longer get into.
For the landlord side in more depth, the advice centre has a page on pest control for landlords. Shared student houses bring their own mix of kitchens and housemates, covered on the Earley page.
Booking When You Are Not the Owner
Either side can book. Mice control is a fixed £260, confirmed before anything is booked, and what the treatment involves, including the visits and any proofing, is explained at that point. Tell us when you ring who is paying, who the tenant is, and whose number we should use to arrange access, so that nobody is left waiting for a message that went to the wrong person.
If the landlord books, the tenant still needs to be told what is going down and where. Bait stations are locked and tamper-resistant and traps are set where only mice can reach, but whoever lives there needs to know not to move them, and to mention children, pets or anyone vulnerable in the household before we arrive.
Between Visits, the Tenant Holds the Key
Treatment works because mice feed at the stations or cross the traps on their usual runs. If there is an easier meal on the worktop, in an open bin or in a bag of pet food on the floor, they take that instead and the job drags on. That part is squarely in the hands of whoever lives there.
- Decant cereals, rice, flour and pet food into lidded tins or hard plastic tubs.
- Wipe worktops at night and keep the kitchen bin lidded.
- Leave stations and traps exactly where they were placed.
- Note any fresh droppings or new chewing and pass it on, with the date.
It takes days to weeks rather than a single visit, and activity fades rather than stopping overnight; the timeline article explains why.
When Mice Come Back After a Move
A new tenancy is a common moment for mice to show themselves. Empty homes go quiet, the mice spread out, and the first sign is often droppings in a cupboard the week the new occupant moves in. Nobody has done anything wrong; the problem simply predates the tenancy. Reporting it straight away, with photographs, makes that easy for everyone to see.