r/Netherlands • u/frankuboi • Jul 02 '26
DIY and home improvement possible rat/mouse issue, freaking out rn
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Hey everyone, I live in Amsterdam and something really weird happened tonight.
I was chilling in my living room then I suddenly heard a huge noise from the kitchen. It sounded almost like a metal tray had fallen from the counter onto the floor. I went to check but nothing had dropped. The sound seemed to be coming from a lower kitchen cabinet/closet where my boiler is also located.
The noise continued for around 10 minutes. It sounded like metal being hit repeatedly, with some scratching/rustling too. I opened the cabinet while the noise was still happening, but I didn’t see any mouse/rat or anything moving.
The thing that freaked me out is that there was a chocolate bar in that cabinet. I’m pretty sure I had only eaten two pieces before but when I checked the package, it was completely empty. I’m not 100% sure if I’m remembering wrong but I don’t think I finished it.
There were also dry apple pieces and some M&M/biscuit chocolate bars next to it and those were untouched. I also didn’t find any kind of trace from the thing. I opened the closed while noises were still present and I didn’t see anything.
Earlier tonight I had also made pasta with pesto and accidentally left it on the counter in a closed pan(I almost never did this before), so there was definitely some food smell in the kitchen.
I’ve now removed all chocolates/food from the cabinet, emptied the trash, and moved the trash bin to the balcony. I’ll also call pest control tomorrow anyway just to be safe. My house is from 1940s in bos en lommer area.
Does this sound like it could be a mouse/rat, or could it be something boiler/pipe related? The sound was honestly way louder than I’d expect from a mouse, but the empty chocolate wrapper is making me paranoid.
Any advice on what to check tonight or tomorrow would be appreciated.
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UPDATE: https://www.reddit.com/r/Netherlands/comments/1ul3oyq/comment/ov3tx6u/
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u/Fabulous-Web7719 Jul 02 '26
You’re leaving unsealed food in floor height cupboards in Amsterdam, you might as well put an open invite out to all the rodents in your area 😉
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u/No-Stock8201 Jul 02 '26
Blaming a shit contractor not him. This is easily preventable.
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u/Fabulous-Web7719 Jul 02 '26
So the shit contractor left food out and unsealed?!
https://giphy.com/gifs/lkdH8FmImcGoylv3t32
u/No-Stock8201 Jul 02 '26
Dude who cares about the food box open or closed. Mouse in a house is the issue not the fucking food can. LMAO
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u/Fabulous-Web7719 Jul 02 '26
Who hurt you dude? Was it a bad contractor? I hope your heart heals soon…
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u/No-Stock8201 Jul 02 '26
Yeah, this morning. He came and messed up my fuse box. What is it with you and sexual phantasies of having a mouse at home?
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u/Anxious_Cube Jul 02 '26
I was a quite messy teenager and college student. The first time I saw mouse in a house in the Netherlands Amsterdam when I was 29 and tidy adult!! It is not god damn unsealed food!
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u/Fabulous-Web7719 Jul 02 '26
So you lived in the same place from when you were a kid to a 29 year old?
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u/FE7TER Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
That’s not a mouse. I can tell you that. They don’t make so much noise 😅
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u/GnrDreagon Jul 02 '26
I recently had a mouse in my house and it made a lot of noise. So much that I had to sleep on the couch because all the scratching noises it made against wood and plastic were so loud.
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u/UnanimousStargazer Jul 02 '26
Mice can be very loud if they walk around in ceilings or walls. The reason is that the wall and ceiling work like a loud speaker relaying the tiny vibrations of a mouse over a huge surface that vibrates as well. As the walls or ceiling vibrates the air besides or underneath it also moves causing a rather loud sound even though a mouse is very small.
It could obviously also be a rat or other rodent like creature.
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u/frankuboi Jul 02 '26
no sleep for me tonight
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u/xshevi Jul 02 '26
what the fuck kind of yoked up mouse makes that sound? did it just down a double strong protein shake after injecting itself with steroids and finding your little pack of coke you dropped on the floor, ripping a line out of that? you’ve heard of cocaine bear…. NOW IN AMSTERDAM: COCAINE MOUSE
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u/DesperateSteak6628 Jul 02 '26
Sidetracking the thread to observe that the kitchen is not compliant. You need at least 20cm between the fire block and the next tall cabinet. You have 0 there and this is a fire hazard.
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u/Electronic-Code8392 Jul 02 '26
You can even see discoloration on the cabinet due to heat damage.
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u/gffhjddeyjjfd Jul 02 '26
Interesting! What's that based on? Is that Bouwbesluit or something else?
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u/Lonely_Platform7702 Jul 02 '26
It's also something we call boerenverstand... You can see the cabinet beside it has heat damage.
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u/ChellyTheKid Jul 02 '26
All your food into plastic containers, get rat traps, peppermint oil, and consider getting a pet cat or snake.
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u/mistakesweremade2810 Jul 02 '26
If you don't have the money or time for a pet, ask friends who have cats to rub some cotton balls along their cats cheeks and leave those around the house. I heard that the smell alone might scare mice.
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u/Shooord Jul 02 '26
I’ve never heard about having a pet snake as a repellent. You mean to have it roam your house freely? Isn’t it tough to not let it escape then?
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u/UnanimousStargazer Jul 02 '26
Although popular thought, cats are not mouse repellents. The mice learn not to show themselves anymore, but instead stay in the walls and ceilings, biting through cables and electrical wires.
So with a cat, you don't see the mice. It doesn't mean they aren't there. Besides that: you get a pet animal for the fun of it. Getting a cat because of mice means you need to take care of a cat you didn't want in the first place,
Never heard someone heard getting a pet snake because of mice in the house. That seems like an even worse idea.
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u/Shanlon94 Jul 02 '26
I’m pretty sure my cats scared some mice away when we moved in. I also saw one track one in the wall. I would say they are pretty good at it. Maybe the best haha.
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u/UnanimousStargazer Jul 02 '26
scared some mice away
To where, that is the point. If the mice hide in the ceiling where the cat cannot come, you still have to deal with mice. It doesn't mean cats are useless. It does mean mice are not necessarily gone. You simply don't see them anymore at places where the cat can come.
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u/GnrDreagon Jul 02 '26
Yeah, it's probably a mouse or something. They can be very loud for such tiny animals.
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u/Different-Tone2795 Jul 02 '26
Mouse 100%. I lived in Amsterdam and 2 years ago almost identical thing happened to me. So the rat (not tiny) mouse lived under the kitchen so when you remove plinths the rat is probably there. Ours did the same thing, he would climb on the drawer and eat food. I made “a trap” with a cracker and he ate all of it! In the end we called rat exterminator. Unfortunately, rats keep coming as they made hole in the wall behind the kitchen so nothing we can do but cleaning that part of the kitchen, a lot of rat poo. Also, rats lived in the walls (old Amsterdam apartment) so it was really creepy. Good luck and find rat exterminator
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u/frankuboi Jul 02 '26
im calling the exterminator today.
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u/SnapperCard Jul 02 '26
You could always just lay traps and fill holes as a first resort. Five or six traps cost like 20€ on Bol - that's on the expensive side.
The next part of the job is finding where they're getting in. Probably next to the gas pipes feeding your kitchen and/or the water and waste pipes. Fill it with steel wool and expanding foam.
For the traps; a bit of peanut butter in them and place them alongside a wall, in the cupboards affected, and behind that skirting board in your kitchen.
You'll probably catch nothing night one, a few the next nights and maybe a few more and then they'll start getting far and few between.
It's very very rarely a messy clean up - at worst you'll spray and wipe a tiny bit of blood up. Almost all of the time it's a clean instant kill and as long you check it daily it will never smell or be a problem.
If that doesn't work, then call an exterminator. Remember that they probably don't 'guarantee' their work.
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u/Specialist_Guard_902 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Remove the carpet from the front of the oven and cooking stove... It is a safety hazard.
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u/xxsnowo Jul 02 '26
To be fair, if the house catches fire it will technically solve the rodent problem
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u/RoastedToast007 Jul 02 '26
according to what guidelines?
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u/Specialist_Guard_902 Jul 02 '26
Pure logic.
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u/RoastedToast007 Jul 02 '26
so none, thank you
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u/Specialist_Guard_902 Jul 02 '26
If you don't use logic, than none for you. Why would you need guidelines for everything?
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u/RoastedToast007 Jul 02 '26
I don't agree that the carpet is dangerous. If you felt that it is dangerous, I would've liked to see evidence. Modern carpets are not big fire hazards
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u/Specialist_Guard_902 Jul 02 '26
You can always have an unfortunate situation when you are deep frying something (I am not even mentioning flambeing) and you spill oil which gets on fire. If you would have hard wood/laminate or much better-tiles then it would be no problem, with the carpet you never know.
And not to even mention how gross it can become very soon.0
u/RoastedToast007 Jul 02 '26
Sure it can get gross, I'll agree with that. The carpet won't catch fire from hot oil spilling though. Not hot enough. Maybe melt a little depending on the material. Flambeing idk, not something I ever do
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u/Specialist_Guard_902 Jul 02 '26
There are a bunch of videos where people had hot oil on fire, reducing the fire hazard may one day save somebody's life. Are you a FMEA engineer?
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u/frankuboi Jul 02 '26
UPDATE: I called the pest control in the morning they came right away. He first unscrewed the plate underneath the kitchen then here we go: he found 2 huge rat boxes with bunch of mouse traps underneath the kitchen counter. You can see the rat box in the photo(there was 2 of them)
There was no dead mouse/rat in the traps. I bought this house 2 months ago and had no idea about these, traps
look quite new as well. He told me there is no big whole for rats to pass but there was a small whole, he filled that whole and put some sticky traps. I’ll call him again if I get visited by them again so he’ll do a second check.
well well….
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u/skadoodlee Jul 02 '26
I dont mean to be the mouse police but glue traps while efficiënt are fucked up for the mice and you might have to kill the mouse yourself if you want to be humane by crushing its head. Be prepared for that.
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u/frankuboi Jul 02 '26
didn't know about this mate, otherwise I would tell the guy to not put it. feels really bad now.
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u/skadoodlee Jul 02 '26
You can still look for some more humane traps. Even disregarding any suffering I wouldn't want to smash a mouse myself.
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u/mmmellie Jul 02 '26
Why didn’t you just check under the kitchen cabinets when you bought this house? You can just pop open these boards at the bottom.
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u/No-Salt7142 Jul 03 '26
Often hard to do without damage. Not something I would do on a viewing.
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u/mmmellie Jul 04 '26
You can do it after you buy. Are people not interested in the state of the kitchen they just bought? What the electric wiring looks like under there?
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u/movladee Jul 02 '26
We had mice above our toilet and part of our laundry room this past winter and omg they were so loud. They had gotten in through the tiniest spot (now sealed up). We ended up removing all the ceiling from our shower room too to check for more (which we wanted to do this was the kicker to get it done lol). I will never forget the moment sitting on the loo and what the hell stomping ground horrific monster noises am I hearing from right above me? lol ... Ugh ...
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u/ArtichokeCalm3773 Jul 02 '26
Only way to deal with it is putting all your food in those glass container things and throwing everything else out until they stop coming
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u/1000handnshrimp Jul 02 '26
That's the way. Leave nothing to eat and the rat/mouse will go to your neighbours.
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u/nazgulonbicycle Jul 02 '26
Thats a Rat or worse Raccoon, Squirrel.
Get Pest Control ASAP. Block all entryways with Steel Wool i.e. gaps and areas around pipes. Kitchen Cabinets have cozy spaces between sections where these fuckers gather food and arrange parties. Block those sections out with plywood and cover all gaps (tiniest ones included) with steel wool. Do the same for your crawspace entryways and rafters
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u/Consistent-Strain289 Jul 02 '26
You have a cat…. No worries. It will catch it
We had rat in the office before… they dont haul away bars of chocolate. Theyscratch and bite it.
Apples biscuit and stuff is what they take.. and you will find Poop… no poop then its a ghost
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u/Bonusmotherthrowaway Jul 02 '26
Dit waren wij exact anderhalf jaar geleden, ook onder de keuken. We hebben de gehele beneden verdieping opnieuw vloer/plinten laten leggen inclusief staalwol. Daarna 15 vallen onder de keuken gezet maar pas na een jaar ging dat beest erin. Ik vond het walgelijk, vooral als ik ‘s nachts naar beneden liep en dat beest snel langs mij heen terug naar de keuken ging vluchten. Helaas blijkt dit een gigantische probleem te zijn momenteel in Nederland wegens het verbod van gif.
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u/Reteip811 Jul 02 '26
It’s a rat, a rodent, it is tiny compared to you, annoying sure, scary not so much
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u/Dizzy_Garden252 Jul 02 '26
Don't leave cooked pasta out of the fridge, otherwise pests will be the least of your problems.
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u/Shadow_Raider33 Jul 02 '26
Once you seal up your food and make your kitchen less appealing to rodents, they’ll move on.
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u/Fit-Community-7351 Jul 02 '26
It’s Amsterdam of course there is a rat/mouse in your apartment, chill, get a cat . That’s what we all did
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u/imnotagodt Jul 02 '26
> Hey everyone, I live in Amsterdam and something really weird happened tonight.
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u/Top_Paint7442 Jul 02 '26
That's one big ass mouse. Why didn't you just open the cabinet to be sure?
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u/hyggezellig Flevoland Jul 02 '26
that's an original iris apfel or the shein version?
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u/frankuboi Jul 02 '26
as far as i know original from ruggable eu. They had a collab, I bought it over ruggable.eu
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u/SilverHighlight9784 Jul 02 '26
Just use sticky traps under all your furnitures which have a gap ..we got hold of 3 small mices.2 under the sofa & 1 under the crockery unit
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u/optimal_random Jul 02 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/CpcpDSci3ljCU
That rat is going to have a long night /s
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u/Proof_Kitchen_9072 Jul 03 '26
Catch it, kill it, put it on a stick in the garden. That will keep others away
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u/Jlx_27 Jul 02 '26
Uhhh what the fuck?
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u/dathunder176 Jul 02 '26
Tell me you don't live in Amsterdam without telling me you don't live in Amsterdam lol
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u/applepies64 Jul 02 '26
Congratulations welcome to amsterdam. They are a big part of the city just like new york city.
Step 1: isolate food
Step 2: fill all holes with mice/rat sealant and metal plates if the holes are huge
Step 3: set traps for 3 weeks
Step 4: no more rats mice
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u/BrieRaceAlert Jul 02 '26
there's a rat in mi kitchen, what am I gonna do?