Finding mice in a rented flat is unpleasant, and the first question is almost always the same: do I have to deal with this, or does my landlord? In the Netherlands the answer is usually the landlord, because mice in an apartment block get in through the building rather than through your front door. That said, knowing the general rule is not the same as getting it fixed, so this article covers how to report it properly, what a landlord or housing association is likely to do, and which parts genuinely are yours.
Why mice are a building problem, not a flat problem
A house mouse needs a gap of six or seven millimetres. In a block of flats, that kind of gap exists in dozens of places you have no access to: service shafts carrying pipes and cables from floor to floor, the space behind kitchen units, cavity walls, the void above a suspended ceiling, the communal bin store, the shared entrance.
This has two practical consequences.
The first is that mice rarely stay in one flat. If you can hear them behind your kitchen units, your neighbours very likely can too, even if nobody has mentioned it. The second is that treating a single flat almost never works. Close the gaps in your own kitchen and the population simply uses the flat next door as a base.
That is why this is normally handled at building level, and why it sits with whoever is responsible for the building.
Reporting it to your landlord or housing association
Report it in writing, even if you have already phoned. Email is fine. Keep a copy.
Useful things to include:
- When you first noticed it and how often since.
- Where. Behind the kitchen units, under the sink, in a cupboard, along a particular wall.
- What you have actually seen. Droppings (mouse droppings are about five millimetres, dark, rice shaped), gnaw marks on packaging, a smell, scratching at night.
- Photographs, with something for scale.
- Whether neighbours have it too, if you know.
Then ask specifically for a professional inspection of the building, not just your flat. A housing association (woningcorporatie) will usually have a contractor it works with; a private landlord may need pointing in that direction. If nothing happens, follow up in writing and keep the thread going, because a documented trail matters far more later than a series of phone calls nobody wrote down.
What you should not do in the meantime
Since 2023, rodenticide in the Netherlands may only be applied by certified professionals working to an Integrated Pest Management approach. As a tenant you cannot buy it and should not try to source it. Glue traps are best avoided too: they are indiscriminate and they do nothing about the route the mice are using.
More to the point, poison in a block of flats treats the symptom in one unit while the population carries on in the shafts. It is exactly the wrong tool for a shared building.
What you can do, and it is not nothing
While you wait for the building side to be sorted, the things within your own four walls do make a measurable difference:
- Take away the food. Dry goods into glass or hard plastic, nothing left out overnight, crumbs off the worktop and out from under the units, pet food put away rather than left down.
- Deal with the bin. A closed bin, emptied daily, and food waste taken down rather than left in the hallway.
- Close what you can reach. The gap where the waste pipe leaves the cupboard under the sink, the hole behind a wall socket, the space where a radiator pipe comes through the floor. Steel wool pushed firmly into a gap and then sealed over holds up well; expanding foam on its own does not, because mice chew straight through it.
- Write down what you observe. Dates, rooms, sounds. It helps the technician and it helps your case.
What you cannot do from inside your flat is close the shafts, the cavity walls or the communal areas. That is the part that has to come from the building side.
What professional treatment in a block looks like
Proper rodent control in an apartment building starts with an inspection across the block rather than one call-out to one flat. A technician maps where the activity is, follows the shafts and the service routes, and works out where the population is actually living, which is often not where it is being heard.
The lasting part of the work is proofing: sealing penetrations where pipes and cables pass between units, fitting brushes and covers, closing the gaps around the bin store and the entrance doors. Monitoring points confirm afterwards whether the activity has genuinely stopped or has simply shifted along the block.
Ask your landlord to have the whole stack treated, not your flat alone. It is the difference between a fix and a repeat visit in six weeks.
Frequently asked questions
Can my landlord charge me for the pest control visit?
Normally a landlord carries the cost when rodents are getting into the building through its structure, shafts or communal areas, because maintaining the building is theirs. It can look different where the problem is clearly caused by how a specific home is being kept. Report what you have observed, in writing, and ask for the building to be inspected rather than arguing about the bill up front.
My neighbours say they have no mice. Does that change anything?
Not necessarily. Mice concentrate where the food is, so one flat in a stack can carry visible activity while the neighbours notice nothing at all. It is still worth asking the landlord to inspect the adjoining units and the service shafts, because that is where the nest usually turns out to be.
How long does it take to get rid of mice in a flat?
Expect a few weeks rather than a single visit. The first visit is an inspection, the work itself combines closing the routes in with monitored control points, and a follow-up check confirms the activity has actually stopped. Cases that come back are almost always ones where the proofing was skipped.