In the morning my brother in law spotted mice/rat but not sure what it is. Upon moving sofa it has made holes in it. I have 2 problems now
How can I make the pest run outside as pest control cannot come before 2 weeks. What can I do? I m based in UK
In UK, if its body (less its tail) is about 5 to 7 cm long it is probably a mouse. Rats grow to be much bigger, and indoors it is more usually a mouse.
If there is a hole in the sofa, that might be where the creature has made a nest.
The situation is made more difficult by having a young child, but some ways to get rid of it are
With a baited spring trap. This is very dangerous for a young child to be near. It is gory too, and the trap can only be used once. If there are other mice/rats, they will not touch the trap a second time, as they are not stupid. They either smell the (now absent) family member on the trap, or saw it happen.
With poison bait. This too is dangerous with young children around. A secondary problem is that the poisoned creature may go into the sofa to die, and rot there, causing a bad smell. However this is more effective than the spring trap to eradicate a family.
A live baited trap, where a door flips shut and the live mouse cannot leave. You then take the trap outside and release the creature. That has to be at least 1km away, to prevent it finding its way back to your house. This is the most friendly method, and is safer for children than the other ways.
Get a cat.
Another problem is that mice/rats can leave infected urine where they go, so you must disinfect anything the child might touch.
You might try stuffing the holes with steel wool or copper wool. Both rats and mice don't like the feel of it and they generally can't chew through it. With the copper wool, if they try, the website below says it gets stuck in their teeth, so they can't really do anything after taking a bite. The site also says that the rodents will try to remove the plug, so anchoring it is recommended.
https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/household-safety/steel-wool-stop-mice.htm
I ran a computer store that had this same problem, unfortunately. We used poison bait blocks. These work best if you put them next to a wall, since rodents tend to hug a wall when walking and will eat whatever they first find. With that young of a baby, you don't have to worry about them crawling yet, so you can get rid of the bait when the problem is resolved. Just make sure you know exactly where the blocks are so you can remove them all and clean up around the area to prevent any residual poison or forgotten blocks.
Using poison does cause the rodent to die "somewhere", and this will likely be in the nest, but the one thing at least rats hate most is the smell of a dead rat. Any remaining rats will likely vacate and not come back.
Lay a bucket half filled with water, or lay a few of them here and there in different rooms. The rodents like water and will believe there is an entrance to the cess pool in the bottom of the bucket. They jump into the bucket to only find too late they were wrong then then slowly drown. No danger for a children, neither for a babe. Works for rats and probably mice if the bucket is not oversized.
To catch it, identify it's routes it takes to obtain food and water. Chance are the couch is it's nest. Follow along baseboards, look behind curtains, and whereever else it may travel under cover. Do not exclude the kitty dish as a source of food. To know you've identified the route there will be droppings. Leave them. If you leave your smell they'll just find a new route. As mentioned above place a mouse trap with a strong temptation, halfway through the route. This should take care of your problem.
