Pest control/winter storage?

When I was in junior high, there was a console heater in one of the lunch rooms. Inside the heater was a squirrel cage blower that blew air up and out into the room. At some time, a mouse had somehow wandered into the squirrel cage blower when it was turned off. Somebody turned on the blower as the mouse was still sitting inside. Mr. Mouse was now trapped by centrifugal force onto the side of the blower wheel just like a hamster in an exercise wheel! Mouse no doubt expired within minutes, but his dried out corpse was permanently affixed to the inside of the blower and rotated around and around for many months.

 

it was some time before i bought to a new toaster !!!!!!!!!!!

 

We had a mouse crawl into the timer control box for our hot tub. Fried himself when the timer made contact. That is what a circuit breaker is for.

We live on a farm, so we have rodents everywhere. Victor spring traps out in the barn work well, baited with peanut butter. I place them where the sheep cannot get to them. We have a big Siamese cat who's job is to patrol the garage and he is very good at his job, but we have to inspect his mouth whenever he comes into the house. I use poison in the crawl space under the house along with sticky pads in one easily accessible area. I agree the sticky pads are not humane, those mice die a slow starvation death. But, I check them daily and introduce them to a zip loc bag so they suffocate in about an hour, still not too humane. Last summer, my big rat trap was missing from its usual perch in the barn. I finally found it about 20 feet out in the pasture, the rat died after dragging himself out there with a broken back, still not very humane. I am not sure anybody has yet to invent a consistently accurate and humane mouse trap.

 

One thing that no one has mentioned... Clean up the place!

Do not keep any type of food product in your garage with your car. Dog food, bird seed, or any type of feed that is not in a steel and fully sealable container. Mice not only look for shelter and shredable nesting material (like the insulation in your car's air system) but they also stay close to a food source. I can't count the number of cars i've seen that have mouse poop right next to a huge pile of dry animal food and old shredded newspaper.

If you spill food when dispensing, make sure you clean it up immediately. Don't just kick it off to the walls behind stuff.

Don't make newspaper piles. Burn it, throw it out, recycle, whatever...

Traps and poison are good, but they ain't stopping everything.

 

Tomato juice thing for skunk odor is NOT a myth. It did not work for your dog probably because you maybe used just a can or so of it . In the case of a dog, depending on the size of it, you may need gallons of it, and DIP the entire dog in it. But otherwise, it is not warranted to blame the poor tomato juice. Bleach is , at least, corrosive to a dog's sensitive skin, does not rinse off easily, and vapors v harmful, it's just that we have been conditioned to equate the bleach smell with that of something smelling "clean". Technically, I dont believe it even reacts (neutralizing) with the compound emitted by skunks, the name of which, for now, is beyond the scope of this thread.

 

I dunno, those stick pads you refer to are actually glue traps, and banned in some states, because they are considered NOT humane (the rat/mouse is stuck alive , potentially for days, before dying of exposure/thirst). Victor classic mouse traps are good. Only time I use glue is for a WARY rat, and we have them here!!!

Watch out for poison, not so much for your pets, cuz that can be controlled, but for the victim who then seeks out water to quench his violent thirst (Dcon has dicoumarin, a compound that causes the blood to pool, causing hemmoraging/thirst), and the mouse/rat can die in your attic/obscure part of the house, stinking for 2 weeks!

Oh, best way to kill in glue is not a plastic bag, but a quick bop on the head. For the more squeamish, drowning in a pail.......yep, I know its bad, but we're talking about a Ferrari!

 

I always tie a thin but strong nylon string to traps, and anchor them down. You can catch a larger animal in there, say, a squirrel, and they will take it away!! Also, have caught small possums in them, and had I not tied them down with string, that possy would have been GONE with the trap!

 

LOL!!
Excellent advice! I was gonna say salami, but this is probably better (I have actually, reluctantly used prosciutto....$20/lb!)

 

I have had good luck with the electronic devices to repel the mice. I aso use victor traps as a backup, but I have never seen a mouse in the garage with the electronic gizmos. Another car, outside the garage but with moth balls proved to me that moth balls do not work.

 

If you are worried about them getting in through the exhaust, put steel wool in the tips. It won't trap moisture, but it will keep out mice.

 

Right! Or, aluminum mosquito screen wrapped around, tied down with wire around the pipe.

 

Does anyone use the little poison bags that cause the rodents to become extremely thirsty, causing them to go outside looking for water and to die shortly thereafter?

I've heard the arguments against the poison; I'm interested to know whether it works, and how well. I have no pets.

 

Previously posted info on that.....pls try to find it....but if you cant, here's the deal:

most use types of a class of chemical compounds called dicoumarins.....cause pooling of the blood/internal hemmoraging/death. Yeah, they get thirsty, but can die in your attic/basement/etc, and STINK FOR THE NEXT 2 WEEKS! Sometimes they are either hard to locate, even dead, or impossible to get to, if, say, they die at the end of a rafter, or crawl space under your house.

I never use poisons!! Lazy man's tool for pest control. Pros shy away from them. Traps are the best.

 

Geez, I hit 1000........finally...LOL

 

+1

 

But I mean, why would they die inside? Why wouldn't they go outside through the same hole in which they came?

 

Dont know, Dave, but I am gonna find out! Im on a mission, now. Dunno, maybe they start getting so delerious near the end, they will meander anywhere in finel desparation (?).

Hmmmmm, who do I know that is an animal behaviorist?

 

All right, all Ive been able to find out with just some basic research, rats , after eating the stuff, can find water sources in attic, like maybe an air handler, that condenses water in a pan, for a source. Other than that, beats me why they might die in the attic(or cellar, for that matter). They SHOULD go outside for that water source, but may not. That risk, for me, is not worth the 2 weeks worth of STINK .

 

Haha well then, my dear friend:

Why should the stink only last two weeks?

 

Unfortunately, I had to put a cap (actually two) in a little mouse underneath my dresser recently. My girl friend saw it, and shocked it into submission long enough for me to load my .177 Benjamin air rifle given to me by my passed uncle and sadly, had to put two pellets into it. I have six firearms, but didn't want to put a big hole in my wall or any nearby humans. We don't have pets, so we previously had put the standard D-con around the old gas stove, where they were crapping, and the mice ate it by the handful for about three weeks. Eventually they stopped eating the stuff, and a few days later the aforementioned incident occured. (Victor spring traps had no effect on these city mice, even with a tasty nacho-cheese treat, and yes I tried peanut-butter and cured meat) I couldn't help but think that the poor mouse that I'd shot had been left alone by his dead parents, and went into my closet for shelter. I had to drag him out with a coat hanger, leaving a gross trail of mouse blood. No mice since. Oh well, these little sh*ts carry serious diseases, at least one of which is brain-damaging, and transferable from pregnant human mothers to their kin. KILL 'EM ALL!!!!

ps... to all the granolas and tree huggers, there will never be an environmental impact as a result of the shortage of mice and rats, except in the rainforest or other wild situations. Mousetraps of any sort are totally PC in my opinion, and this is coming from someone who grew up in the Castro district in SF, comes from a PC family, and has always had fair animal treatment drummed into his head as long as he can remember. I would never shoot a deer, I will always avoid an animal on the roadway, but a mouse that comes into my home to crap on my kitchen surfaces and contaminate my food has got to go, no matter how inhumane the method. And if the little f$#%ers messed with my Ferrari, PETA might come after me for what I would do to the offender.

 

Awww, c'mon.....now you're confusing me, Stp! 2WKS, 2WKS AND A DAY, 2WKS MINUS A DAY, i REALLY CANT TELL. dEPENDS ON WEATHER, ETC.....lol. Does that clarify it a little better..LOL

Look. The rat dies (could even be a possum or coon, too, you know, then you're REALLY looking at 5 weeks!), the carcas decomposes, and stuff, you know? It ferments/stinks, cuz you didnt want to use traps, like I suggested.

I trapped furs op Nawth back in the days when you were a kid, Im willin to bet. I know about traps, and I know about rats that would spring my traps occasionally, and their habits.

Now, a twist of trivia......What country does the Norway rat come from? (vast majority of rats in US came from Europe, and are called Norway rats)

It's an easy simple question, no?