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UPDATE: If this thing wasn't so dirty I would keep it as a pet.


techristian

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I live on a fairly large (acre) lot and there's a lot of horse properties around here, with lots of other large lots, so there are a lot of critters - including mice. My former mousetrap (my beloved dog Roxy, who was an amazingly efficient killing machine) passed away a few years back, so I too had to go get trapsthe day before yesterday due to spotting a mouse in the house - it's the first one since my dog passed, so this was the first time I've needed to get traps in years and years.

 

I put about four of them out in the area where I saw the mouse, and so far... nothing. I used peanut butter to bait them, which usually is a great bait. I dunno - maybe they're Douglas Adams-grade mice, and too smart to fall for the traps...

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Traps are more humane,IMHO, than poison. And catch and release sounds pretty gross Blue. They are mice...There are billions of them...If you died unexpectedly and undiscovered, they would feed on you. No mercy.

But I have a story....

Long, Long ago...I lived in a rent house with a good buddy. The entire attic was floored and one friday night while we were listening to music in the living room, we heard the scurrying of little feet above us. The only access to the attic was in the garage, through a door from which you could see the entireity of the attic. I went up the ladder and was greeted by what can only be described as a legion of rats that quickly scattered.

I turned to my roomy and said, "We've an infestation!".

I'll never forget his reply..."We need guns and cheese!".

We had guns...Hell we're Texans for Pete's sakes. But no cheese....

Now it's 8:30 on a friday night...We were not exactly in workaday mode...this was 38 years ago folks...Friday night...Loud music and relaxation mode...But we were on a mission...There was a discussion, there was debate..then there was a plan...Now it's 10:15...Still, with the scurrying feet..Then out to the '68 El Camino..geared too low for the freeway..We take Memorial Drive to the Montrose..Whence we go to the only late hour Deli we could think of.

My roomy...Is sort of in the Dreamtime...So I order.."A 1/2 pound of Munster, a 1/2 pound of Baby Swiss, and a 1/2 pound of Cheddar please".

We take delievery of same and headed back to the homestead. Driving down Washington Avenue, some putz in a Maverick gets cocky and pulls up beside us and revs his engine...My roomy looks at me and grins...I dump the clutch at Green and leave him choking. Enuf brag..

Back to the abode. I climb up the ladder with the flashlight and the denizens scatter. I crawl into the attic and place pieces of the Munster and Swiss in strategic locations that will enable clean trajectories. Roomy is loading the rifles....

The Cheddar, you wonder? Well...it didn't make it to the house...Man's gotta eat..

 

We fashion a scaffold out of the ladder, a steel shelving unit, and a 2x6...Don't know where it came, nor where it went...It was a cold winter and we had had no heat in the house other than the fireplace...We burned everything that would burn...Then we waited...He with the 410, and I with the .22. I was the better shot with the Long Gun, and he with the shotgun for he was a bird hunter, I, just targets.

 

Then we waited...Roomy had put on a pot of coffee...To cut the haze a bit I suppose. This was a hunt, and he took hunting seriously. I just wanted to rid myself of the notion that some rat could nibble on my bread or tickle my toes. Plus we hoped to eventually entertain women in this house at some point, and having to answer the question of whether or not we had an infestation of varmints in the house absolutely filled me with a terrible resolve to rid me of these invaders...Pre-score, if you will.

 

Then we heard them..we waited...Then we were convinced the entire coven was feasting on their last meal...We pounced...Gingerly opened the door, turned on the flashlights and fired! I go through 14 rounds and reload as does Roomy. We turn the flashlghts on again and empty our magazines again,,,.

Then we closed the door and waited...

I don't know exactly how many times we repeated the sequence...No more than five times, no less than three. Until we were satisfied or just too tired...Or fried...to continue... We shake hands, but we always did that...then turn in.

 

Morning....I put on the coffee...Roomy emerges after he smells it. We exchange the regular grunts that pass as salutations and look at each other smiling, After we finish our second cups, Roomy says, "We prolly gotta a hell of a mess to clean up up there you know".

 

The product of our endevours was 27 rather large rats, 5 small ones. A drop in the bucket as far as the rats in the world are concerned.

Did not seem to trouble them a bit. We picked up and disposed of their brothers and I assume, their sisters, wives, whatevers. But what most impressed me, was the incredible light present in the attic...From the imnumerble holes we had blown in the siding....

 

2 months later, the Landlord called and told us he had sold the property to a development company, that they were going to demolish the house and build some apartments. He asked, somewhat humbly, "Would there be anyway you fellas could be out of there in two months and I'll forget about about the last 4 months rent?"

 

No Problem Sir!!

 

 

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Never before ,but we saw one last night !!! Going to the hardware for some traps. This almost feels as bad as the day I got robbed.....a feeling of violation.

 

Dan

 

 

You need a pet King Cobra. They keep the rodent population in check. Plus, they scare away other venomous snakes & burglars.

 

Buying a King Cobra isn't as easy as buying a Golden Retriever or a hamster, But they are reasonably family-friendly.Some residents of villages in India, keep de-venomed King Cobras as house pets.

 

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I hear you Blue, but I heard that these things can find their way back up to a mile away !! Hey Phil, we aren't as lucky as you. The mouse keeps eating the peanut butter but doesn't spring the trap ! Well , I let my wife set them because she has experience with mice....but I guess that I will need to do it. .....and I loved that story AlamoJoe !!!!

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that sounds really unsanitary :o

 

The Food and Drug Administration has standards for the amount of mouse poop (and other similar forms of what they call "filth and pollution") that can be present in food that's sold in the United States. You probably don't want to know how much mouse poop you've eaten in your lifetime.

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Some years ago I had to outsmart a whole family of mice in my garage who were able to snatch the bate without springing the trap. I use traditional mouse traps, as they're hard to beat for quick and efficient kills. I tried peanut butter first, but no luck at all.

 

How I finally got them was to tie a single raisin to where the bate goes with a piece of thread. That way they couldn't get away without causing enough movement to spring the trap. And yeah, these are mice, not people. Kill them! Kill them all! We have a responsibility to our fellow man to kill mice. If they leave your house they'll go somewhere else and someone else will have to deal with them. They destroy food and valuables. They spread desease.

 

I tried the sticky traps years before that when my girlfriend had a mouse in her apartment. That only traumatized her. In the middle of the night the mouse got stuck in the sticky stuff and began shrieking in this horrible high pitched tone, before finally dragging the trap to a radiator and pulling himself free. I won't mess with live traps and so-called humane traps anymore for mice. Spare the people; kill the mice!

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I can`t believe a thread about a mouse gets more responses than some of the deeper topics have gotten on this forum lately… :(2

 

Maybe this mouse story will inspire one to write new lyrics?

 

The Mouse In My House

 

The mouse in my house,

is such a louse.

It eats my bread.

It's gonna be dead.

 

It also seems to me that in the past, I have read threads where they have destroyed AV wires and other nasty things.

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Another approach (though I like the cat idea) is to create an ultrasound WAV file and play it back through a PA horn at 110 dB for a couple days. It worked really well for me; I had a mouse in the studio a year ago, and he never came back. The file had a 3 minute loop of sine waves sweeping from 25 to 45 KHz about ten times a second.

 

Do NOT do this when there are pets or people present, it is really very bad for your health (it can cause cerebral hemorages). But if you're, for instance, heading out to do some grocery shopping, it's a good time to hit 'play'.

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Do you like cats?

 

With a cat in your house, the mice just won't come around so you don't have to concern yourself with killing them.

 

Cats, like my dog Roxy was, are incredibly efficient killing machines. If you have a cat, you won't have mice. But it's not pretty - cats can be callous killers who, as Craig said, actually enjoy it. They'll play with the mouse for a while before killing it, so I'm not really sure how humane they are. But they certainly are effective.

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... cats can be callous killers who' date=' as Craig said, actually enjoy it. They'll play with the mouse for a while before killing it, so I'm not really sure how humane they are. But they certainly are effective.[/quote']

 

I got a couple of cats because I needed to deal with a rodent infestation when I moved into my house. Once the cats settled in then the mice stopped coming around.

 

It was tough for me to watch that when I first got them - but they were just being cats. I expect more empathy and compassion from myself but no so much from a couple of felines.

 

 

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My sister sent me this picture on Facebook.

 

fetch?id=31323399

 

UPDATE: If this thing wasn't so dirty I would keep it as a pet. It has displayed intelligence beyond my imagination and has managed to do acrobatics I would have never have expected. NO PLACE in my kitchen is safe from his trail.....and he has left his trail in some very unusual places.

 

Dan

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