Rodents

[Gatorubet]

OK, so the Mrs is terrified of mice and rats (hell, big rats creep me out too...), and when I say terrified, I mean stand on chairs, run from the room, and never come out from hiding scared. We were in D.C. this summer touring museums and memorials when she saw a rat - across the tracks on the other side of the station - and was paralyzed with fear. I said, "Look honey, he is not going to jump into the track area, race across the twenty feet of track, climb the six foot wall and pick you out of the crowd to attack. If he does, the boys and I will step on him, since he weighs in in ounces and we are sorta big primates."

No good. Unhappy face. Well, we have a mouse in the house. In the kitchen. Shit likely more than one. So she has been avoiding the kitchen and I have had to cook and clean the dishes more than I do. I am fine with doing either, or both, but her being afraid of the kitchen is not good logistically. So she calls Terminex. I take off work to meet the guy, he sets glue traps out, and that is that. Now, he is there, because she did not want me to buy mouse traps, put a little Jiff on it, and kill the bastards. She would have to see his dead ass, you see. So he (they?) have not stepped on a glue trap near the stove, where we can hear scratching and it is now week two.

Tonight I hear the little shit, and so I look around and the wife is in bed. I tell my oldest son, who is studying in the den which adjoins the kitchen, "Don't say anything loud when you hear a trap "snap" 'cause mom might wake up". I get some old mouse traps out of the garage, put a little peanut butter on them, slide them on both sides of the stove and go to the back office to catch up on BP and GatorCountry.

I shit you not, less then fifteen minutes ago I hear a loud "snap!" and start laughing. As I walk by my son is grinning and has his hand over his heart. Mr. Mouse is dead and his little neck is snapped.

Mice are no biggie. The rats are another thing. I live a block from the Mississippi River, and the rats are like Dachshunds. I see the fuckers running across the back fence line at night. I do not leave food outside, and I burn my outside grill until every bit of food on it is carbon after I use it. I had to get rid of some that built a nest in a pile of spare oak flooring boards I had stored in the garage, and I had to go to a neighbor and tell them not to throw food in their backyard compost pile, which caused them to take up residence. When I finally killed them, I was shocked to see half of them were white-brown pinto pony rats, where someone in the hood had released his pet white rat and it had produced a litter with the homie rats.

Rodent scum must die.

Does anyone else have a problem with them? (Other than Buckyle, who does not have food in his place to draw them )

 

[Deety]

Not currently. I did work a very short period of time at a Shoney's in HS where we had to inspect all the pie crusts and such for bite marks before serving. When you are taking an order and a mouse runs across the floor behind you, the tips tend to reflect it. Best one was a toddler singing the Mickey Mouse song and pointing to the wall behind me. It was the booth next to the soups, and climbing across the brick wall above the soup was a huge mouse. That one was fun, what with the rioting and all. The owners tried their best, but between constant torrential rain and a huge construction project next door, it was pretty hopeless.

Mice don't freak me out, though I don't want them in the kitchen obviously. 'Cept maybe this one. He's cute.

 

[Mr_Burns]

Does anyone else have a problem with them? (Other than Buckyle, who does not have food in his place to draw them )

I live out in the country, and I have been waging war with some stupid field mice since I bought my house in August (purchased from my brother, who swears he didn't have this problem when he and his wife lived here. I call bullshit, but that's another story). They are very small mice, about the size of your thumb. Only once have I seen one on the main level--the other encounters have been in the basement. As soon as I think I've killed the last one, I see another one of those bastards darting across the floor.

I have no idea where they are coming from. The most likely reason is that there is a small crack in the foundation, or hole somewhere that they use to get in the house. There is also a possibility that one or two ran in while my brother was moving out and I was moving in, and then they had a littler. I haven't seen any more for a number of weeks, so I think the battle has been won. It was the worst during the fall when they were trying to find somewhere warm.

Anyway, traditional traps wouldn't work because they didn't weigh enough to trip the ones I bought. The method I found to be most successful initially was the D-Con poison. However, I didn't like the thought of one eating the poison then dying somewhere in the house to rot, so I wanted to try something else. I bought a trap that electrocutes the sons of bitches as soon as they set foot on two metal plates within the trap. The first one I killed was named Sparky, of course.

For those of you who live in the city and aren't used to seeing a mouse in their home, and were completely disgusted by this post, I apologize (actually, I left out the more entertaining ways I killed a couple--you're welcome). I grew up out here, so although seeing a mouse every now and then isn't a welcomed sight, it doesn't exactly have me jumping on tables out of fright, either. And blame my idiot brother, not me. I inherited this problem.

 

[Gatorubet]

It was the worst during the fall when they were trying to find somewhere warm.

Pest control guy told me that he had just come from continuing mice ed - or something - and they were instucted that it was not the cold so much, as the fall. Seems that the winter takes a toll on the little darlings, so nature has set their reproductive clocks to go into full litter mode right when it starts to get cold, so that they have some to survive the winter. Hence the increase in population right when it starts to get colder, and more are observed.

Who cares. The only good rodent I ever met was a dead rodent....

I'm not even gonna go into the hamster issues my wife had with the kid's pets.

 

[fourteenandoh]

"The rats are another thing. I live a block from the Mississippi River, and the rats are like Dachshunds"

first of all, that analogy is f'in hillarious. great post, it was pretty entertaining.

second of all, i take the NYC subway home every night. 'nuff said. they range anywhere from a few inches to a few feet in length down there.

 

[Mr_Burns]

Pest control guy told me that he had just come from continuing mice ed - or something - and they were instucted that it was not the cold so much, as the fall. Seems that the winter takes a toll on the little darlings, so nature has set their reproductive clocks to go into full litter mode right when it starts to get cold, so that they have some to survive the winter. Hence the increase in population right when it starts to get colder, and more are observed.

Who cares. The only good rodent I ever met was a dead rodent....

I'm not even gonna go into the hamster issues my wife had with the kid's pets.

That pretty much explains what happened out here. Interesting.

Glad to see those "continuing mice ed" classes are paying dividends for your exterminator

 

[BUCKYLE]

Adopt a cat from the shelter. Let cat kill all rodents. Kill cat. Problem solved.

 

[JXC]

Adopt a cat from the shelter. Let cat kill all rodents. Kill cat. Problem solved.

GPA

Seriously I think that is your best post in a week...and there are some good posts in the past week from you...like:

Maybe you're magic.

Are you a leprechaun?

G-g-g-g-ive me the gold.

and

i trahsed. i dond take too lone, bucz i done care. fuck the prety shit, im a G.

i smoked tonit. a whol pack sinc 8 o'clos

and who could forget

Tie her up and put her in a jar in your basement. She's a keeper.

 

[3074326]

Last rodent I saw got destroyed on a kickoff in the Shoe and was seen crying on the sidelines..

Aside from that one, haven't seen any lately. Apparently they're all at your house, Gator. I prefer it that way.

 

[generaladm]

Funny, I've had more luck with glue traps than the classic Tom & Jerry type. A few years ago, I lived right next to a wooded area, only one mouse ever took up residence. It was a real bitch. It would crawl all thru the kitchen counter drawers, leaving droppings in every one. I would wake up to find a loaf of bread with a mouse sized hole all the way thru it. First, I tried the regular traps with peanut butter, and it would just lick it off without tripping it. A friend recommended glue traps. I got two, and put them on opposite ends of the kitchen. A couple days later, I was getting ready to leave for work, and there it was, right in the middle of the trap. Since I was in a rush to get to work (and most likely hungover), I was like, "Fuck it, Terry Schaivo mouse can stay there till I get home". My roomate said he found it a few hours later, and it had gnawed half way thru one of its legs. He took mercy on it, and took it out into the woods and used vegetable oil to disolve the glue. He said it took several minutes for the mouse to free itself, and once it made it out of the trap, collapsed from exhaustion. It doubt it survived very long. If it had still been there when I got home, I would have just put the trap in a bag and tossed it in the outside trashcan.

As far as rats go, my best friend from HS was from Detroit, and he said they have giant rats there. His sister owned a bar, and one night as she was cleaning up behind the bar, she saw an old haggard grey rat slowly walking across the floor. She freaked and grabbed the .22 pistol she kept by the register. She shot it once right in the side. The rat stopped, looked at her and growled, and kept walking. A woman wrote into the Freep once, claiming she was out for a morning jog, and stopped at a corner to wait for the light. As she waited, she noticed a giant rat on the diagonal corner, just sitting there. When the light changed, she started to cross the street, and the rat did too, with the light.

My best rat story from personal experience is from a few years ago, when I was at UC. I had played a gig with some friends at a Clifton bar, and some people invited us to their apartment for a little after hours party. The apartment was above an Indian restaraunt right across from campus (best samosas ever, BTW). We got to the place before the residents, so we were just standing around for a few minutes. One friend was bitching about how bad he had to piss, and finally says, "Fuck this, man, I can't wait!". He runs behind this L-shaped fence beside the building (presumably where the dumpster was), and there is this stream of piss flowing under the fence, right by where we were standing. Just after we had started yelling at him to move, this big sewer rat runs out from under the fence where the piss was coming from, falls on its side, has a few quick convulsions, and fucking dies right there! Needless to say, we were fucking dying with laughter, and he had to put up with "rat killer" jokes for about a week.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

They don't eat, don't sleep
They don't feed, they don't seethe
Bare their gums when they moan and squeak
Lick the dirt off a larger one's feet
They don't push, don't crowd
Congregate until they're much too loud
Fuck to procreate till they are dead
Drink the blood of their so called best friend

They don't scurry when something bigger comes their way
Don't pack themselves together and run as one
Don't shit where they're not supposed to
Don't take what's not theirs, they don't compare

They don't scam, don't fight
Don't oppress an equals given rights
Starve the poor so they can be well fed
Line their holes with the dead ones bread

They don't scurry when something bigger comes their way
Don't pack themselves together and run as one (2x)
Don't shit where they're not supposed to
Don't take what's not theirs, they don't compare...

Rats...They don't compare (2x)
Ben, the two of us need look no more (6X)

 

[Taosman]

Adopt a cat from a shelter. For rats, a terrier of some sort(rat terrier) is the ticket. I have both. (a cat who loves to hunt mice)(a terrier who would scare just about any rat into leaving).

 

[Folanator]

I have a problem with Gerbils, but only after a lot of alcohol when I really don't care anymore.

If you want to get rid of the rats, I agree on the buy a Terrier thing. They were bred to kill rats in Europe. Tough little SOB's and they will snap their neck in one shake.

 

[BigWoof31]

Good thread Gator. My folks are having a slightly different issue.

My parents home is on a hill with big Georgia Pines all around. For a couple of nights in a row, my mom wakes up to scratching and little clawfeet walking around in the attic. She tells my dad and finally after two days (the man would sleep through the 2nd coming) he hears the noise and calls the rodent people.

Turns out - it wasn't rats or mice, but Flying Squirrells! The pest control guys could tell by a small nest he found and the droppings. They were sleeping in the warm attic at night.

Dad set a "T-Rex Trap" and caught one and sealed up the hole they were sneaking in through. My parents had to trim the branches around their house so more of them couldn't fly to the roof!

I'm gonna git you sucka!

 

[cincibuck]

Rodent scum must die.

Does anyone else have a problem with them? (Other than Buckyle, who does not have food in his place to draw them )

Not since Tressel arrived. This may be one of the greatest posts to appear on BP. I consider the wolverine to be one of the bigger members of the rodent/weasel family, badgers too.