That mouse problem is nothing a few well placed stomps won't fix.
I recommend the snap traps as most efficacious. Use peanut butter as bait. However, before putting on the peanut butter and priming them for deadly skull-crushing action, tie a longish string to a non-moving part of the trap.
Anchor the string by putting a heavyish object on it (for example a can of beans or tomotaes or something), because when the trap snaps it often goes flying off somewhere (and sometimes you only catch the mouse by a leg or something and it tries to go crawling off, trap attached). Then, when the trap has done its work, you only have to pick it up using the string, thus saving you from putting your hand anywhere near the disgusting mouse corpse. Drop the trap in the trash and you're done with it.
Also, of course, try to find where the vermin are coming in and block that up with steel wool. Sprinkle some cayenne pepper around the baseboards in the area of mouse activity too, for good measure. And never leave anything remotely edible outside of a mouseproof container or lying about.
Oh and those black plastic things containing poisoned bait of a weird bluish green color seem to work okay too.
Oh man, that Barney Frank video is great. What a bunch of smarmy assholes: "Point of order: The speaker used points of order when he was in the minority"? That's fucking hilarious.
I like how he's so agitated about it. But really, asking a "parliamentary inquiry" about whether American Samoa is covered by the bill is just beyond the pale. Of course, not everyone started reading their older sibling's copy of Robert's Rules of Order when they were ten, I guess.
That sounds like knowledge won from hard experience, M/tch. I'm using snap traps ("with new, more effective 'kill bar'!") and peanut butter, but I'll add the string, the pepper, and the steel wool.
That sounds like knowledge won from hard experience, M/tch.
Oh no, it's just something I overheard at a cocktail party.
Not really. We did have a slight mouse problem in NYC. It was mainly because the hipsters downstairs were complete slobs. Political reasons, not military ones, kept us from carpetbombing there, so the enemy had a safe haven.
Hey Labs, at some point in your ratfighting no-practicing day, do you think you could attend to this?
Yeah, I sure could. What information do you want posted? Just what's in the comment?
Poisoned bait. By the time they die, you just sweep up the stiff little corpse and chuck it in the garbage. Also: they seem to have an atavistic urge to come out of the walls to die in the middle of the floor, which is handy.
Also, FL, there seems to be a whole bunch of online radio stations. And it might be a good opportunity to start to move into MP3s; it would take a serious jolt for me to learn how to bother with the software or to buy the necessary hardware.
I totally love Barney Frank.
Snap traps, no poison. Rat poison causes massive internal bleeding and is just horrifically painful and unnecessarily cruel; snap traps are quick.
Yeah, I sure could. What information do you want posted? Just what's in the comment?
Thanks, FL. You're a peach. How about:
"Unfogged Texas-Style Meet-Up:
Saturday, January 20th.
Confirmed attendees so far include M/tch M/lls, Sir Kraab, heebie-geebie, soubzbqskrisquket (sp?; driving in from Houston with his inamorata), Neil the Ethical Dance Machine, and probably a couple of people from the Austin Progressively DrunkerDrinking Liberally group.
The plan so far is to meet for dinner (venue not yet decided, suggestions welcome), and afterwards go for some drinks at the Carousel Lounge. Anyone else who can make it is most welcome, please RSVP on this thread."
I have written a post scheduled for Monday early AM with that information phrased slightly differently. I'll leave it at that, or I can post it now, so that people will see it sooner/it will get lost in the shuffle.
I'm no animal rightist, but y'all are mean! Before all this nasty snap-trapping (and definitely ixnay on the oisonpay) should come the cleaning up, the steel wool, etc.
(The fact that M/M/'s non-fatal advice comes after the detailed BTK strategy reveals a side of him heretofore undetected. I sense a discussion of ethics will accompany tonight's bread-baking.)
Also, has no one heard of non-kill traps? Not practical, I'll admit, in NYC & other dense cities, where releasing the mice just means they'll come back, but they have fields in other places where mice can scamper and frolic and such.
Also: they seem to have an atavistic urge to come out of the walls to die in the middle of the floor, which is handy.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To die. In the rain.
Also, has no one heard of non-kill traps? Not practical, I'll admit, in NYC & other dense cities, where releasing the mice just means they'll come back, but they have fields in other places where mice can scamper and frolic and such.
Scamper and frolic and die of exposure or starvation, yeah. I think if you have an infestation you're better off just killing them outright. House mice are, after all, *house* mice--field mice are a different species altogether. Not wanting to be mean doesn't mean you have to go all Disney.
Yeah, Kraab! Would you set Mačka "free" in the Serengeti? No, I don't think so!
The only time I used poison, I found the rat ten days later by smell. Not recommended.
How to catch a mouse without a mousetrap. Works better than any murderdeathkill contraption, and for fuck's sake, mice are cuties.
mice are cuties.
Finally.
FWIW, rats are actually really smart and make lovely pets. But I agree that it's a bit tough not to fear and hate wild rats.
Oh, also, Smasher, my cat weighs 7 lbs and not only used to regularly kill rats that size, but would also drag them--sometimes not yet dead--up a tree to a third-floor apartment.
my new topsecret hideout appears to have had, at one point, a mouse problem... (My topsecret hideout is austere, so I didn't bring a stereo or CDs.)... In other musical news, I'm not playing much at all right now
My god, you're in prison.
Speaking of the mp3 player, Labs, it depends on how you listen. Are you apt to sit around with headphones?
I can't decide, Ogged. Are you thinking of one of the docking stations?
UnfoggeDCon got way out of hand, SB.
Are you thinking of one of the docking stations
Would you two just get a room, already?
Are you thinking of one of the docking stations?
It's an option, yeah. I listen almost exclusively in the car, so amn't much help.
Question: if you listen mostly at home, why get an MP3 player? Why not just stream from your computer?
Stream? to what? my cheap boomboxy thing I got to listen to Tavis Smiley? And no internet in prison at home.
Well, you wouldn't need internet to stream stuff that's *on* your computer. But you would need speakers, yes.
What did you do, rent a cardboard box in Smallville for the semester?
And okay, fine, I probably mean "broadcast" instead of "stream" or some such like that. File a lawsuit.
Cala, you would be surprised to learn how close to the truth that is.
Not peanut butter, chocolate. At least in my experience.
I thought that when one was junior faculty one didn't have to live in crappy places any more.
Sad-face Cala.
And the steel wool thing, that's a fool's errand. If you've ever seen 'em zip between a house's wall and its concrete-slab foundation, you realize, there's no sliver of an opening too small. You must kill them or drive them away.
The poison works too, although the story that they always die in the open? Not so.
Tavis Smiley has one of the most grating voices on radio.
Calaboy lives out in the country, and one thing he found works to seal the house against mice is kind of silicon foam that expands as it dries. I forget the name of it, but after you kill the mice and/or figure out where they're coming in or hiding, you can squirt that stuff in there and it will expand to fill the space.
Also, be glad that they're not nesting in your oven. Let's just say that makes for some interesting odors.
Not peanut butter, chocolate. At least in my experience.
Not soap, radio?
Yes, no bananas to-day—but bananas yesterday and bananas to-morrow.
To-morrow, to-morrow, I'll love you to-morrow.
Thanks, Labs! Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is clearly the most appropriate day for you to post the info about our lil' meet-up.
Because it isn't any OTHER day, you know.
The mice were getting into our apartment by crawling through the hole in the wall where the water pipes came in. It's true that mice can squeeze through the tiniest spaces. The hole was only slightly larger than the pipes themselves. We shoved one of those copper pot scrubber things in to fill up the hole (seemed to work as well as steel wool) and after that only spotted mice incredibly rarely. So apparently they had other means of ingress, it was just harder for them to find and/or use those on their way up from downstairs.
The best strategy is to make your apartment as hard to get into and as barren of food sources for mice as possible. But once some are in, you do need to do some initial mouse-killin' or they'll breed and breed and breed.
Snap traps, no poison. Rat poison causes massive internal bleeding and is just horrifically painful and unnecessarily cruel; snap traps are quick
On two occasions a snap trap caught a mouse but didn't kill it. Not pleasant to have a maimed, dying mouse in your kitchen. But in general they do result in a quick kill.
I've heard that the blood-thinner type poisons don't cause pain, but the mouse starts to feel really cold and so goes off somewhere to huddle up and die, usually inside a wall or something. You'd think it would smell, but we never had that problem, despite clear evidence that the bait had been eaten (little blue-green mouse turds near the bait station). Maybe they crawled back downstairs to expire.
Yes yes yes. Take it away, Captain Moonlight:
Try this: 'Hallelujah, Bananas/Oh bring back my Bonnie to me/I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls/The kind that you seldom see/ I was seeing Nellie home/ To an old-fashioned garden, but/Hallelujah, Bananas/ Oh bring back my Bonnie to me.'
I've heard that the blood-thinner type poisons don't cause pain,
Yeah, and I've heard that animals don't even *feel* pain. Puhleeze.
19 Would you set Mačka "free" in the Serengeti?
Believe it or not, Mačka (and her brother Rufus) have lived in Africa, though it was in a house in Kenya. They were not allowed outside in the yard unsupervised or else the monkeys would tear them limb-from-limb. The phrase "fighting like cats and monkeys" is now part of my vocabulary.
Let me clarify that was not me who dragged these poor cats from the U.S. to Kenya, Jerusalem, and Sarajevo. I adopted them from the U.S.AID worker who did, just before she was about to take them to Kabul.
Let me further clarify for those of you who are no doubt dying of curiosity about Mačka's name that it means "cat" in Bosnian, and, I am told, that that's the equivalent of our calling someone a "fox." (Gorgeousness-wise, not sly-wise.)
monkeys would tear them limb-from-limb
My standard of living definitely declined from graduate school to junior faculty.
The Czech wife of a friend of mine lived with monkeys when her father was a diplomat in Africa, and learned to take part in their social grooming behavior. You had to pretend to be eating fleas or the monkeys were dissatisfied with the occasion.
I've heard that the blood-thinner type poisons don't cause pain
Data point. The one time I was bleeding internally, for about 24 hours, until I passed out, hurt like hell.
Of arsenic poisoning, wikipedia says,
Symptoms include violent stomach pains in the region of the bowels; tenderness on pressure; retching; vomiting; sense of dryness and tightness in the throat; thirst; hoarseness and difficulty of speech; the matter vomited, greenish or yellowish, sometimes streaked with blood; diarrhea; tenesmus; sometimes excoriation of the anus; urinary organs occasionally affected with violent burning pains and suppression; convulsions and cramps; clammy sweats; lividity of the extremities; countenance collapsed; eyes red and sparkling; delirium; death.
Those bleeder poisons aren't arsenic, they're an anticoagulant. Used to be Warfarin, but now it's Brodifacoum.
Excuse me.
Death is not a symptom.
Death is the utter absence of symptoms. You never say, "Gee, doc, he's got some delirium, vomiting bloody green stuff, and death." No no no.
But if someone up and dies, then you administer a toxicology test. In which case, death was a symptom.
I'm trying to scold you here, b-dub. It doesn't work if you erase the evidence.
Wait, haha! B is funny!
You had me going for a minute.
Look, it's Halley's Comet!
They also serve who only stand and are mocked.
I just found this blurb blog, FL, and it has the good and the meh.
60: The pain was most likely from whatever caused the bleeding. I've seen someone pass out a few times after esophageal bleeds and she said it didn't hurt at all. Also, I can't think of a physiological reason why loss of blood per se would hurt and certainly giving blood at the RC doesn't hurt beyond the initial stick.
It has to work like simple hypoxia with no CO2 buildup, that's sneaky and painless, which is why I'm going with the helium tank and large plastic bag for my final exit rather than leaving a real mess by using a firearm.
I met Barney Frank in a gay bar in NYC once. Oddly, it was the one owned and frequented by gay Republicans. Nice guy.
A thought: nitrogen is cheaper than helium and just as effective for the purpose. Unless you have a specific desire to leave the planet as a member of the lollipop guild/lullaby league.
we wish to welcome you to! munchkinlannnnnnnnd.
Several years ago, Mutombo was on Conan O'Brien's show and, after sucking helium from a balloon, producing the strangest sounds imaginable. Sadly, I have been unsuccessful finding a clip of the show.
Does anyone have advice on how to to tell a personal anecdote for a professional occasion without detours into self-pity, self-admiration, flippancy, or dullsville?
Getting out of it does not seem possible.
86: Nitrogen is as good physiologically but helium would displace air in one of those huge Ziploc bags taped over one's head and shoulders downwards and with little mixing. It's easy to get, any party store rents the cylinders. A couple of those should do it with no problem.
The plan is to leave a recording of profound last thoughts for my relatives and friends and doing so in garbled chipmunkspeak tickles me.
(And no, there's no immediate need, so there's no need for anyone with a misguided sense of responsibility to trace email or IP addresses. I am, however, adamant about not falling into the clutches of the medical-industrial-religious complex at the end or whenever "Been there, done that" becomes all there is. The kids are okay with that.)
89: Go with a self-effacing anecedote with that points up the common foibles of humankind and brings everyone together in the warm glow of fellowship.
Works every time.
If I someday have tenure, insha'Allah, I will master Robert's Rules and use my knowledge to cause great suffering.
Im in ur rulz tablin ur motionz an rulin ur moronz out of order.
By the way, when did w-lfs-n start doing the weather report?
m in ur rulz
The thing that drives me crazy about our big meetings is the inconsistent commitment to RRoO. Sometimes people are unable to do their thing, but at other times-- after a question has been called, most egregiously-- the conversation steamrolls on. I would be ok with either strict or lax meetings, but the inconsistency really bothers me.
94: Then I think you need to raise a point of order.
Next time that happens, you should stand up and start pounding the table with your "gavel."
The thing that drives me crazy about our big meetings is the inconsistent commitment to RRoO.
Yeah, from what I remember, UnfoggeDCon did get pretty unruly.
the inconsistent commitment to RRoO
You, FL, clearly must become chair so that there can be order.
"You, FL, clearly must become chair..."
Yea!
Also, I was sooooooo sure that one of apostropher's links in 99 was going to be to a photo of the infamous b-wo/FL lapdance. Now I am sorely disappointed.
"Also, I was sooooooo sure that one of apostropher's links in 99 was going to be to a photo of the infamous b-wo/FL lapdance. Now I am sorely disappointed."
That's some heavyhanded editing there, yo.
You promised you'd be gentle.
At least I didn't insert anything else.
Here is how I expose myself to new music:
1. Read the Onion A/V Club reviews and the Playlists in the Sunday Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times.
2. Go to The Hype Machine and run searches on the artists whose reviews intrigued me.
3. Download a few tracks at a time -- eight in a sitting is usually small enough to pick out the ones I really like.
4. Depending on my mood, purchase or "share" the albums from the artists I like.
5. I also sample frequently from fluxblog and soul sides, among other mp3 blogs.
This is a much better system for being exposed to indie rock than any other type of music. Last.fm is also heavy on the indie rock, but can lead you in different directions if you push the system; I also have a few friends from whom I solicit recommendation of world music, farther-out stuff, electronica, jazz, etc.
Allow me to suggest that the NYT is not your best source for indie rock.
The hype machine is pretty sweet. I just listen to the radio player and download songs if I really like them.
What, then, is your best source for indie rock? I find that a weekly sampling of whatever Kelefah Sanneh or Jon Pareles are recommending catches me a tasty treat or two. (Not necessarily -- but not exclusive of -- indie rock.)
