steve_sordy
Wedding Crasher
I keep my bike and kit in the garage. Last year I started to get mice in there. They can make a proper nuisance of themselves. For example: chewing on spare towels, making nests in my safety boots, eating the footbeds out my hiking boots. I feed the birds every day and I buy bird food in 25kg sacks. I had to start keeping that in a plastic bin instead. The sack contents didn't all fit in and I put the overflow in an old Tupperware container. The little bastards ate through the Tupperware! I had to take action before they started eating something important. I already knew that mice are doubly incontinent and were probably pissing on my towels as a minimum, and in my boots!
I bought a pack of two standard design mousetraps. Technology has moved on and the foot bed is now made of plastic with odd shaped holes in it, I suppose to trap the bait in there. The old design had a wooden footplate which had a spike upon which to impale the bait, I guess that spike had to go to make a better mousetrap (for better read cheaper, because it certainly wasn't "better"). Here are the traps either side of the bird seed bin.
I started with chocolate in both traps, but the bait kept getting stolen without the trap being sprung. The traps have a variable foot pressure adjustment, so I spent time and some risk to my fingers making it as sensitive as possible. The mice kept stealing the bait, both of them, for weeks! My wife was laughing at me! Different action was required. I was reluctant to give up the chocolate because they obviously loved it, but I had to try something different. I switched to raisins and they ate them just as rapidly and still without setting off the trap. Then I had a brainwave; I tied the raisin to the foot pedal using a needle and thread. Since then, the traps have never failed to catch a mouse. I was catching two per night for a nearly a week and then one per night for a few more days. Then nothing for weeks. I assumed that I had cleaned out the resident population. Then I started catching them at 1 or 2 every few weeks all through the Summer, I assume they were visitors. As the colder weather arrived, numbers picked up.
As I said I have two traps, one either side of the bird seed bin and yet the mice have a clear favourite (the one on the right). I have not changed the raisin bait for the whole of this year and the foot pedal and the wooden base is stained with blood, but still they come!
In the above pic, you can see the cotton holding the raisin in place. That lump of yellow plastic next to the spring contains a wedge-shaped slot in which the spring pin fits. The sensitivity of the trap depends upon which end of the slot the pin is positioned.
But the key to defeating the mice is to tie the raisin to the foot pedal. Simples!
I bought a pack of two standard design mousetraps. Technology has moved on and the foot bed is now made of plastic with odd shaped holes in it, I suppose to trap the bait in there. The old design had a wooden footplate which had a spike upon which to impale the bait, I guess that spike had to go to make a better mousetrap (for better read cheaper, because it certainly wasn't "better"). Here are the traps either side of the bird seed bin.
I started with chocolate in both traps, but the bait kept getting stolen without the trap being sprung. The traps have a variable foot pressure adjustment, so I spent time and some risk to my fingers making it as sensitive as possible. The mice kept stealing the bait, both of them, for weeks! My wife was laughing at me! Different action was required. I was reluctant to give up the chocolate because they obviously loved it, but I had to try something different. I switched to raisins and they ate them just as rapidly and still without setting off the trap. Then I had a brainwave; I tied the raisin to the foot pedal using a needle and thread. Since then, the traps have never failed to catch a mouse. I was catching two per night for a nearly a week and then one per night for a few more days. Then nothing for weeks. I assumed that I had cleaned out the resident population. Then I started catching them at 1 or 2 every few weeks all through the Summer, I assume they were visitors. As the colder weather arrived, numbers picked up.
As I said I have two traps, one either side of the bird seed bin and yet the mice have a clear favourite (the one on the right). I have not changed the raisin bait for the whole of this year and the foot pedal and the wooden base is stained with blood, but still they come!
In the above pic, you can see the cotton holding the raisin in place. That lump of yellow plastic next to the spring contains a wedge-shaped slot in which the spring pin fits. The sensitivity of the trap depends upon which end of the slot the pin is positioned.
But the key to defeating the mice is to tie the raisin to the foot pedal. Simples!
