"You Dirty Rat......."

[sudsmaster]

Yeah, and after 15 years working in IT, I was starting to feel like a lab rat being tortured by disgruntled employees who liked to vent their frustration with their jobs on their computers and the people assigned to service/maintain/administer/plan them. So now I spend my days making widgets out of metal and while it can be monotonous for a big order, I get a kick out of taking a drawing and turning it into a useful object.

 

[washertalk]

I actually had reset a trap today.

 

[washertalk]

It's actually a Rat trap, I put peanut butter in.

 

[washertalk]

These larger ones go off and kill quicker. The mouse doesn't even have a chance to wiggle about in pain trying to escape. I would rather it be over quick for the poor thing. This is the size of them compared to a 2x4 block. That is dried blood from previous... you know. needs to be cleaned up.
IT probably wouldn't be good to step on or get your finger in these traps. I haven't had one snap back on me, as of yet.

 

[washertalk]

And

an Al Bundy car I saw which reminded me of the episode where the Bundys had a mouse in the basement and Al practically ruined the house trying to get rid of it.
Poisoned Steve, I think flooded the basement, used a gun. The ususal married with Children playbook.

Then that geeky but cute, blond, short, (well equipped by my standards) guy came as the exterminator and caught the mouse that Peggy ultimately kept as a pet. Frankly the mouse would have been better off dead, and probably found it's self as a Bundy meal along with Thanksgiving pizza.
But it was a relatively Happy ending.

 

[sudsmaster]

I've trapped about 10 rats so far this summer in the lean-to outside the back of my workshop. I've used the wooden Victor rat-traps, which generally work fine. Even caught a mouse once in one of them.

Recently in course of clearing out the shop clutter, I found an updated Victor rat-trap. It's the plastic kind that's very easy to set. It looks sort of like a big plastic clothespin. You squeeze the handle end and the bait tray automatically locks into place, but is very sensitive. So I set it between two wooden Victor rat traps in the lean-to, with a raw almond as bait. We'll see which one the next rat prefers ;-). Somewhere I think I have the mouse-sized version of the plastic rodent trap, but I figure the cats deal with the mice, as I haven't seen any around here since I got the mouser cat.

 

[goprog]

I've been using that same plastic trap for mice. But the last
time it must have caught the mouse oddly. It was dragged
through a tangle of stuff across the kitchen (when I finally
found it) and pulled up into the opening beneath the front of
the cabinets and the mouse had gotten out. The plastic trap
had lots of teeth marks on it. I reset it next to the escape
spot, but I think that one is too smart to even come near it
any more. (Caught lots of mice in it before that.)

 

[sudsmaster]

Sounds like what that mouse trap caught was a very po'd rat.

 

[toggleswitch]

~but I figure the cats deal with the mice.

I have heard that the mere smell of a cat keeps the mice away. Even if you borrow one for a while to live with you temporarily, their dander has spikes gets everywhere and can stick to vertical surfaces! Bad for allergies, good for de-mousing!

Allergists say that it takes 7 to 8 years to fully rid a house of ALL animal hair/ dander.