The Vent and Rant Thread

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

...

I told my friend
Axiom 1: Some people are smarter than others.
Axiom 2: You get to deal with the stupid.
______
Dennis

And by definition the average IQ is 100, and half the people are dumber than that!

[Rumpelteazer]

It's been a couple of years, but there's a very cheeky mouse that visits my bedroom. I heard a rustling yesterday and this morning again and this time I saw him run away when he noticed I saw him. By the sound of it he's found an accesspoint in the wainscoting, but I can't find it. So I put some scent stones in strategic places (hopefully) and put some eucalyptus oil on them.

I didn't have much oil left, luckily it's on sale at the moment, a 50% discount, so I ordered two bottles. I also ordered an essential oil diffuser in addition to the scentstones.

It's almost like clockwork when the mice keep appearing. Which supports my idea that they come from a restaurant next door. And that every couple of months their pest control comes by and the mice flee for a little while, until I scare them away. I must say I'd rather have them between the ceiling and walls than in my actual room.

For now I need to take care to put away any food and snacks I have in my rooms in a mouseproof container. And I can't throw away any food or crumb in my trashcan in my rooms. I need to be extra careful when I go away for a couple of days next week.

I'm somewhat cranky now; I woke up at 6am on Sunday morning and now I'm wide awake and there's no chance I'll be able to fall back asleep any time soon. It's also too early to start on the project I had planned for today; I need to use my plotter and that's noisy.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

It's been a couple of years, but there's a very cheeky mouse that visits my bedroom.

If it's been a couple of years, this is a new generation of cheeky mouse.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If it's been a couple of years, this is a new generation of cheeky mouse.

That's true. But, nonetheless, it's an annoying situation.

On a positive note; my room now smells really nice: a mixture of cinnamon incense (which prevents mice taking up residency between the ceilings), eucalyptus oil (which scares away the mice at ground level) and a bunch of Lush stuff I got earlier this week.

[cromag]

I live in a wooded area. We get mobs of mice in the garage, quite a few in the attic and basement, and (very rarely) one in the living area. Mostly white-footed mice and deer mice, but an occasional little gray house mouse.

There are some very effective traps on the market.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Hemmi

I must say, my allergies are so much better since I started on Nasacort last year. Triamcinolone Acetonide nasal spray. I had one of those allergy attacks that I literally could not breathe or make my nose stop running. Had to take some Benadryl and go to bed. Next day, I went to Walgreen's and bought some Nasacort and now I would not be without that stuff. Every morning and it has made such a difference.

Best price is at Target. You can get a 2 pack of the generic 120 sprays each for $20.

I was so glad when the non-drowsy antihistamines (Claritin, Allegra, etc.) became available over-the-counter, and also when the nasal steroid sprays (Nasocort, Flonase, etc.) became available more recently. It's wonderful to be able to get them as-needed without dealing with doctor visits and trying to figure out which ones your insurance covers.

For me Sudafed is still the best for a truly stuffed-up-unable-to-breathe attack.

If you have a lot of thick gunk that needs to be loosened up guafinesin (Mucinex) is good.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by cromag

I live in a wooded area. We get mobs of mice in the garage, quite a few in the attic and basement, and (very rarely) one in the living area. Mostly white-footed mice and deer mice, but an occasional little gray house mouse.

There are some very effective traps on the market.

I'd rather not use kill traps. But from what I hear from various café and restaurant owners neither kill or catch-and-release traps work anymore. The mice just ignore them. I don't want to use poison either, because they mostly keep to between the walls and ceilings, if they die in those locations it can get smelly.

It might be too soon to say but it seems that my regime of eucalyptus oil, cinnamon incense, ultrasonic sound thing and the removal of all food and the trashcan seems to work. On Wednesday I hope to get the diffuser to add to that. I need to get a grip on the situation, it's about the time mice get young and I don't want a whole family of mice running around my rooms.

[CRussel]

The first and best defense is, of course, a good mouser or two. I'm told that Maine Coon cats are among the best, but any good, well brought up, domestic cat should do well. If cats are not an option, second best is a good trap.

Of those, the good old fashioned Victor wood and spring steel snap trap is still the best and most effective. Unless you're sure you have only small mice, use the larger size. It works on mice and rats. The favourite bait here (where we live on the interface to the forest) is peanut butter. This should knock down >90% of the mice with careful placement and maintenance. However, you might end up with one that becomes "trap shy". At which point, poisoned bait is the only hope. (We got >95% of the ones that had been bothering us this year, but one eluded us until we went to poisoned bait. ) This is a constant problem here, and a particularly bad one this last winter/spring for some reason.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

The first and best defense is, of course, a good mouser or two. I'm told that Maine Coon cats are among the best, but any good, well brought up, domestic cat should do well. If cats are not an option, second best is a good trap.

Through coincidence--truly--members of my husband's family ended up not only with Maine Coons, like we have, but MCs actually related to our two, as well. In our experience (the MCs travel with folks, up to our family place in Wyoming, in the mountains, which is very attractive to field mice), the males will play with the damn things--but the ladies bring home the bacon like they have nothing to do all day but MOUSE.

Not trying to start some feminist thing here--but in our group of MCs, the guys look at a varmint and think, "oh, pwetty mousy! Come over here and let me pway wif you," and the girls think "LUNCH!"

To be fair--when the males do decide to go for it, (even indoors, as they are all indoor kitties), they are something to watch, as all our males are the heavier-boned variety, somewhat like bulldogs in drat-cum-Lynxes (whilst our females are the lighter, sleeker, longer versions), and the power they can command is just impressive as hell.

:-)

Hitch

[CRussel]

Yeah, we had a similar situation when we were still in California -- the two (male) Maine Coons would try to play with the mouse. Then along came Priscilla, the apple-head Siamese Head Cat! She'd walk up, whack Stanley and/or Harold upside the head, clearly telling them "Boys, don't play with your food!" and promptly snatch the mouse, snap it's neck, and drop it at my feet. Now she was about 1/2 the size and weight of Stanley, and Harold was only a little smaller than Stanley. But let there be no doubt who was boss in the house!

[Katsunami]

As I've already thought, moving house seems to be prohibited by law or something, if you're not either very poor, or very rich.

My current salary is in the lower regions of the middle incomes; after another bump, or two smaller ones I'll be in the middle middle incomes. In short: you can't really find a more average middle class guy than me. It is probably possible to reach the higher middle incomes at some point, but I'll not reach the 'rich' higher income sections unless I actually land a management job somewhere.

Spoiler:

(In the Netherlands, the notion exists that the manager HAS TO earn more than the team he manages, sometimes even if his education is lower than that of his/her team members. That's the reason why everybody tries to become a manager ASAP, which often results in gaining a poor manager and losing a great professional. There have been alerts over here that, in a few years, we'll have too many managers who know how to execute projects, but nobody left to actually execute them. But that is a different rant.)

Now try to move to a different city.

Social Rent? Dude. You're rich already. Get the frack out of here. These houses are for the poor.
Private Rent? Dude, you only make 4x this rent, you're poor! Go earn it 5+ times first. Now get lost.
Buying a house? Dude, you've not been working at the same company for 5 years. GTFO!

So, could _someone_ please tell me how I'll be able to move?!

One obvious way to earn more would be to have my GF working, but that's a bit of a problem; she's educated in (and _very_ good at) a profession that is basically male dominated. She always knew, thought she could handle it, and found out she couldn't, so 'just getting back to work' is not an option without first retraining in a different (but probably related) field.

[wodin]

All of our kitties are of questionable heritage, but I once had a gorgeous, huge, yellow, smart and otherwise impressive male MC named Morris (what else in the '70s?). We never worried about mice, rats, king snakes, badgers, or catamounts, Morris would run them all off.

The current crop are all of the variety of the feral mom cat knew an easy touch and dropped her babies on our doorstep. And none of them can hunt a cockroach much less anything with a spine. They're hell on laser spots though and Friskies Gravy Lovers hasn't a chance.

Susie saw a mouse a few weeks ago, and I'm pretty sure that it was fully aware that we've a pride of wimps and it's safer inside than out (where the feral kitties live).

[Rumpelteazer]

As I've said, our urban mice knows to avoid traps and poison. And I agree, a cat works best. But my parents don't want to get another cat. It's a responsibility, not only financial but also emotional. Also, the current Family Thing makes the future uncertain. Though we all miss having cats, so it wouldn't surprise me if we got one eventually.

All our cats were females and their reaction to mice, frogs, birds and bats varied enormously. We had cats that would catch them and kill them and and leave them as presents, Nikita lost interest as soon as they stopped trying to escape and was afraid of frogs. Snoepie caught mice, eat it almost entirely and would leave the tail as a present. We had one cat that loved to try and catch bats as they went by the bedroom window in summer. She managed to catch a couple, the bat would escape in the bedroom and chaos would ensue: a bat flying around with two cats chasing it, my mother retreating in the hallway, trying to shout my father awake, who would keep on sleeping despite two cats running over his face. They quickly got screens for the windows, to prevent it.

[cc_in_oh]

Speaking of presents, last week our cousin let her cat in and was proudly presented with an 18-inch snake. By the time she came to, the snake had disappeared. It took a few hours of frantic searching before they found it hiding inside her sofa...

[orlok]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

Speaking of presents, last week our cousin let her cat in and was proudly presented with an 18-inch snake. By the time she came to, the snake had disappeared. It took a few hours of frantic searching before they found it hiding inside her sofa...

Ouch! The only presents we get are piles of sick in the bed, or a poo in the middle of the lounge rug...