[ale] Critters in the Attic

[James P. Kinney III]

On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 14:49 -0500, David Corbin wrote:
> On Tuesday 25 January 2005 02:40 pm, Greg wrote:
> > For mice use steel wool.  Put it between the boards of your house and in
> > *any* and *all* holes.  It apparently sticks the little critters in the
> > nose or something but it works.  For your traps I would suggest peanut
> > butter as bait.  I am assuming you are using the big steel teeth mouse
> > traps that kill.  You really don't want to capture and release rodents and
> > such - they just come back.
> 
> Nope.  Cage traps.  Bated with Apple, peanut butter, and seeds.  Worked 
> wonders.  We caught a rat 5+ years ago, we just hauled off some 5+ miles 
> before releasing.

So that's where the little bugger came from...

Seriously, the traps only work once. Then they get smart and avoid them.
You DON'T want to poison the critters as they ALWAYS die where you can't
get them. Then you have to tear out a chunk of wall to get rid of the
smell.


1. Stop feeding the cat(s) for a day or so.
2. Toss the now hungry cat(s) into the attic.
3. When noise subsides, retrieve cat(s) from attic and remove all traces
of insulation with a brush (No. Don't use the vaccum cleaner. It will
make a big mess when the cat freaks out and pees all over your fresh
wounds they inflicted when you turned on the vacuum cleaner).
4. Plug all the holes with a combination of hardware cloth (1/4" mesh is
good), screws w/washers, expanding foam sealent, and steel wool for the
tiny holes. Double check all eaves areas at the top of the gutters.
Double check any opening (power line feed, phone line, cable, water,
gas, etc). Double check any turn or corner in the roof line. Double
check the flashing around the chimney, dormer windows, etc.
5. Go to the pet store and get some mice (the type reptile people feed
their snakes) and kill them and feed them to the cat(s). They love "wild
game" and will be very sleepy afterwards. It will also get them hungry
for more.
6. Repeat 1-5 in about a week.

We get squirrels often. The chew a new hole every time. At some point,
I'm going to give up and have the eaves and soffit covered with
stainless steel plating. The most recent hole enlarged the service
entrance for our power line. 

Unfortunately, squirrels are protected in Dekalb County (WHY?!?! They
are as prevalent as pigeons) else I would go "hunting" with the .22 shot
shells in the attic.

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James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
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GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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