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Then you will also appreciate that the 25' of wire I bought for the three way switch was exactly the right length. Made it across the hall and down both drops with about 6" out of each box.
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Jan 3, 2022 06:12
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My cats found a mouse this morning! What steps do I need to take to try and prevent this from happening again?
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Jan 3, 2022 12:14
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StormDrain posted:Then you will also appreciate that the 25' of wire I bought for the three way switch was exactly the right length. Made it across the hall and down both drops with about 6" out of each box. Did this once with some 8-wire when I moved the thermostat to a different wall, felt pretty good.
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Jan 3, 2022 12:29
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Johnny Truant posted:My cats found a mouse this morning! Nothing, your cats are working as designed.
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Jan 3, 2022 13:23
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Johnny Truant posted:My cats found a mouse this morning! Realistically you're never going to completely rodent-proof your house. But the key is a mix getting rid of both opportunity and motive for them. As far as opportunity goes, see if you can spot any obvious places where they're coming in and plug those. Steel wool works well for closing gaps that they're getting through. The real thing, though, is making your house unappealing to them. Don't have easily accessible food for them. Make sure your kitchen is clean and there aren't a bunch of crumbs under the cupboards. Having cats helps a bunch with this. But honestly if you're in an area where the winter gets cold, some mice coming inside your nice warm house isn't completely unexpected. Basically, there are a bunch of little things you can do to make sure that you don't ever have a full blown infestation, but you're never going to have a zero percent chance of a mouse deciding the space between your walls is better than the back yard.
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Jan 3, 2022 13:37
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Also, really take a look around outside, and try to think like a mouse. Mice hate being exposed to the sky (for obvious reasons), so any groundcover/brush near the perimeter of your house is like a secret passageway for them. Really check where your siding overlaps your foundation (use a mirror) to look for any holes or gaps they're getting in. Mice are also excellent climbers and can scale vertical surfaces. Vinyl siding can be problematic here, because the inside and outside corners often are special trim pieces that basically create a perfect tube that mice can crawl up to the soffits and into the attic or chew into the cladding to get into joist space. I had constant problems in my old-rear end shed with mice. I thought I plugged all the holes around the perimeter and windows, but it was still a problem. One sunny day when I was in there, the double-doors closed on me, and I noticed a perfectly chewed mouse hole at the base where the two doors met and the floor. Creative use of hardware cloth to make a door sweep of sorts seems to have completely solved my issue.
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Jan 3, 2022 14:46
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Also take a look around at what your neighbors are doing. If you've got an elderly person next door to you who is putting out a poo poo ton of bird seed you've already lost the battle and need to think mitigation rather than prevention. Once they've got a ready source of food right near by they'll happily use your crawl spaces as a nice, warm place to nest and take a walk when they want some seed. We had that problem a few rentals ago with a neighbor who had a backyard chicken coop. He was just storing his feed in the bags from the store and was predictably having a bunch of rodents make off with it. If you're on good terms with them try just talking. In that case we explained the situation to him and he was happy to buy some 50 gal plastic garbage bins to put the feed in when I suggested that to help keep rodents out. It largely fixed the issue, although it never went away entirely just due to all the chicken feed around his property. If you have a neighbor who is creating that kind of a problem and it's bad enough you can usually call the county, too. My grandmother had an awful rat problem that was directly related to an old guy a couple houses down who insisted that he needed to put out literal bags of peanuts for the squirrels (and therefore mice, and rats, and every other ground dwelling animal). She ended up having to call the county on him, and the problem got fixed. I forget the details, but it wasn't a great resolution and he's pissed at the whole neighborhood now, but I don't have to hear my elderly grandmother worry about rats so it's a win in my book no matter how unpleasant he is. I spent most of my childhood living fairly rurally and my family almost always had animal feed of one kind of another around, and time and again the #1 solution to keeping the mice etc. in the fields rather than the house was not giving them an easy source of food.
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Jan 3, 2022 15:46
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Whatever you do, don't use poison unless you're trying to nuke a bad infestation, and even then probably hire someone who knows what they're doing. A lot of small animal poisons let them scurry off somewhere to die, and from there you've got issues with other animals chowing down on them and either getting sick or dying themselves. Plus, even if you dgaf about local birds or the neighbor's cat, that's also how you end up with a dead mouse rotting inside your dry wall.
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Jan 3, 2022 15:49
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Thanks for the tips! I'm very much against poison and have already ordered a few catch-and-release traps. I'll definitely do a perimeter check (ugh it's fuckin cold but FINE) and go from there. I've seen two mice in the front of my home before, although both were not acting in a healthy manner; may ask my neighbours if they have placed poisons or anything as that may explain it.
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Jan 3, 2022 16:07
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Johnny Truant posted:Thanks for the tips! I'm very much against poison and have already ordered a few catch-and-release traps. I'll definitely do a perimeter check (ugh it's fuckin cold but FINE) and go from there. I've seen two mice in the front of my home before, although both were not acting in a healthy manner; may ask my neighbours if they have placed poisons or anything as that may explain it. Note that catch and release traps are either just putting your problem outside to come back in or making it someone else's problem, depending on how far away you drive the little bugger. Also some areas have specific laws against releasing trapped pest animals, so check what the deal is in your area. When it comes to mice I'm a fan of either fast, ethical kill traps (ye olde spring loaded mouse trap works fine if you get one that's half-way competently made) or cats. Cats are far less ethical and kill far less quickly, but they are also cute and enjoy belly rubs. Plus sometimes they eat the mouse so I guess that's kinda making good use of the dead animal. Or leave it on your pillow as a present, six of one half a dozen of the other.
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Jan 3, 2022 16:23
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Upgrade posted:What’s a typical cost to switch from a gas tank to gas tankless? It can be relatively cheap if your tank is very close (a few feet at most) to an outside wall and that outside wall isn't too much of a bear to cut a vent out to. If your current water heater is in the middle of your basement, it might not be possible to locate the tankless in the same location and you'll need to move the water and gas lines and that's pretty yikes.
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Jan 3, 2022 17:16
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Cyrano4747 posted:Note that catch and release traps are either just putting your problem outside to come back in or making it someone else's problem, depending on how far away you drive the little bugger. Also some areas have specific laws against releasing trapped pest animals, so check what the deal is in your area. Thanks for the tip! I live about a mile from a smallish nature preserve, so that's where these little fuckers will be released. Maybe it was just an incidental house mouse and I'll never see one again!  My two girls are the one that caught the mouse in the first place actually - and they left it without a scratch on it! It's good to know they're still apex predators, lol.
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Jan 3, 2022 17:34
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twerking on the railroad posted:It can be relatively cheap if your tank is very close (a few feet at most) to an outside wall and that outside wall isn't too much of a bear to cut a vent out to. It’s a gas tank heater and is about a foot from a wall and a boiler, so sounds like it’s an ideal setup. It’s already vented. I know some neighbors have combo boilers and hot water heaters but those are expensive and our boiler runs really well (even though it’s 40 years old.) I will say when we moved in I was concerned because it’s a tiny tank but we’ve never run out of hot water.
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Jan 3, 2022 18:02
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Upgrade posted:It’s a gas tank heater and is about a foot from a wall and a boiler, so sounds like it’s an ideal setup. It’s already vented. Well, the first impulse for the installation crew is still probably going to be to drill/knock open a hole for a new vent because they want to vent out in a code-compliant way. If not opening new holes in the side of your house is a priority for you, make sure to discuss that ahead of time so that they can properly place the water heater.
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Jan 3, 2022 18:11
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twerking on the railroad posted:Well, the first impulse for the installation crew is still probably going to be to drill/knock open a hole for a new vent because they want to vent out in a code-compliant way. If not opening new holes in the side of your house is a priority for you, make sure to discuss that ahead of time so that they can properly place the water heater. Yea honestly don’t car either way - it’s an unfinished basement and there’s already a million weird holes and vents crudely painted shut from when the house ran off coal.
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Jan 3, 2022 18:13
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Ah, it never ends! Water is pouring off of my front yard downspout, and there is a heavy stream in the backyard that appears to be coming in between the roof and the gutter. Brand new roof but old-old-old aluminum gutters. Potentially 1981-original but I have no clue. They're warped and water trickles out of the screwholes in heavy rain. What's a reasonable estimate for about 150 linear feet on a two-story house? Any materials or features that I definitely want to pursue or avoid? My downspouts are looking like poo poo too so it might be time to replace all 5 of them, too
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Jan 3, 2022 18:22
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If you've got streaming water between roof and gutter, have you checked if your fascia are rotting? That would increase costs.
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Jan 3, 2022 19:24
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Happiness Commando posted:If you've got streaming water between roof and gutter, have you checked if your fascia are rotting? That would increase costs. I haven't checked, but wouldn't be surprised. We really shouldn't build anything out of wood in the PNW I had my roof replaced last summer and they never tried to upsell me on replacing rotten fascia so I would think they aren't rotten, but who knows
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Jan 3, 2022 19:32
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Garage work started today. 
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Jan 3, 2022 19:34
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Johnny Truant posted:Thanks for the tip! I live about a mile from a smallish nature preserve, so that's where these little fuckers will be released. Maybe it was just an incidental house mouse and I'll never see one again! Released? You're far more generous than I. To the other points in the thread, yeah - I lived in a house for 12 years, and we went 10 years before seeing our first mouse. We also had 4 cats, though, so that might have had something to do with it. One night about 10 or 11 years in, my wife found one of the cats playing with a live mouse in the upstairs bathroom. We were both absolutely confused how it got in. I looked around the house and never did find any potential egress point. Thinking back on it now, I can think of maybe a couple possible spots, but how it got UPSTAIRS is still perplexing. Never did see another mouse after that. Sold the house about 6 months ago, so that's probably going to remain an unsolved mystery.
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Jan 3, 2022 20:07
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Happiness Commando posted:If you've got streaming water between roof and gutter, have you checked if your fascia are rotting? That would increase costs. Yeah this is really weird  The water is originating somewhere in the light blue circle Tension causes it to run to the orange circle And then it is spraying straight down in a heavy flow. It looks at first like water is squirting right out of solid wood
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Jan 3, 2022 20:16
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Johnny Truant posted:Thanks for the tips! I'm very much against poison and have already ordered a few catch-and-release traps. I'll definitely do a perimeter check (ugh it's fuckin cold but FINE) and go from there. I've seen two mice in the front of my home before, although both were not acting in a healthy manner; may ask my neighbours if they have placed poisons or anything as that may explain it.
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Jan 3, 2022 20:31
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Zarin posted:Released? You're far more generous than I. Lol yeah I did not expect to find my furbutts playing with one in our biggest room, with the biggest windows and most light  I'm not entirely surprised, POs left signs of mouse intrusion behind, and I've seen two outside away from my home prior to this morning's indifferent. Stuff was localized to the basement, so that's where I'm guessing they had the problem. I actually put a bulk box of applesauce in the basement awhile ago as an "instructor basic mouse litmus test" which hasn't been gnawed on. Maybe it really was the elusive incidental house mouse  Arsenic Lupin posted:Catch-and-release is just providing free lunch for predators. Those mice are in a new environment, they haven't built nests, and they don't know where it's safe to hide. Okay? I'm not an animal behaviorist but the mice can and will survive, and it they don't, cool, they just fed some (hopefully) natural predator and didn't die in my house.
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Jan 3, 2022 20:47
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Johnny Truant posted:Lol yeah I did not expect to find my furbutts playing with one in our biggest room, with the biggest windows and most light How long have you been in there? If the house was empty for any amount of time that's also going to have drawn the local wildlife inside. It's not too uncommon to find a mild mouse problem in a house that's been empty for a while until people have been walking and talking and banging around and generally being present enough for the rodents to get the message that this isn't the quiet, safe shelter they thought it was and make them gently caress off to another nest.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:03
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Yeah mice are just food for other cooler animals anyways.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:04
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Fake edit: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^very true! But that doesn't mean that they're not cute little fuckers. When my partner and I were catching it this morning, actually, I had a hilarious moment. Mouse ran into our hallway closet, so I cleared out the shoes and couldn't find it on the ground. My partner is like "did you lose it?!" so I looked up from the ground and came literally face to face with the cute little fucker cause it was perched on the corner of one of my dining room table leaves. We stared at each other for a good 5 seconds, lol.Cyrano4747 posted:How long have you been in there? If the house was empty for any amount of time that's also going to have drawn the local wildlife inside. It's not too uncommon to find a mild mouse problem in a house that's been empty for a while until people have been walking and talking and banging around and generally being present enough for the rodents to get the message that this isn't the quiet, safe shelter they thought it was and make them gently caress off to another nest. Oh the house wasn't empty for any period of time, but thanks for the tip again! It's actually funny timing because exactly one week ago we had our ducts and dryer vent blown out by professionals. Correlated? Perhaps!
Johnny Truant fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 21:07
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Catch-and-release is just providing free lunch for predators. Those mice are in a new environment, they haven't built nests, and they don't know where it's safe to hide. Hell yeah. Love me some predators.
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Jan 3, 2022 22:05
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Verman posted:Thanks. You're about a week too late. I just installed mine last week. What's your issue with them? Haha sorry. Mine are cellular shades, which basically have a hidden spring system in them that should “suck up” the shade when you press a button. They look slick, but one day the shade stopped retracting properly and would just kind of hang there half closed, with no option to manually retract it further. After getting into the shade and figuring how to pull out the pulley mechanism, it became pretty clear it was unfixable, at least by my hand. In fact based on videos I’ve seen of older models it seems like they actually made changes that in fact make it HARDER to repair them yourselves if it happens to you. Really I just made that post in a fit of rage after realizing my laboring to get into it and fix it would be fruitless, hopefully yours work out ok. I’d just be gentle with them when you’re pulling them down or pulling them up, if you have that style. There very little keeping the strings in the interior seated firmly in the spring and pulley mechanism. I also probably wouldn’t recommend them on a window where you want to be pulling them up and down all the time because I think they’d be more likely to fail with heavy use YMMV
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Jan 3, 2022 23:40
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I went with corded shades for that very reason. I've heard the cordless just has a much shorter lifespan and you cannot repair them when they break. Of course corded shades are not great if your have small children or pets so for some people it's a lose-lose.
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Jan 4, 2022 00:38
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I was under the impression that corded blinds were no longer legal for sale in the US and Canada
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Jan 4, 2022 00:50
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I've bought from Select Blinds, Blinds.com etc and they all come with a million stickers and hang tags telling me how my non-existent children will surely kill themselves on the cords, but I've never had any issue buying them with cords. I had no idea they were "banned" until your post.
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Jan 4, 2022 00:59
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Sirotan posted:I've bought from Select Blinds, Blinds.com etc and they all come with a million stickers and hang tags telling me how my non-existent children will surely kill themselves on the cords, but I've never had any issue buying them with cords. I had no idea they were "banned" until your post. Well, I specifically avoided the word "banned". You don't have to remove them from your house, and you can special order them for custom blinds (on account of many ADA people need corded hardware), but you can't have a bin of Corded Blinds for sale at home depot or what-have-you.
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Jan 4, 2022 01:03
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Per Home Depot website "corded blinds are not regulated under state or federal legislation.... New, safer guidelines allow for cords on custom-made coverings" Emphasis mine
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Jan 4, 2022 01:06
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I've definitely seen corded blinds at Homes Depot etc since becoming a homeowner in 2019, and what order for shades isn't considered custom? Ban isn't my word: https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/window-covering-manufacturers-ban-blinds-potentially-hazardous-cords/story%3fid=52318032
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Jan 4, 2022 01:07
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I had no idea shade chords were a loving ligature risk
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Jan 4, 2022 01:08
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I just walked over to the window and at least one stuffed animal is currently being garroted by a blind right now, and I can think of at least one situation where our crawling 8 month old baby got caught up in the cords. Nothing super major but taller windows (we have some 5' tall ones) generate 3-4' of cord on the ground when the blinds are up, including the part of the cord that splits into two smaller threads Edit: dire elephant time: Kind of hard to see but there's two lines coming up from behind the elephants "neck" 
Hadlock fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 01:13
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You, moron who has not seen Final Destination (2000):hobbez posted:I had no idea shade chords were a loving ligature risk Me, handsome genius who knows the tragedy of Tod Waggner: 
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Jan 4, 2022 01:16
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Them cords are dangerous make sure wrap them up so they don’t kill you. They have no mercy.
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Jan 4, 2022 01:26
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I was under the impression that corded blinds were no longer legal for sale in the US and Canada Is this a setup?
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Jan 4, 2022 02:23
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 07:14 |
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When we were in an apartment years ago with corded blinds low to the ground, my then-kitten (now 12 year old cat) nearly killed herself hanging on a cord when she jumped off my lap awkwardly. We've kept cords high away from the cats since then and now our new home has cordless that were installed by the PO. After seeing my kitten dangling by her neck, I was a bit scarred. I'm just glad I was there.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:27
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