Off Topic Springtime is lovely for a stroll in the snark

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Bladite said:
have you seen the latest in tilty - bucket traps - i got one off amazon from the REAL original vendor (made in murrca by murrcan, not some knockoff trash). amazing simple design. catches BUCKETS of rodents. whoa.

i made my own spinny can version with antifreeze, and i'd say it caught 50-60 mice/rats a month, until the herd was thinned out in my shed. nasty things.
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Holy MOLY...
I've watched some of the Better Mousetrap builds on the YT, which is good fun. Around my house they're mostly in the attic, walls, or roof. Very hard to set traps. The GF gets 'em in the basement, and keeps searching for their remaining entrances.
 
daizee said:
Holy MOLY...
I've watched some of the Better Mousetrap builds on the YT, which is good fun. Around my house they're mostly in the attic, walls, or roof. Very hard to set traps. The GF gets 'em in the basement, and keeps searching for their remaining entrances.
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Mice can get through a crack as small as 1/4" (6 to 7 mm). Some folks say they can get through a pencil sized hole, but it really has to be a crack, They can flatten themselves down to 1/4", including their skulls.

I have covered the inside of gable vent ends and soffit holes in eaves with 1/8" hardware cloth trying to keep them out of the attic. I have stuffed a layer of screen wire into all water heater drain pans to keep them from crawling in throught the drain pipe (which also prevents rat snakes from following mouse scent into the house. I have cut holes in can lids to fit around water supply and drain pipes under sinks, AND caulked the cracks shut. I replace all exterior door weather stripping at the first sign of deterioration.

And I still catch mice in the house.

I always have out at least 8 Tomcat glue traps in the corners of rooms that have exterior doors. I have 4 glue traps and 4 snap traps always set in the garage and out in the shop as well (4 each in both locations). I have 5 small live traps in the out buildings for catching rats. I keep a glue trap under the hood of all vehicles (checked weekly) to try to prevent a recurrence of the $3500 wiring damage to the Camry or the totalling of my Prius by a squirrel. I catch an average of 6 mice per month and 2 rats per month.

The "worst" year was 2012, a bad drought year, when I caught 168 mice, 64 rats, 54 skunks and a more than a dozen raccoons. This year, the number of skunks and raccoons has really dropped off. I think last February's "Snowpocolypse" killed off a bunch of them. I'm seeing comparatively fewer skunks and raccoons on the game cameras this year and have only had to dispatch 1 each this year.
 
daizee said:
Holy MOLY...
I've watched some of the Better Mousetrap builds on the YT, which is good fun. Around my house they're mostly in the attic, walls, or roof. Very hard to set traps. The GF gets 'em in the basement, and keeps searching for their remaining entrances.
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first two years in my house, while fitting obvious sill joints and such with 2-4 inches of ISO foam "plates" hand cut (and removeable - spray foam is an invitation to death threats)... and using a FLIR, i noticed a large amount of traps and bait from prior owners. after finding and sealing many "leaks" - a few days of -15F temps are a godsend :D short of a smoke test (super vape!) i nailed most of the obvious with metal wool/firebreak foam, and silicone... no mice in basement. maybe 1-2? they were try hards, and suffered a long long journey when they finally met their end.

outside. jeeebus. they ate my trailer. most of the plastic is gone, and the wiring is 100% frakked. depending on temps, might rebuilt this winter just to get outside, definitely spring. need to haul things :D

i'm blessed to have a two car garage, cuz the tractor lives in one, and the car in the other. can't imagine rodents having their way.


wow, great trap, trap to get the super tall variant of "the standard bucket", rodent can jump like super high, ..., so either six inches of water or anti-freeze (it preserves the dead - so you could use a bio safe version or ... such), the liquid keeps them from jumping and drowns them fast.

the perfect mouse trap... i've invented it :D

basically you catch the suckers (with buckets), and their only way "out" is a one way connected set of pipes. which is a chamber. which slowly closes. no scare. and behind them 2000000000000 psi builds. and whoosh, freedom! a 45 degree exit pipe suddenly opens and ... yee hah, they're shot into space. okay, not really, but ideally far far far away. into a cliff. or so on, lol. self cleaning, automatic, etc...

alas, too many neighborhood people, dogs, cats, and door to door salesmen fall into the traps too :) oh wait. yeah, probably shouldn't say that . lol. j/k fbi. it's okay! they're just a few miles away!
 
DunkEm said:
A Bladite Bladite sighting? Whoa!
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it's been a rough couple years. kinda hanging in there.

the FB Becker stuff is more active than here.

Ethan has been out of contact (for me) for about a year or so.

i updated the DB slightly. will give it some love next vacation period or so. KaBar/Becker has been pretty quiet for a long time.

scope out eBay in the coming months and year or two. might be some surprises ;)
 
I spent hours one day working on the Victor Rat Trap springs to just use enough force to break the back of the damn sauna destroying red squirrels! So I could watch the predators come a long to have a fresh food snack... next day found out sis said "Oh I replaced the Victor Traps out there, the springs seem weaker than normal!" At least she had the sense to nail them on to the stumps this time so the good animals could just grab the furry tailed rats and still leave the trap nailed to the stump. We even use mouse traps nailed to smaller stumps for the whiskey jacks to get a free protien package with out stealing the whole trap! Having the smaller predatures coming around for a free snack, makes them check the area out as part of their "hunting Ground" and I noticed them furry tailed rat numbers have gone down A LOT lately!
 
This hat has seen a LOT of grinding dust and smithy sweat!
Uncle Ethan unknowingly started me down this path, and this hat has followed most of the way.

IMG_20211127_191310-small.jpg
 
Tanker 1/66 said:
So you purchased the Motherlode during your wife’s absence Hmmmm How convenient Dubz
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If you read my Motherlode thread, you would have read that I was on the fence, and she was the one that said go for it, haha. Besides, I don't need my wife's permission to buy something. I would never have married her if I thought she was like that. :thumbsup:
 
Been wanting to buy a portable building to make a workshop out if. Prices have gone crazy since covid. I found one online, used obviously, for $500. It's 12x20, which is perfect for where I want to put it. I want to go look at it, it's about 87 miles from home. Having a hard time locating a shed mover locally online. Also, the town I live in requires an inspection before building, or placing a portable structure on your property. The guy wants to get rid of it, because his wife got a new she shed, and they wanna put a pool there. Would hate to buy it, only to have the city council say no.
 
1066vik said:
good luck - even if you pay another $500 to move it, that's still less than 1/2 price.
I would love to find a deal like that.
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I know, right? Insulated, with electric run as well. Working on it. Probably sell before I get a chance though. I've contacted the guy with questions. He said it was on 2x6's, but it was in the dirt. I wonder how long it's been there, and what the underneath looks like. Hate to have the mover lift it up, only to find out it's rotten underneath.
 
Won an auction that I didn't even know I bid on 🤔 . Church has started doing a holiday meal. Our goal is to be far enough past Thanksgiving but early enough before Christmas to stay out the busy times so everyone can get together but not in the way of everyone's family's. We do a silent auction to fund youth group activities. Usually deserts . The Youth pastor is reading of who won what . Some kind of Chocolate cake .... Roy ??? Wait what ????? My lovely wife had wrote my name on something she wanted .
 
plumberroy said:
Won an auction that I didn't even know I bid on 🤔 . Church has started doing a holiday meal. Our goal is to be far enough past Thanksgiving but early enough before Christmas to stay out the busy times so everyone can get together but not in the way of everyone's family's. We do a silent auction to fund youth group activities. Usually deserts . The Youth pastor is reading of who won what . Some kind of Chocolate cake .... Roy ??? Wait what ????? My lovely wife had wrote my name on something she wanted .
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Congrats. My wife entered me in an antique store drawing, that I ended up winning $100 store credit. I need to go back down there and use it. It expires the last day of December.
 
plumberroy said:
Won an auction that I didn't even know I bid on 🤔 . Church has started doing a holiday meal. Our goal is to be far enough past Thanksgiving but early enough before Christmas to stay out the busy times so everyone can get together but not in the way of everyone's family's. We do a silent auction to fund youth group activities. Usually deserts . The Youth pastor is reading of who won what . Some kind of Chocolate cake .... Roy ??? Wait what ????? My lovely wife had wrote my name on something she wanted .
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Congrats! Here's to hoping it's tasty!
 
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