Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/24/chris-notap-has-made-another-n.html
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Great trap, excellent video! But…
Leave a hungry rat in there for a week, Chris, and you may find out that you’re wrong 
Rodents chew through PVC pipes without much difficulty, it just takes a while. Check your trap daily, though, and it won’t be a problem.
Rodents won’t chew through concrete thoroughly impregnated with sharp broken glass and reinforced with wire mesh. It’s an old farmer’s mixture colloquially referred to as “rat stop”, that I’ve also seen in old inner city buildings.
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Not sure what the point of this is. Most likely you will be breaking wildlife laws if you relocate vermin into undeveloped areas where they are not indigenous, and you’re just making your vermin problem into your neighbor’s vermin problem if you just drop them outside of your home.
I totally understand not wanting to use poisons (for humanitarian and food-chain issues) and the frankly sadistic sticky traps, but the underlying factor of vermin infestations is one of overpopulation. They don’t breed like mad because they’re all plan to live long, healthy lives. They do so in anticipation of predation. Try to pick a solution that is quick about it. And, of course, seal their entry points.
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Yup. This post may as well be titled “make your rat problem your neighbor’s rat problem!”
I kill them with an old fashion spring trap. Set them out in the yard and let what ever eat them, usually a hawk or owl.
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Racoons + uncapped fireplace flues + rich people = great succes.
Was chimney sweeping in a (very) wealthy neighborhood in the early '90s. Guy had a raccoon living on his fireplace smoke shelf. Explained charges: $40 to remove raccoon, $60 to install stainless steel cap, $40 to trap and relocate raccoon (we had acreage out in the sticks). Of course, the guy didn’t want to pay for relocate…
Two days later, two doors down, same situation. Same charges. Same outcome – “Why would I pay $40 more when it’s no longer my problem?”
New day, new house, old problem, same outcome. Repeat. Repeat.
Finally on the sixth house Rocky* had settled in at, the homeowner paid for relocation…and that was spurred mainly by one-upsmanship: “Neighbors are thinking tactically; I’ll be able to count coup for years for acting strategically.”
Tells you pretty much everything you need to know about rich people.
* We had to name him, since he was our sales leader for the month " -)
FYI, how to drive a raccoon out of your chimney:
1 - secure a ready path from the ground to the chimney; practise getting quickly away from chimney and down to ground
2 - bring up old hand towels and gallon jug of ammonia
3 - soak a towel in ammonia, drop it down the raccoon’s flue, back away from flue; wait a minute
4 - no raccoon? Soak and drop another towel, back away, wait…
5 - I’ve never had a raccoon need more than five towels before s/he came boiling out the top of the flue. Stand back – they come out fast! Sometimes mamas have their babies on the smoke shelf; if you suspect babies, give her time to organize getting them out – wait 2 mins between towels and step far back from the flue, making sure you’ve left her a good evacuation route from the roof.
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We often use commercial variants of these. (We empty them in a park down the road.) The problem with plastic live traps is that the air inside heats up and the animal panics. If you don’t have some ventilation holes you need to empty it pronto or it isn’t humane.
Where aren’t rats and mice indigenous? I want to live there.
Somehow a racoon got both in and out of my in-laws’ well-sealed coast house last spring, probably through the fireplace. The house was full of sooty footprints telling us where the animal had explored: basically, every horizontal surface, no matter how far off the floor, as well as some vertical ones. Miraculously, no poop.
As for spring traps, whatever you do, avoid the Victor “Power Kill” rat traps. They are easy to set, and catch the rats handily, but don’t kill them. You get rats dancing around the house wearing the trap like a necklace, squealing all the while.
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Present isn’t the same as indigenous. Many varieties are invasive species that cause crop damage and interfere with other wild species of animals.
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I’m well aware of this, since I live in Hawaii. However, nobody is suggesting that the way to deal with pests is to pack them up and take them on a cruise across the sea. If you move your trapped mouse or rat a couple of blocks or even a couple of miles, you are not going to be creating a new invasive species problem.
Sadly, like humans mice and rats are pretty much everywhere, even if they originated in a limited location.
If you keep backyard chickens, they love a tasty dead mouse treat.
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