Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/05/how-to-make-a-simple-pipe-mous.html
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Any word on the path to his door?
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Same idea as these…which have worked very well for me. It would be fun to make my own.
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I also have a “diy humane rat trap” coming soon too!
Hmmmmm. I like that.
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That’s an interesting how-to. As kids, my older brother and I captured a mouse that we had cornered under my bed: We used the long flexible plastic sleeve-cover that housed my do-all exercise device. We took a wire shirt-hanger, unwound it, shaped it into a long spiral, then inserted it into the plastic sleeve (to ‘poof’ it out into a ‘structurally-supported’ tunnel shape). We then slowly pushed the sleeve’s open end toward the mouse who, thinking it was safe, promptly ran into the far end of the tube. Voila! Captured mouse. My brother – being the sadomasochist that he is – ‘emptied’ the caught mouse into our freezer where it remained for a couple of hours. It warmed back up though later on outside in the sunlight, then scurried off.
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Sure, but you can’t just release the mouse afterwards. Once you save a life you are henceforth responsible for it.
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I was going to guess sex shop.
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Any word on dealing with moles?
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Plus, if you have The Anarchist Cookbook, you can make a pipe bomb with mouse shrapnel.
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Based on what I have seen they will chew through that given time. But very cool.
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That is clever, and I will try something similar. We usually use blocks of poison, at least in the outbuildings and stored vehicles. What I do is glue a little of the poison into the center of about 18 inches of pvc pipe. that keeps it inaccessible to pets, kids, and larger animals. we have live traps in closets in the house and cabins, and patrolling cats as well.
Yes – pinwheels. Crappy plastic 75-cent pinwheels. Find the interface between soft ground and compacted ground (say, between lawn and sidewalk/driveway), then push the pinwheel “stalks” into the soft ground; try to get 'em 9"-12" deep, spaced maybe 5 yards apart.
As the wheel turns, imperfections in balance and bearings will produce a pulse or beat in the ground that drives those suckers crazy (think: that maddening noise of the kids in the adjoining bedroom bumping their beds against the wall because they won’t settle down and go the fuck to sleep!) – they’ll move within a few days to the softer ground farther out.
Of course, this needs a little breeze to be effective…but it’s always worked for us.
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Not so humane if it slips your mind to check it for a couple of days… like I did once. Still feel guilty about that. Now it’s only quick-n-painless snap traps, when a mouse problem rears its head at my place.
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I had one mouse who was trapped overnight in one of these suffer needlessly. We opened the trap in the morning and it was covered in its own urine, shivering, and close to death (I think we let it go outside only to find it dead later). So no more “humane” traps for me either.
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This is SO cool.
I’m going to need a bigger pipe. #Rats
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That sucks. I guess I got lucky the few times I’ve had to use them.
One release was a beautiful foggy morning in the hills by my house. There were a family of deer in the distance and the little mouse bound away towards them. I swear I thought all the animals were going to start singing.
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I was taught this by an old greenskeeper who was almost as cool as Carl Spackler. Didn’t work the first time I tried it…I think maybe the pinwheels were too well made; second attempt with crapwheels worked fine ; -) Since then, on 2 other properties, great results. A friend tried it, didn’t work for her; our guess was the soil, which was mostly sand. Another friend chased moles out of a lawn adjoining a blueberry bush patch, no probs.
Since the risk is so small – just a few bucks, no labor – can’t hurt to try ; -)
ETA – pinwheel spacing seems dependent on soil density (inverse relation: denser soil, fewer pinwheels)
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The one time I’ve needed to trap a mouse, this is what I used
