Redneck Mouse trap

[gfretwell]

Drywall bucket with a gallon of antifreeze in the bottom a piece of stiff wire and a coke bottle baited with peanut butter,

[Dean Hoffman]

Redneck plumbing:

From the joe in kansas site.

[nestork]

OK, I totally give up.

What's the antifreeze for?

[The Daring Dufas]

It is very poisonous to critters, especially pets because it has a sweet taste. You would not want a little kid drinking it either. I imagine the mouse would ingest some of it while swimming around and not only would it kill the vermin, it may alleviate the smell of a dead mouse. ^_^

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

Oh heck, I forgot, if it's outdoors in the winter, the antifreeze will stay liquid and capable of drowning the vermin. ^_^

TDD

[lenona321]

Well, that's ONE reason for not using water - but only if your pets - or the neighbors' pets - can't possibly stray into your yard.

Another reason, of course, is that antifreeze might be a faster and more humane way to kill the vermin.

Very clever. It reminds me of how to keep squirrels off a bird feeder - make sure the feeder is well away from trees and rooftops, then put Vaseline on the pole so the squirrel can't climb it.

Lenona.

[Dan Espen]

Ah, the Vaseline on the pole trick. Didn't work for me. The squirrel either by accident or on purpose got so much mud on the pole that the Vaseline came off and the squirrel got up.

[lenona321]

What if it's a metal pole?

[DerbyDad03]

While still dangerous, "modern" anti-freeze is not as bad as it used to be. Hopefully the bitter additives will prevent the pets from ingesting enough to hurt them.

On the other hand, kids may drink enough to harm them before they realize how bad it tastes.

While safer, it still warrants strict safety precautions.

[Jon Danniken]

Nope, it's actually a excruciatingly painful way to die, as you slowly succumb to irreversible liver damage over a few days. Fortunately the mice will likely drown long before this happens, but any pets or kids will not have such a friendly fate.

Encouraging people to put a "gallon of antifreeze" in an open container is about as bright as leaving a loaded gun in the middle of a schoolyard.

Jon

[Dan Espen]

It was a metal pole. A round smooth metal pole. About a half inch diameter if I remember right. The squirrel got up within 24 hours.

[nestork]

Contrary to popular belief, PURE ethylene glycol doesn't have an extremely low freezing point. It freezes at only about -12 degrees Celcius. which is a cool winter day, not blizzard conditions in Antarctica.

'Ethylene glycol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia'

In order to get a really low freezing point of about -50 degrees Celsius, it's necessary to mix ethylene glycol with something else, like water for example.

Then, what happens is that the H2O molecules interfere with the ethylene glycol molecules ability to arrange themselves into a regular repeating pattern, and vice versa, so that the resulting mixture of molecules have trouble arranging themselves into any sort of regular repeating arrangement, and therefore don't "freeze" into a solid. Instead, they remain a liquid.

The only reason a gallon of antifreeze won't freeze in the trunk of your car is because of the additives they put in it, both anticorrosion chemicals, and chemicals whose sole purpose is to depress the freezing point of the nearly pure ethylene glycol so that it doesn't freeze solid in your trunk.

Ya gotta know this stuff to be king. It's all in my "How to be King" correspondence course.

I don't see why you couldn't leave the pail empty. That way you can drive the caught mice a few miles out of town and release them near a river or in the bush near a river or stream. Don't release them in a farmer's field because the ploughing of the field is almost certain to kill them or bury them alive. I just don't see any benefit to be had in killing the caught mice.

[Wes Groleau]

A few years ago, a toddler was taken to a hospital when the pre-school staff FINALLY noticed she was eating foam hand sanitizer.

Looked like whipped cream to her, and at her age, "doesn't taste like whipped cream" didn't register in the brain.

[TimR]

Because mice can climb out of a drywall bucket.