Slightly off topic, but...

[Dave in Houston]

No, you don't. I used to keep my two four-wheelers locked in the shed out at the ranch. gd rats chewed some of the wiring harness on one which cost me several hundred bucks to get replaced. Hell, I had one of those yellow extension cords on a timer and connected to a couple of trickle chargers that were attached to the four-wheelers; only turned the chargers on [maybe] two hours a day. F'ing rats chewed through the extension cord. Too bad it wasn't during an "ON" period. I'm not out there enough to control the rats so I moved the four-wheelers into town.

Dave in Houston

[Lew Hodgett]

Could have been worse.

Had a customer with a 1,200 amp switchboard to service the factory.

One cold winter night, a rat got into the switch board and created an arcing ground fault which started a fire and burned the switchboard down.

Factory was shut down for better part of two weeks.

My factory built a new board in less than a week witch included a lot of premium overtime.

Could have been worse, at least the plant didn't burn down, thanks to the quick volunteer fire dept response.

Lew

[charlie]

i handle the traps with latex gloves, and after setting them, light matches next to them and waft the sulfur smoke over them to mask scents. seems to work really well for mice.

[efgh]

I've been using the same trap for about 4 years now and have great success with catching mice. Usually whenver there's signs of a mouse having visited an area, I put the trap down with a bit of peanut butter and there's usually one in the trap by morning. I've caught mice within a couple of hours with the same trap as well.

[Robert Allison]

That is my experience as well. I have never used anything but the four traps that I have (one of them seems to be missing, right now). They have all caught rats before, and they caught the rats again, this time.

So far, so good. No mice footprints, no activity, no more captures. I think they are gone.

[Greg Neill]

Perhaps the rats have captured the device for study. Even now, evil rat scientists may be engineering fiendish countermeasures. Be afraid, be very afraid!

[Robert Allison]

Hee hee! No, it was not with the other three when I went to go get them. I may have used it for some scientific project and forgotten about it.

That doesn't eliminate the possibility that it was captured by the rodent regime and is even now being used to create weapons of mouse destruction (WMD).

[J. Clarke]

Could be worse--they could be referring it to their lawyers for legal remedy. After all, there are some things that a rat just plain won't do.

[George]

Yep. same here. I discard them when they get messy. There's a week or two in the fall when they come indoors when we catch them, then the rest of the winter the traps are unused. Can be a real thrill to find one still set under the corner of a rack of ash in the wood room, though. Especially when you're barefoot....

[Wood_mangler]

Check out the Rat Zapper....

have the Rat Zapper 2000.... had a minor infestation a couple years ago through the dryer vent. Over 24 hour period, I killed 10 rats/mice. They tell you that you may need to leave it in place for 2-3 days before mice will be brave enough to enter. In my case, they ran into it within an hour. It only kills one at a time, but it is very very nice in that you don't have mangled bodies laying around and you can simply dump the dead rat into the trash, pop a few chunks of dog food into it, set it down and leave it for a while.

Found mine at Harbor Freight on sale for $30 and quite happy with it. Neighbor used it to get rid of squirrel from his attic.

Oh.. word of advice. If you dump a dead rat into the trash, warn the wife.

[Lee Michaels]

I love how they rate the battery power. 30+ rodents per set of D batteries! That is better than my flashlight.

Which raises the question, just how much juice is required to send said rodent to the great beyond?