from my research at
I'm feeding cables under a floor to the cellar, there's no way of eliminating all future mice
[George]
They wont chew through metal! I've made close fitting metal plates to block areas where they have chewed floorboards to enlarge the holes around pipework to come into the house and especially the pantry. Seems to have worked over several autumn/winters which is when they visit us.
Steel conduit should give you a perfect solution.
Don't know about mice but squirrels ate throgh cable to an outside pump in a small pump house. They had been storing their cache in the same area the previous year. Left a nice little pile of nut shells.
They also chew cables just to sharpen their teeth and because they have a death wish. The more valuable and difficult to replace the cable the more likely they are to bite into it. They seem to like PVC cables.
They don't chew metal as much apart from aluminium foil.
You would be astonished how small a gap a mouse can get through.
Rumour has it that they also like some of the plasticizers used in plastics. I am not a mouse so do not know what they get turned on by. However I heard on the wireles, so it must be true that its been discovered that mice are quite partial to the stuff our modern bank notes are are made of, so watch out where you store them piles of money folks! Brian
Mice infested my collection of old single-use plastic supermarket shopping bags. They preferred to eat the Sainsbury's orange ones. Tesco, Morrisons, B&Q, plain white, and M&S were chewed much less. Do they eat fibreglass loft insulation? I have used that to seal a heating run through a wall.
They don't eat it, but they will happily tunnel through, nest in and with it and fill up bait stations with it.
A few years ago I was investigating a cable TV fault in a block of flats which was caused by interaction between the incoming feeders.
I turned the wrong way when leaving the lift and went out of the rear entrance by mistake. I turned to try to get back in before the door shut but I was too late - beneficial, as it happened, because the problem was right in front of me!
The cable duct stopped about 4" above ground level and the cables ran up to an entry point a couple of feet higher up the wall. The installers should have protected this part as well, but they hadn't!
Some of the local rats obviously had a nest in one of the footway chambers somewhere. They'd scavenged a very large chop bone from somewhere and attempted to take it home!
Unfortunately, the bone had got wedged in the entry to the duct and they'd obviously picked it clean there but they also decided that the cables were fair game too. For a length of about 6" there was no PVC sheath, outer braid or centre dielectric. Only the ineer conductors had defeated them - they were 1mm diameter copper plated steel - and they all sat naked in close proximity to each other.
Mice can certainly tunnel though fibreglass insulation - just removed some from my wall with neat circular tunnels through it.
Mike (not the same Mike!)
Brass is supposed to be the best rat proof sheathing for cables.
I discovered a stash of plastic bags and thought the same, but then I realised that what had happened is that the bags had simply disintegrated (I think they were the supposedly biodegradable ones, goodness knows what they degrade into).
Daniele
Rymans used to issue plastic bags that suggested you re-use them. Keep them in a drawer and they just disintegrate.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.